November 6, 2016

Hello!

I'm sorry I wasn't able to email again last week. ​I got transferred last week and I went from the northern most part of the mission to the very south tip of the island. So my last P-day consisted of a 4 hour train ride and two bus rides that were both two hours long. By the time I finally got to my area it was past 6:00 and we just got straight to work. The new area I am in covers a pretty big area but there are not a lot of people that live here. It is a pretty big tourist attraction so there are a lot of people constantly in and out but the town is actually pretty small. The branch I am now serving in has about 15 active members, it is the smallest branch in all of Taiwan. My new companion, Elder Mccusker, has been in Taiwan for just over three months and he is a great missionary. He is supper diligent and hard working. He is really into cross fit, a pretty intense physical fitness program, so he has been using that morning time to whip me into shape. 

I would also like to say that I am sorry if my emails are a little shorter from now on. I made a lot of really good friends in my last area that I will probable be emailing most weeks and because I need to email them in Chinese it will probably take a lot of me emailing time. There is a ton I wish I could tell you about but I'm about out of time for the week. I'm really sorry, I hope I will have more time next week to fill you in on all that has happened recently.

I love you!

Elder Wills

October 24, 2016

Hello!

I am supper sorry I wasn't able to email at all last week. We were planning on going to an amusement park as a district with a few recent converts and investigators. We were planning on emailing right before leaving but the night before we got a text from one of our investigators. She was having her baptism interview that week and last minuet had to change it to Monday morning/afternoon. The interview ended up taking two hours so we were left with no time to even look at our email last week. I'm really sorry. But on the bright side she passed the interview and the amusement park was a ton of fun :)

Because I wasn't able to email last week I feel like I have a lot to talk about this week.

2 weeks also our mission president randomly showed up to our DTM. I was planning on having the DTM in Chinese because half of our district is Taiwanese but our president doesn't really speak super great Chinese yet  so I basically had to say everything twice, once in Chinese and then in English so that everyone could understand. It was pretty intimidating to have President Teh watching me so closely for an hour and a half. Thankfully I think it went all right.

We went on exchanges with the zone leaders after DTM. It took us a few hours to get to there area so we didn't have a ton of time to do much when we did get there. It was a lot of fun though.

Later that week we both got a little sick and we were stuck inside for a day. Thankfully it only lasted for a day or two.

The amusement park we went to last Monday was a ton of fun. Everything was all decorated with zombies for Halloween and because it was a Monday there were hardly any people so it was  ton of fun.

The next day we had to get up really early and travel a few hours to get to a tri-zone conference. Elder Funk from the 70 came to Taiwan and we all got to meet with him. I personally learned a lot about faith and how to use the book of Mormon more in every phase of the work. A few weeks ago our mission president changed the mission standards from finding three new investigators a week to seven every week. I think the things we learned at this conformance will help hit this new mission standard.

The next day one of the Elders in our district went home, He was just a short time missionary that was planning on serving for just one transfer but because he went home early his companion is now with us. So right now I have two companions, Elder Daines and Elder Lin. These last few days have been a ton of fun. I don't think I have ever laughed so often on my entire mission.

I got the package a few days ago, Thank you so much :) It feels like It has been forever since I have had sour patch kids or butterfingers. Elder Lin is also a big fan :)

Because we have one less missionary this week I got to teach the children's English class this week. It was actually a ton of fun. Most missionaries say that children's class is the worst but his was my first time teaching it and I had a ton of fun.

On Sunday we had stake conference and our mission president came and spoke. He spoke in chinglish (half Chinese half English) the whole time so his translator was really confused and was having a hard time knowing what to translate. It was a little funny to watch.

I don't have a ton of time to look at all of the stuff you sent me about BYU right now so I will print it off and get back to you next week about it. Thank you for taking the time to look up all of that stuff for me :)

I think every picture you sent with Grant in it he was wearing some of my cloths. I'm still having a hard time believing he is big enough to fit into my stuff. Not only is he big enough to fit into my cloths, he is bigger taller than me. That will take a long time to get use to.

Thank you for taking the time to email me again, I love you!

Elder Wills

October 9, 2016

Hello!

It looks like this week was pretty fun. What did you all go out to Utah for? just for fun?

I still think it is supper awesome that Christian will also be going to Italy. Simeon left a month before me but he will be getting home more than two months before me.

I really loved this conference but I forgot my notes at home and I haven't had a lot of time to review them yet so I don't remember a ton of specific details. I remember I really enjoyed the priesthood session, especially Elder Hollands talk. I also felt like a few of the main themes were the book of Mormon, home teaching and the joy that comes from living the gospel.

Two weeks ago we had a zone conference and we were invited to get a cheap copy of the book of Mormon and read it while focusing on the atonement. This week we had a zone training meeting and along with the theme of the Atonement we took a lot of the time just sharing our testimonies of the atonement. It was a really neat experience. I have only made it to 1 Nephi 15 since starting the book of Mormon over last week but so far I have learned a lot. I have also been finding lots of new talks about the atonement to reference too. If you are ever looking for anything new to do in our own gospel studies I would highly recommend it :)

Knocking on doors is a pretty common activity among missionaries. Sometimes People will feel bad for us so they will let us into there homes and offer us a seat. then after we sit down they will walk out of the room and sometimes walk out of the house because they don't want to listen to us. That happened to us multiple times this week. It is supper awkward.

That is about all I have for the week, Thank you for all that you do for me. I love you!

