November 21, 2016

Hello again!

How have you all been this last week? Do you have any fun plans for thanksgiving?

To be completely honest not much special happened here this week... Actually, We have a member that owns a lot of chickens and he has a lot of problems with wild dogs eating them. So he asked us to help him design and then build a chicken coop to help protest them. All we had to work with were zip ties, bamboo and a few sheets of metal. Not the most beautiful thing I have ever built but it should get the job done.

One other thing that I was wondering if you could possibly help with. Is there any way you could find some kind of document online that has the 3,000 most common traditional Chinese characters listed in order of how commonly they are used and also includes a simple definition and pronunciation of the character? I know, its pretty specific but I think it would help a lot with my language study if I could get a hold of something like that. But if you can't find anything like it I'll still be fine, so don't worry about it to much if you can't.

I'm sorry I don't really have anything else to say this week, hopefully next week will be a little more exciting. I hope you have a great week and a great Thanksgiving!

November 13, 2016

Hello!

So the new area I am in is 恆春 (hengchun) It is the southernmost part of Taiwan so we are surrounded by the ocean on the east, south and west. It is a supper beautiful place. Last p-day we went to a beach with a few friends and there were a bunch of people surfing. My companion is from southern California and loves surfing. He got me really excited about it and now I have decided I need to try it out some day.

The last area I was in had about 80 people coming to church when I left, one of the biggest wards in our mission. The branch I am in now had about 15 active members, the smallest in all of the country. Because there aren't very many I've already been able to meet most of them. There are  a few pretty cool members but overall the Branch is a little lacking in Faith, we are really going to be working hard on helping the members get excited about missionary work this transfer. Last week we had two baptisms so that should be a good start and hopefully got a few of the members excited. One of the men that got baptized is 93 years old and always has one of the biggest smiles ever. He is great.

On Wednesday we were on our way to lunch when a man pulled us over and started talking to us. He said he knew the missionaries a while ago and that he really needs help later in the night. So we set up to go visit him as soon as we were done with our dinner. He is living in a hotel owned by his brother so we talked to him for a few minuets in the lobby and then he asked if we could go out back to the parking lot so he could show us something. He told us that he made a promise a few years ago that he would help God build a church and now he finally has all of the resources to do it. In the back parking lot he had a huge pile of toys, remote control cars and boats mostly. He asked if he could store the stuff in our church and he said that by selling these he would be able to save up enough money to build the church. Before we could respond he told us to follow him across the road to the land he bought to build our new church. The land he "bought" was a public park in between a bathroom and a Taoist temple. Next to the bathroom he had chained up a stray dog to protect the area from tourists. He also said he needs our help because he is spending all of his time maintaining and cleaning the bathroom so he doesn't have any time to build our church. At this point we had to leave because our English class was about to start and we told him we would talk to him later. Then half way through English class he walked into the church with his 200 pound dog because his dog really wants to learn English. I asked him if the dog could wait outside which he wasn't to happy with but in the end did agree. He came back in to class to learn and spent the entire time correcting all of the other students, he said he has graduated from Harvard, Yale and Stanford... At the end of class we asked if there were any volunteers to say the closing prayer and he jumped up right away and said that he could do it. Right before starting he told us that he is Taoist so he prays a little differently. His "prayer" the consisted of him standing at the front of the class yelling at everyone because our society has become a slave to technology. He had to stop this rant twice to check his phone. Finally I was able to calm him down and everyone else in the class basically ran to the door as soon as class was over. We thought that would be the last time we would see this man but just an hour or two ago he called me because these bad people have locked him up in a mental hospital and he needs us to get him a bible.... I might have more to report on this story by next week....

anyway, thank you for both taking the time to email me again this week. i love you both and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Wills

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