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

March 6, 2016

Hello again!

Mom: My companion says he hasn't been invited over to dinner by a member since getting to this area  since he got here. Including Christmas and Chinese new year. So I don't think it will be a very common occurrence over these next few weeks either.

Most Mondays as soon as I am done writing my emails I remember a few things I wanted to say. So I'm going to try and format this one a little differently and see if it helps me remember more of what happened this week.

Monday:The other elders in our district and a bunch of members all decided to go to the zoo together. Taiwanese zoos are nothing like american zoos. They mostly have a bunch of snakes and alligators.

Tuesday: We had DTM and we met with one of our investigators, Shao. He is supper cool but he cant ever come to the church for anything. He is 18 and his parents wont ever let him leave the house for more than 30 minuets. We think he probably is failing school so his parents want I'm to stay inside and study all the time. Hopefully he passes his tests soon so he can come to church.

Wednesday: English class! just like every other Wednesday. Right now we are focusing on getting more members to English class and introduce our students to members in a non threatening environment. This week we were playing 20 questions in my class when we got a supersize visit from assistants who came to evaluate the English program.

Thursday: Thursdays usually feel pretty long because we have a hard time setting up any lessons on Thursday and we don't really have anything else planned. We met with Shao again but the rest of the time we were just looking for new people to teach.

Friday: We had weekly planning and visited a less active family at their home. We also got the news that we would be moving to a new apartment next Wednesday. Our apartment is really small and sketchy, even by Taiwanese standards. Elder Erwin and I are a little excited about that.

Saturday: We traveled over to another area and met up with a few other missionaries to practice a musical piece we will be preforming at the Zone conference this week. Elder Erwin is amazing at the violin so somehow I got dragged into singing at it too. Its going to be a relay cool arrangement of a child's prayer, oh my father and come thou fount that another elder wrote earlier in the week. There are some very musically talented missionaries in this area so I think it should be pretty good.

Sunday: Started out with church, a lot of people showed up this week, it was pretty cool. Then we went to an FHE activity with a few other investigators and we got to meet a lot of new people. It was a lot of fun.

Today we are planning on going to a beach as soon as we are done with emailing, hopefully I'll have a few more good pictures and stories for next week. Thank you bothfor being such great parents and I hope you both have a great week!

February 28, 2016

Hello again,

This was an alright week. Missionary work has been going pretty slow here lately so the last week or so Elder Erwin and I have kinda fallen into a rut but we talked a lot about it last night after planning and we have lots of great plans and goals of what we need to improve so hopefully this next week will be a lot better.

This last Sunday we had 72 people show up to sacrament meeting. Excluding steak conference this was the largest turn out for any church meeting/activity I have seen since getting to Taiwan. So I guess our ward is a little larger than the average Taiwan ward but I'm kinda getting the impression that the ward members don't really like or care about the missionaries. I'm wondering if this ward has a history of lots of problematic missionaries. So a few of the goals we set and plans we came up with yesterday will hopefully help us serve the ward better and gain the trust of the members.

A few weeks ago I emailed about the crazy cold weather in Taiwan, Since then it has never really warmed back up to normal but based off of the weather the last few days I don't think it will be much longer before the weather is back to supper humid and hot.

There are a lot of people in Taiwan that assume because we are Americans we must personally associate with Obama and there have been a few times they would ask me something like "Next time you see Obama tell him this for me" or "you need to tell Obama this, it will fix his problems" or sometimes they claim to have a secret we need to tell him to save the entire world. This week our district was all going to an area to give  out a lot of English tracts when two of the other elders in our district were pulled over by a man on a scooter. He looked a little frantic and as soon as they got to the side of the road he started digging through his bag until he found a note. He gave the note to them and told them it was a huge secret that would change the world. Because we are Americans we are the only ones that can help. But we cant let anyone else know this secret. He then took off on his scooter and we read the note he gave us. I took a picture of it so you could also enjoy it. 

And here is a picture of the church building we meet in. There are redoing some of the outside rock stuff, hopefully it will be done soon because all of the scaffolding isn't supper inviting for people coming to the church for the first time. There are 4 wards that meet in this building and I think there are 3 or 4 more of ​these buildings in Taiwan.

Thank you for both being such awesome parents, I love you!

Elder Wills

Febrary 21, 2016

Hello :)

Mom-- I feel like by the time I get back all of my younger brothers are going to be taller that me. Its going to feel really strange.

I haven seen any of the big buildings that came down from the earthquake yet but they are only about a ten minuet bike ride away from our apartment and church building. There really isn't much for us to do to help out with those buildings, we would probably just get in the way more than we could help, but there have been a few times we have stopped by some members to help them clean up a little. There have actually been a few smaller earthquakes scene then, thankfully nothing as bad as the big one a few weeks ago.

So far I like my new ward. Unfortunately it was just split a few weeks ago so there are only about 50 active members in our ward and our ward boundaries are really small. It would be nice if they just stopped splitting the wards, its really hard to get things done when it is this small. But most of the members I have met have been really cool and it should be fun to work with them. When I got here We had one pretty sold investigator. Because our area is so small it is really hard to find people that live in our area last week we met with someone new on tuesday and he has already read about half of the book of Mormon. He is supper cool but his parents are a little over protective so it is a little hard to meet with him sometimes.

I've been really bad at sending pictures lately so here are a few, I'll try to get better at sending them more often.

 The first two were a few members from my last area. The next one is my new companion.

This last one. Elder Frye and I were just having a little fun with our cameras and some crayons my last day in ShiZhong.

I love you!

Elder Wills