Elder Wills  

October 2, 2016

Hello!

When did Christian get his mission call? And he will be serving in the same mission that Simeon is in?

This week we had another Typhoon, this one was a lot bigger than the last one. We were told not to leave our house on Tuesday. We were planning on getting in some extra studies and calling some former investigators but then the power went out and we no longer had any cell service. Because of the storm it was really dark outside and because the power was out we didn't have any working AC. so we pretty much just sat in the dark and heat for a few hours. There wasn't anything that we could do because we couldn't see anything.  In the evening the storm calmed down enough for us to go outside but the power was still out in the city. There were lots of trees down all over the roads and nobody else was outside. Elder Lin (another elder in our district) told me multiple times that he was worried about the zombies.

English has been a bit of a struggle lately. With less missionaries in the district we have had to put our beginner, intermediate and advanced class together. Last week we tried to play twenty questions. We had an advanced student volunteer to go first, her name is Nathy. We took turns as a class asking her questions to find out what she was thinking of but there were a few people that just didn't quite understand the game. The first few questions were pretty good, "is it alive?", "is it big?" and whatnot but then a student asked Nathy "Are you single?". My companion almost fell over he was laughing so hard and was trying my best to stay calm. The student that asked that question was really confused because he didn't know what he did wrong. So I explained the rules of the game again and then went on to the next person the ask question. He asked her "can you cook?" at this point my companion was actually on the ground laughing along with three our four students. I tried my best to reexplain the rules again but as I was explaining another student yelled out "do you have a facebook?" and someone else asked if she had a line (I think it is something similar to facebook) and the guy that asked if she was single started asking for her contact information and where she lives..... I'm not so sure Nathy is going to come back next week and I don't think I will ever play that game in English class again.

Yesterday a member referred us to a friend that is currently in the hospital recovering from a car crash. He said we could visit him in the evening but when we got to the hospital we couldn't find anyone inside and other than one or two lights in the entrance there were no lights on. We tried our best to find his room but we couldn't find any maps or signs to help us know where to go. So in the end we spent about 20 minuets running up and down the long hallways of this giant deserted hospital, making this the second time this week I felt like I was in some kind of zombie apocalypse movie. But in the end we did find him and we were able to teach him about the restoration. He sounded pretty excited for us to come back this week and continue sharing with him.

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Wills

September 27, 2016 Letter From the Mission President

Parents of Dear Missionaries,

                As you may know, yesterday there was a Typhoon in Taiwan that extended for most of the day here and into the night. All of your precious Sons and Daughters are all safe and we thank you for your prayers and thoughts that have been going out to them. We will continue to protect and strengthen them while here and continuing sharing the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and repentance to the people of this Island.

Sister Elaine Randolph

阮姐妹

Mission Office Secretary

Taiwan Taichung Mission

September 23, 2016

Hello!

This week was pretty fun and I'm doing pretty good! I'm sorry I didn't really email last week but lately I have decided I am going to write better emails (I know this is probably the third or fourth time I have said that in the last year or so, but this time I'm serious) so I have lots to say today! I'll start with last week.

Last week was this mid autumn festival, one of the bigger holidays celebrated in Taiwan. All week people were out on the streets BBQing. On Friday we had a group of recent converts invite us over to one of their BBQs. We have a group of about 12 recent converts that have made really good friend with each other and they are always doing things together, it is great. Before we left they all decided we were going to play a game. Someone would pick a word and everyone gets to know what it is, other than the two missionaries. Then all of the Taiwanese will do there best to use English to describe the word and the two Americans needed to use Chinese to guess what it was. None of them had great English so it was  a pretty fun game. The only downside was that the looser of every round, either my companion or I, had to drink a cup of bitter tea. There are no tea leaves in it so it is ok to drink, it is actually pretty healthy, but it is tastes absolutely awful. It really lives up to his name. I won the first round and my companion almost threw up drinking it. Everyone else insisted that we still had to play five or six more rounds before we switched people. I could tell that there was no way my companion would be able to drink and more so I purposely lost every round after that, most of the rounds I ended up whispering the answer to my companion so he could get it right, and I had to drink quite a bit of it. It was a fun experience but I don't ever want to do that again.

We just had another round of transfers and another set of missionaries was taken out of our district, so we only have two companionship now. Our mission is also experiencing a shortage of missionaries so one of the other two elders in our district is just a member serving as a short time missionary for a transfer. English class is going to be a lot of fun now that we only have two american missionaries.

Our phone has a Chinese-English dictionary but ours uses simplified characters. Taiwan uses traditional characters so most of the time it doesn't do us any good. Last week we went to go see if we could get it fixed. The first phone store we went to didn't even look at the phone and told us there was no way to do it. The second place said there is a way to do it but they don't know how. The third place also said there was no way. The fourth place said the only way to get a traditional character dictionary on out phone was to upgrade to a smart phone and then she tried to sell us the new iphone 7. So we will just have to continue with a phone that doesn't have a good dictionary.

I have set a goal to finish reading the book of Mormon in Chinese by the end of the transfer.

This week at FHE we had a new RC in  charge of the spiritual share. They were planning on watching a short video but forgot to bring it with them. So he decided to pick a random DVD from the church library and put see what it has. He found a 10 min video labeled "commandments" and decided to use it. It ended up being a video of David interpreting Nebuchadnezzars dream. None of the people at FHE have been members for more than a few months and I know none of them have ever read the bible before so they were all very confused. It was pretty funny.

A few days ago we came across a crazy man on the streets. When he saw us he started stumbling toward us yelling "Please pray for me!". He was twitching and tripping over himself and could barely even stand. I pulled a tract out of my pocket and gave it to him. As soon as he touched it he stood up straight, polity said "thank you" and calmly walked away.

I have a few other good stories but I am almost out of time so I will have to wait until next week. For my birthday the only thing I can think of that I could use on my mission would be a new journal.

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Wills

September 19, 2016

Thank you for telling me about all of that. And thank you for all of the effort that you have been putting in to send me positive, uplifting emails. I really do appreciate it. I know there really isn't much I can do from the other side of the world but I wouldn't mind staying as updated as  possible on anything that is going on at home. And if there ever is anything I can do, please don't hesitate to ask :)

I'm sorry I don't have much to report on the super Typhoon, Taizhong is  mostly surrounded by mountains so we don't really experience many big typhoons. I love you and I hope you have a great week!

September 11, 2016

Hello!

Is there any way I could apply to be an EFY counselor while I'm still on my mission? I don't know for sure if that's what I want to do yet but I have been thinking about it a lot lately, so if it is possible I would like to look into that more. And what exactly does it take to re-apply to BYU?  If I decide against the EFY counselor I'll probably just go back to school as soon as I can. Right now I'm still leaning toward some kind of international business. Because of a lack of information on a mission I don't know exactly what BYU has to offer, I've forgotten a lot of what options they have. Since being on my mission I have also talked to a few people that might be able to hook me up with some kind of internship in Taiwan on China. So right now I've got a lot of options and a lot of ideas and I don't really have a way to look at all of the details of these options in depth right now so I'm still not certain on what I want to do. Thankfully I still have a little time to decide for sure. Do either of you have any strong opinions or new ideas?

What do I wan't for my birthday.... A road bike, some nice hiking shoes, a go pro, the iphone 7,$1,000,000...... Nothing that would really be useful as a missionary. So this year you can just write me a card and call it good :)

A few of the highlights from my week are.....

1) We went knocking on doors to find new investigators and this is the conversation I had with someone (this conversation was in Chines)

me-"hello.."

Them-"sorry, I'm busy" (they were watching tv)

me-"we just...."

Them-"I'm sorry, I don't speak Chines"

me-"......you don't speak Chinese?....."

them-"nope, not at all. I don't understand anything you are saying."

Then they shut the door on us. Some people aren't very creative when it comes to excuses.

2)We taught the Plan of salvation to an investigator this week and his biggest concern was the spirit world.  He said there is no way that many spirits could fit in one place,  it goes against all of the laws of physics and geometry...He wasn't really willing to listen to what we had to say after that and he couldn't stop thinking about how overpopulated the spirit world must be. It was one of the more special concerns I have heard of.

3)We have an investigator that has been meeting with missionaries for a while now. A  few months ago we got her to church for the first time. It was fast Sunday and someone got up and told everyone that she came to the church earlier this week and a member locked her in a class room and took advantage of her, Which was not true. But after that our investigator  wasn't supper willing to come back to church. We finally got her to come back to church yesterday and what was the topic the bishopric had asked everyone to speak on? Dating. So all of the young single adult members in the ward talked for a few minuets and gave us all lots of dating advice. Hopefully we can get this investigator to a normal church meeting at least once.

That's about all I have for the week. I love you both and I hope you have a good week!

Elder Wills

September 4, 2016

Hello again!

Thank you for all of the advice you had for me this week, it should be a lot of help. Thank you!

Since I don't have access to the internet there are a few questions that I'm hoping you might be able to help me with.

1) when does the winter and the spring semester of BYU start?

2) what does it take to apply to be an EFY counselor?

3) what is going on with the presidential election? you don't need to give me to many details on this one, I don't want it to distract me from my mission but I would like to be a somewhat informed voter for the upcoming election.

I'm sorry I don't have any good pictures for this week. I don't actually think I remembered to take any at all....

This was a pretty typical week of missionary work and I am having a hard time remembering much of what happened... We have a few supper awesome investigators that are working hard toward their baptismal goals. On Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Johnson. Somehow I managed to break the rear axle of my bike. I don't know how it happened but I just took the back wheel off of an old bike that was left at our apartment when a missionary went home. 

I'm sorry, that's about all I have for the week. But it looks like you all had fun this last week and I hope you have another great one! I love you both!

Elder Wills

August 28, 2016

Hello!

Mom, it looks like you had a lot of fun this last week. The monkey you got a picture with look s just like all of the monkeys I have seen here in Taiwan. And the new temple looks awesome.

A few of my highlights of the week were...

1: when I was making night I was making a snack before bed and this guy crawled out of the wall right next to me. I had a hard time sleeping that night...

2: we were in a new part of town during dinner time so we asked a random man what there was to eat around there. He pointed us down a little road that ended in this dead end.... I don't know if there was actually a place to eat in there but we decided to turn around and find a new place.

3: Earlier this week 1 cat got in a fight with 7 dogs and the cat won. It was all over the national news.

4: We were talking to people in front of a mall when a man wearing short shorts and a bra started talking to us and then followed us around for the next ten minuets. Sorry I didn't get a picture of that 

one.

And here i​s another random picture of my companion and I making calls at a park last night.

Overall this week was pretty great but I could use a little advice on a few more things. Second, we have another investigator who is supper prepared and supper awesome. Last night she called me crying and told me that she suffers from depression and she doesn't want to live anymore. As a missionary I don't know what I can to to be there for her and help her. Do you have any ideas?

Thank you for the emails again this week. I love you both and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Wills

August 21, 2016

This is our "Investigator that we teach every morning

A little lizard I found in the church.

Another random temple in the woods.

The words on this statue translate to "Holy Heavenly Mother". I thought it was a little interesting.

Last one...

Sorry I had to send so many different emails, I can only get one or two pictures in per email.

I'm sorry I don't have a ton of time to write much, but at least I was able to send a few pictures. I love you both and I hope you  both have a great week!

Elder Wills

August 15, 2016

my camera still isn't working but my companion was able to email me a few of his pictures from the week. Sorry I don't have time to explain them.

August 7, 2016

Hello!

This week was absolutely crazy. There has been a lot happening in the ward lately so for a few months we had 4 elders in the same ward and we were still pretty busy. On Thursday Night I got a call from President Teh and he told me I need to be at the mission home the next day because I will be training next transfer and I need to go pick up my new companion. That was pretty unexpected and I wasn't given very much notice. When I was at the meeting the next day I got a phone call form the other elders in our ward, they are both leaving when the new transfer starts and nobody will be coming to replace them so my companion and I will be taking over everything that they were doing... So now my companion and I are in charge of all 18 recent converts in the ward, we have 8 investigators with a baptismal goal for the next few months, a few less active members we are working with and a bunch of other investigators without goals yet. Then on Sunday we had two less active members show up that said they want to start meeting with us and come back and we had four people randomly show up that want to learn more. So overall my companion and I have about 50 people we are working with on a pretty regular basis. I don't know how we are going to find the time we need for all of this and my companion has absolutely no clue as to what is happening. These next few weeks are going to be a lot of fun.... :)

So as you can probably tell there is a lot going on right now and I feel a little stressed out but there are also lots of great tings happening. My new companion is supper cool and I am really going to enjoy these next twelve weeks with him. His Chinese is significantly better than mine was when I first got to Taiwan and he is supper willing to work hard and do anything that needs to be done.  

Have you heard of the new app pokemon go? It is all over the place here and it is actually helping out with missionary work a lot. Its in interactive pokemon game where you need to actually go outside and walk around to find pokemon. for the last few weeks there have been a lot more people outside than normal and if you know a little pokemon vocabulary they are all supper friendly and willing to talk to you. I've also seen quite a few families out at the parks playing the game together. And the game is all in English so most people cant read it all and will sometimes come to us and ask us if we can translate for them. In my mind this new app pretty much counts as a miracle.

I don't know why but computers have stopped recognizing my camera when I plug it in so I don't know If I will be able to send anymore pictures. I can still take them but I have no way to get them onto the computer.

The last few months I have been doing P90X for my morning workouts but recently our mission president has changed the rules and we can no longer use P90X. So I'm looking for something new to help get me motivated to get out of bed in the morning. I have seen a few missionaries that have a few sheets of paper with "superhero workouts" on them. Could you try looking that up online and email them to me if you find anything that looks like it might be useful? If I don't have any kind of plan to follow I have a hard time getting in a decent workout in the mornings.

Thank you for the time you took to email me again this week. I laughed a little when you told me about Erin getting her teeth out.  I hope you have a great week!

Elder Wills

July 11, 2016

Hello!

This week was pretty great. we had a lot of good things happen and it was all a lot of fun.

I got to see the mission President a few more times this week. We had a "meet the President" meeting and he made a few big changes. When I first got on Island we had an additional rule book on top of the missionary hand book. I always thought it was a little unnecessary but I still followed all of the rules anyway. The first thing  President Teh did was get rid of the extra rule book. He has only been here one week but he has already started making big changes. Him and his wife are both from the Philippines. President Tehs family joined the church when he was 3, they were some of the first members in the country. When sister Teh was 17 her family joined the church and she met president Teh. They are both supper great. They also came to the baptism on Saturday and next week they are coming to our sacrament meeting. Our branch is officially turning into a ward and I might have to translate for the Tehs....

Wednesday morning someone told me that there was a huge typhoon coming to Taiwan and it should hit sometime in the evening. But in the evening it never came. So I asked someone about it on Thursday morning and they said it would hit in the afternoon. Then in the afternoon someone said it wouldn't hit until about 5:00. then when we were eating dinner at 5:00 we hear a  radio announcement that said it would be coming at about midnight. During planning Thursday night we got a text from the mission president and we were told we cant leave the apartment the next day because of how bad it was going to be. Everyone was talking about how big of a typhoon it was going to be but the Friday morning when it hit Taizhong it hardly rained at all and it only lasted about 5 minuets. So I don't really know what happened but it wasn't quite as bad as everyone was telling me it would be...

Saturday Nights Pictures

This is The Tehs with Paris and Rebecca.

The two on the right (Betty and Vicky) are sisters. It was a supper cool baptismal service and I am supper excited for all of them!

I hope you have a great week and I hop you keep on having lots of fun. I love you!

July 24, 2016

July 24

Hello!

This week was a lot of fun. we had a mini missionary with us for a week. There is a stake activity and a lot of the youth were able to go serve mini missions so this week we had an Elder Lin with us. He is 15, super funny and super willing to work. He is going to be a pretty good missionary one day.

This week I went running every day in the morning and we found a few pretty cool trails.

We also saw some banana spiders that were as big as my hand, we couldn't get any good pictures of that though.

I also have a short video I think you would like but I can't send it right now, hopeful I will remember next week. We made a deal with one of the recent converts in our ward, she lived up to her end of the deal so she got to dump a bucket of ice water on me. It was a lot of fun.

​

just a few more weeks and I'm going to hit my 18 month mark. All of the sister from my MTC district will be going home. !8 months just doesn't feel like it would be enough time to do all of the things that need to be done, I am very thankful for the 6 months I still have left.

I love you and I hope you have a good week!

Elder Wills

July 17, 2016

Hello!

Our branch was officially made a ward yesterday! It was supper exciting and I think it helped get all of the members excited about the work.

The new mission President has really good English but he doesn't speak Chinese yet.

As I prepare for my day what is my favorite motivating scripture I like to refer to? Its always changing but over this last few weeks one of my favorite scriptures has been D&C123:17.

other than all of the rattle snakes the family reunion sounds like it was a lot of fun.

How long will you be in Japan for? Do you have any exciting plans for when you are there? There are lots of members here that have been to Japan and they all seem to like it a lot.

Rebecca is doing ok this week. She has a lot of ups and downs. this week was a little rough for her but I think she is doing better today.

Before I left Brother Howard said he wanted me to maybe look for a few members while I was in Taiwan. Do you know if he still wants me to find anyone?

Sorry this email is a little short and I forgot to take pictures again this week, I promise I will have a few for next week. I love you!

Elder Wills

July 3, 2016

Hello :)

Sorry I didn't actually get to email you last week. I was trying to figure out how to put captions on the pictures I downloaded onto dropbox for you and ended up spending a lot more time on it then I was planning. Is there any was to put captions on those pictures?

This weekend ended up being pretty crazy. We had a few investigators lined up with baptismal interviews for Saturday but then Friday night we found out that the mission president would have to come do the interview for one of them. But our President Blickenstaff just went home and President Teh just got to Taiwan a few hours ago. We were thinking that maybe one of his councilors could do it but then we found out that his councilors were all released earlier that day and he hasn't been able to call new ones yet. So we spent the next hour or so trying to figure out this interview and finally we were able to get it all set up for the next day. It was supper stressful getting it all set up but it all ended up working out pretty great.

My companion and I now have two Investigators that have told us we are like sons to them and that they need to take care of us. So you don't need to worry about me starving any time soon.

Mom: do you have a recipe for banana bread that you could send me?

The last few weeks I have mentioned an investigator named Rebecca a few times. She asked if you would be willing to help with a a few things. 1) she has some nutrient supplement type things she usually orders from China but they stopped shipping it to Taiwan. so she was wondering if there was any way she could get it sent to our hose and then you could send it to her in Taiwan. I don't know if that will actually work or not but she said she could cover all expenses if you are willing to help. 2) She asked me to ask you to pray for her and her two daughters, Dudu and Paris. There family has been through a lot and they are going through a few rough challenges right now. 3) Mom, she was wondering if she could have your Email address. She has mentioned a few times that she wishes she could talk to you. Her English is good enough that communicating shouldn't be to much of a problem.  

Happy 4th of July! I hope you all have a fun time celebrating and I hope you have a great week!

June 19, 2016

Hello again

I tried uploading a few pictures for you on dropbox with a few comments but I don't know if I did it correctly. This is my first time ever using dropbox so I wouldn't be to surprised if I was doing something wrong.

A while ago mom was telling me that Brother Manion was in the hospital, how has he been doing lately?

Is there any way you could send me a few family pictures? I don't have any digital copies of our family pictures right now. I also think I might send a package home soon with some extra books and things I wont need for my mission. Is there anything you wold like me to include in the package for any of you? It should take a few months to get from Taiwan to America so I don't think most kinds of foods would work but is there anything else from Taiwan that you have always wanted?

This week was pretty crazy, especially Sunday. Yesterday we left the apartment at 7:30am and we got home at about 10:30pm. We had permission from the mission president so you don't need to worry about me breaking any rules bot it was easily one of the busier days I have ever had.

Thankfully the rain has slowed down a little this week but it was still supper hot. On Tuesday we had a pretty good zone conference. It was the last one our mission president would ever do, he will be going home in about a week and we will be switching over to our new mission president. It will be interesting to see how that all works out.

I love you both and hope you have a great week!

Elder Wills

June 12, 2016

Hello!

Most of this week it has been reining pretty hard, I think Typhoon season is here. It's kind of fun to see some big storms but it makes it a lot harder to do things as a missionary that is constantly outside on a bike. Thankfully we have been inside a lot the last few days when it has been really bad.

Is the guy Erin met Jordan Rock? I think he just went home.

Grant told me he tried out for concert choir last week but he didn't tell me he made it, that is supper cool!

Have you looked at making a dropbox account yet? I can only send one or two pictures per email so I think a dropbox account would work a lot better if I wanted to send more than that or if I had any videos.

This is going to be Josephs first time at EFY, right? I think he is going to love it.

Most weeks we will spend a little time looking for less active members and we usually end up in neighborhoods that look like this.  I don't know how people ever get around on their scooters on roads like this..

This is us after FHE with Paris (Rebecca's youngest daughter). they are both doing great and have said they are excited for their baptism coming up in a few weeks!

I hope you both have a great week!

Elder Wills

June 5, 2016

Hello!

This was a pretty fun week. It has been raining a lot harder these last few days. It was raining rely hard this morning and we got soaked on the short bike ride over to the internet cafe. Rebecca (the investigator I was talking about last week) did set a baptismal goal with her youngest daughter, Paris, for 7-2. This week was  a little harder for her than last week, one of her old pastures and good friends passed away but we were able to meet with her a few times last week and she seems to be doing pretty good right now. We still haven't been able to meet with her older daughter but we talked to her and she said she could  come to church this week.

On Tuesday we got to go to zone conference and I finally got to meet the rest of the zone. It was  really fun meeting and I was able to get a lot from it. I think one of the best parts was  when the zone leaders scattered a bunch of tacks across the room and made an elder take of his shoes, blind folded him, and made his  companion guide him through all of the tacks. It was really funny to watch and a pretty good object lesson on Faith.

Chinese is still pretty difficult but I've started to really enjoy my language study time. I'm finally at the point where I can read most of the book of Mormon in all Chinese. There are about 3,000 characters that are used in the book of Mormon so there are still parts I cant read (especially the Isaiah chapters in 2nd Nephi) but it is fun to be able to read it without the romanized pinyin.

This week should be pretty great, hopefully we can find a few more people to set some baptism goals with! I hope you both have a great week!

Elder Wills

One of Mark's previous companions he saw on his temple trip.

May 29, 2016

Hello Again!

This week someone told me I look like Captain America, someone else said I look like James Bond and then someone else said I look like Superman. So I guess you could say it was a pretty great week.

Last week I mentioned an investigator that is supper great. He is planning on getting baptized in two weeks but a few days ago he called us and told us that he would be moving to Taipei. He is still doing great and I'm sure he will get baptized in the next few weeks, he will just be in Taipei when it does happen. We have also been meeting with someone else named Rebecca and this week we were also able to start meeting with her daughters. Last night they accepted a baptismal goal and they are doing great. I have only been here a few weeks but it is amazing to see how much she has changed in these last few weeks. She has been divorced twice and five years ago her oldest daughter died. All she would ever talk or think about is how sad she is and how hard her life is. But this week she had a huge change and is now one of the happiest people I know. She said that coming to church with her daughters has given them something to talk about and over these last few days they have improved their relationship a ton. It has been a great thing to see and I'm really excited to see where things go from here.

Do you all have any fun plans for the upcoming summer? I'v heard this is expected to be the hottest summer Taiwan has had in quite a while. It should be lots of fun...

I found a picture from the temple trip last week.

I had another picture but I cant figure out my camera again. Sorry.

I'm sorry I had to take a lot of money out this month. Usually we get about 7000 NT a month and that is usually enough but this month I only got 6000, I don't know why. and then I moved which was pretty expensive so I ended up taking out about 3000 NT this month. A few weeks ago I mentioned I was now doing P90X for my morning work outs and I think it has helped me lot with having more energy and just feeling better in general. I was wondering if I could work out some kind of deal with you to get some new shoes for it. Every work out starts out with a warning to not wear running shoes and lately my feet have started hurting a little after some workouts. I was in the hospital less than a year ago with an injured foot so I don't want to take to many chances if I can avoid them. So could I maybe ask for another really early birthday present? If not I should be able to get by with my running shoes for a while. 

Thank you for taking the time to send me all of those pictures and emailing me again this week. I love you and I hope you have an absolutely fantastic week!

Elder Wills

May 22, 2016

Hello!

This week was a lot of fun in my new area. The city I am in is called dongfeng, it is really close to the center of Taichung. It is very different then my other areas so far. First, it is still actually a branch. I was wrong in my last email when I said it was a ward, it has just started the process of becoming a ward and it will probably be made official in a few weeks. Even though it is just a branch the members area  lot stronger than the other wards I have served in. The members are supper willing to work with us and do there own missionary work. We even have an investigator that has gone looking for other people we can teach.  Second, our apartment isn't in our area, its actually not even in our zone so we need to bike a little was each day to get to our area. Third, we share our apartment with another companionship. They are both supper awesome so it had been a lot of fun.

The temple trip this week was also awesome! We went with another zone and on the was I ran into one of my past companions. We served together a while ago and at the time a had a little bit of a hard time working with him but we sat together on the bus to the temple and I'm happy to say that now we are great friends :) The actually temple part of things was really cool too. thankfully they had a session in English for all of us. If I move in the next few transfers there is a chance I wont get to go on another temple trip again until the end of my mission, so hopefully I stay here for a while, I wouldn't mind going to the temple again soon.

That's about all I have for now, I hope you have a great week!!

Elder Wills

May 16, 2014

Hello!

I'm sorry, I don't have as much time to email today. I moved again and now I am in the most northern part of the mission. I wasn't expecting to move because I was only in my last area for 3 months but I think I am going to really like it hear. Up until yesterday this was a branch but it was just officially made a ward.  I haven't met any of the members yet but I  have heard lots of great things about them. My new companion is Elder Heath from Utah. He has been in Taiwan for two transfers now so I am just is second companion. He is supper cool and seems like a hard working, dedicated missionary. I am relay looking forward to these next few months. And I am really looking forward to this Wednesday, I'm going on my first trip to the Taipei temple! Hopefully I will be able to get a few pictures. Do you maybe have a Dropbox account I could upload pictures to for you to see? We also just had a rule change recently and we can take videos now and if I ever wanted to send a video to you I think Dropbox would be easier for me. I love you both and I'll talk to you again next week!

Elder WIlls  

May 1, 2016

Hello again!

I still don't know anything about mothers day yet, so I don't really know what to do about that. I'm sure we will be able to figure it out though.

I finally got the garments. when they got to the mission home they accidentally forwarded them to an Elder Williams. He had to wait until Monday before he could send them back to the mission home and then they sent them to me. So it took me a little longer to get them them then it should have. Thank you for sending them to me. 

It's weird to think that it is still cold there. Its starting to get really hot it Taiwan  so I'm back to sweating 24/7 and doing my best to drink 50 gallons of water a day so I don't die from dehydration. But By now we are only a week away  from mango season, so there are a few good things about all of the heat. And thankfully we finally got an AC unit in our study room. studying your scriptures while you are reading scriptures is not very much fun.

The hose is probably going to feel really home with everyone home and Jared's 6 ducks.  Now if you just found a few rabbits and chickens and it would be just like the summer we had a few years ago :)

I'm sorry I don't have much to say again today but I'm looking forward to talking to you all soon!

April 17, 2016

Hello :)

I still don't know anything about Skype on mothers day, I will let you know as soon as I know.

I got some glasses but haven't been able to get my eyes tested and the real lens put into them yet. I pulled the money out to go do it but I didn't actually end up spending it on glasses... I'm sorry, I probably should have asked you first but I have been working really  hard on being healthy and having good work outs in the morning. But a few weeks ago a member was going to Japan and he mentioned something about how P90X is a lot cheaper in Japan and he helps a lot of missionaries buy it when he goes. So I had him get it for me too. Sorry for not asking before hand if it would be ok but on the bright side my workouts this week have been a lot better than they have in the past.

I still haven't had any mangos yet. The mango season should be starting any day now. I pretty excited. But pineapple season just started and I already had a few of those, they are supper good. But I'm going to have a hard time eating pineapple again in america, They will just taste really sour in comparison to the pineapple they grow here.

I don't really have a lot more to say about this week. We did talk to a few people at the end of the week that might have some potential to become new investigators and I think our relationship with the ward has been improving a lot. So I think these next few weeks should be pretty good.

Thank you for all that you do for me!

Love,

Elder Wills

April 11, 2016

Hello!          

This week has been a little slow again, I feel like there hasn't really been anything that has changed at all these last few weeks and its starting to get a little old. We don't know why but we are still having a hard time finding anyone that is willing to listen to us. hopefully we can find a few more this week. It has also started getting really hot again, just one or two more weeks and we will probably be back into full blown summer. but that also means mango season so its not all bad.

I really loved this conference. I forgot to bring my notes with me and after 10 hours of conference I'm still a little unsure of who said what but there was a lot that I really liked. There was one story that really stood out to me, the story of the two fishing boats that sunk while everyone else was just sitting around a table disusing ideas instead of getting out and helping. I feel like this is a problem I have experienced a lot on my mission and lately I have been doing my best to immediately jump into action and trust that the lord will provide a was as long as I'm doing what I can. I also feel like this conference had a very strong theme of mirage and families. There is another Elder in my district that will be going home in a few weeks . Last week he was telling me he doesn't want to get married for at least a few more years but there were multiple times someone in conference said don't wait to get married when you get back from your mission. So that kinda ruined his post mission plans. It was a little funny to watch his reaction.

I'm sorry I don't have much more to say, hopefully this week is a little more eventful.

I love you!

Elder Wills

April 3, 2016

Dad got a motorcycle?! I was a little surprised to hear about that. And are you also wearing your cowboy boots too? I haven't seen you with those on for a while. I didn't think you were ever going to buy a motorcycle so It was a little unexpected to hear but it looks supper nice and it looks like it would be a lot o fun. And I bet the boys love it too. Why did you decide to buy it?

I haven't been able to watch conformance yet. We watch it  late in Taiwan so I still nee to wait another week before I get to watch it all. I'm getting pretty excited for it though.

This week Elder Erwin was transferred and I got a new companion today, Elder Hanna. I just met him about one hour ago so I still don't really know him to well but I think he is pretty cool and I think it will be a lot of fun to work with him.

Ever since Elder Erwin got his new camera I've pretty much stopped taking pictures because his camera was so much better. But now that he is gone I need to get back into the habit of taking pictures more often. but since I haven't taken any pictures these last few weeks here area a few random pictures from a while ago...

(MARK NEVER LABELED THESE PICTURES SO YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE.)

I hope you have a great week!

Elder Wills

March 27, 2016

Hello!

Thank you for answering all of my questions I had last week! Just a few more for mom.... is brown rice or white rice more healthy? and I have heard a lot of roomers that a lot of white rice is bad and will make you fat really fast. is that true? and how long does it take to boil eggs? Thank you for all of the advice, I think it helped a lot.

Thank you for sending all of the pictures this week, it was really fun to look at them all!

So how was Easter this year? It didn't feel like Easter at all. Nobody here celebrates Easter, not even the church members. So i didn't realize Easter was coming up until Saturday night. So to celebrate all of the elders in our district went over to one of the apartments and made dinner as we had a meeting about how to more effectively work with the ward council. But this week on Wednesday we will be having an English Easter party, hopefully it all goes well.

How is the Fridge situation? we are still working on it. we had a repair man come over and he looked at it for about 10 seconds before deciding there was no way to fix it and leaving without saying anything else...... there are still a few other things we are trying to work out with our new apartment but it is still a pretty good apartment. We are glad it has been cold the last few days though because we still don't have an AC unit in our apartment.

The two investigators we have are doing pretty good right now. The first one is guo, he was able to come to church for the first time yesterday. normal he cant come because of work. The second on is Marty, he has started coming to church most weeks now and he comes to most other church activities. We weren't able to find any new investigators this week. Most of the week I was stuck inside with a pretty bad cold. But I am almost completely better now :)

I hope Grants finger gets better soon. That looked like it would have hurt.

I'm sorry I didn't have much else to write about, not a loot happened this week. This week should be a little more exciting! This is also the last week of the transfer so chances are I will have a new companion next time I email.

Love you!

Elder Wills

these are a few more pictures I thought I could send.

there is a road that we pass though a lot that is just lined with lots of graves and has lots of stray dogs. If you look closely this one has a few puppies in it.

this is one of the places we like to eat at. They always have this huge dog in the kitchen but I think it is actually one of the cleaner places I've eater at. 

I hope you have a great week!

March 20, 2016

Hello again!

For the most part this week was back to normal. This week was a little rough as far as our investigators go. Last week we had 7 or 8 investigators and right now we only have 2. A lot of them told us they were no longer interested in meeting with us and there were one or two that we decided were not quite ready. so this week we will be working really hard to find new investigators. but to look on the bright side the two nvestigators we do have are supper awesome.

Since moving into our new apartment we have been having some problems with extream humidity inside. Everything always feel wet and it had ruined almost all of the books/scriptures we own. After relly looking into it we thing it might be the refigirator. It might have broken when we moved it and now it is just pumping supper humid air into the apartment and ruining all of the things we own. So hopefully we can get that replaced soon.

I have a few random questions thaI wa hoping you could help me answer. the first one is for Mom: I've been trying really hard to be more healthy these last few months so what kinds of things could a poor missionary eat to stay really healthy? the second one is for Dad: I remember once you explained a scripture marking method to me that you used but I forgot almost all of it by now. What kinds of thigs were you marking and looking for? I'm also working on mkaing my studdies more effective. The last question I have right now either of you could answer. Ive heard roumers that China has now started the prosses of changing from a comunist run country to a democracy. Is there any truth to these roumers? If that is true at all I think it would really change missionary work for us in taiwan.

This week I dont think I personaly took any pictures but my copmaion took a few good ones Im going to seel from him. There is a member that gose to Japan almost every other week and knows of few places you can buy really nice cameras for only about 300usd. So quite a few times he has helpped a missionary buy one (He realy likes buying these cameras so he is also trying to convince me to buy one) but my companion just bout one a week ago and it takes really nice pictures. And because I am his copmaion I end up becoming his model for a lot of the pictures. So these next few weeks while we are still together you might be getting a few really nice pictures.

Thank you for both being such great parents!

Elder Wills

March 13, 2016

Hello again!

This was a pretty crazy week, very different from a typical week of missionary work. On Monday we went to the beach with a few other elders from our district. We brought our bikes with us on a train and then rode from the train station to the beach. It was a lot of fun while we were there but when we got back to our bikes we saw that my tire had popped. There was no way for us to fix it, the hole was way to big, and there was no place near by that could fix bikes. So the other elders went on with out us, there wasn't really anything that they could do for us, and my companion and I were stuck walking for quite a while. We finally got to a place that was able to fix it and then rode the rest of the way to the train station. At the train station we were told that there wasn't another train leaving for a few more hours. So we had to ride our bike to our area which ended up taking a lot longer than the train. So by the time we finally got back from the beach it was almost 9:00. So that was quite am adventure. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday we moved all of our stuff from our old apartment to our new one, our new apartment is probably the nicest missionary apartment I have seen since getting o Taiwan. Then on Thursday we had to go buy new things for our apartment (so I might have to take a little more money from my account because of all of that) and on Friday we were gone all day for a zone conference. So overall we didn't actually have much time to do missionary work last week.  But this week we should be able to get a lot more done.

I'll do my best to answer all of your questions, hopefully these answers will work.

What is a faith building experience you've had in the last few months?

Honestly I haven't really had many giant faith building moments, most of it is made up of lots of little moments. Deciding to share a scripture and then finding out it was what they needed to hear. randomly stopping by someones house and finding out how much they just needed a friend to visit. Eating lunch at a new place and running into someone there that is totally willing to listen to our message. Speaking in a lesson and knowing that it is the spirit directing your words because there is no way I would have ever said what I just said. Every day there are lots of little faith building moments. Its great :)

What is your favorite food in Taiwan?

I like mangos cause there juicy. They actually are really good though and it is almost mango season again, I'm pretty excited about that. Most of the food I have here is rice, noodles and dumplings. They are all really good but there isn't much room for variety. Overall my favorite food is probably the curry rice.

When you get discouraged how do you motivate yourself?

I usually will think of all of the goals I have set, The things I want to accomplish wile I am on my mission and the kind of person I would like to become by the end of my two years. And then I think about how little time I have to do all of those things. Its amazing how fast this last year has gone and I only have 11 months left, there isn't time to waste. I will also keep myself accountable in my prayers before bed. I will go over the day, review the things I did well and the things I need to improve and make goals and plans to improve the next day. I hate getting to the end of the day and realize that time has been wasted because I was tired or lazy and I absolutely love the feeling I get when I end the day and know that I have given it my all.

Any other details I can share? I cant really think of anything. but if you have any more questions I would love to answer them :)

I hope you both have a great week!

Elder Wills