December 11, 2011

Well another week is in the books. This week was very interesting. It felt like it went by very slowly, but not in a bad way. It was actually a pretty good week. My new companion's name is Elder Smith. He is from Beaverton Oregon. It's a lot of fun working with him. He's a great Elder and it's fun serving as zone leader with him. He has been out on his mission for a year and a half. It's weird starting to work with these older elders. Every single one of my companions has been so young at the time I was with them. 

 Elder Bruce White

Arnold Vosloo

I really like my new area. It's so much cleaner and newer than your average part of Taiwan. The chapel here is also amazing! The crazy thing is I won't be in my area a whole lot this transfer. Part of my new calling is going on exchanges with every member of the zone, and all district leaders twice. We've decided I will be on the road for all of these exchanges. So I will be living out of a backpack for this transfer. It should be a great experience. It's so great to get to know all of these different missionaries with their different backgrounds and stories, and learn from them, and observe how they interact with the people. I've already learned so much and I've only been on a couple exchanges. Saturday I got to travel basically the entire distance of my zone doing baptismal interviews along the way. It was really good to do the interviews but it was also nice to get a feel for what my zone is like and the different areas.

Before I forget, I had an awful haircut last week, so in attempts to save my hair, I had to do a really, really short buzz. When I do this buzz cut I get people telling me I look like someone famous. I ask who? and after they think about it a bit, they say "The bad guy from the movie The Mummy." I don't know if I've seen that movie. If I have it's been years. However I got that twice earlier on my mission as well when my hair was a bit shorter. If you could look up the bad guy from the mummy movie and send me a picture that would be much appreciated. I'm really curious as to who this man is that I apparently look identical to.

Also I will be calling home for Christmas in the near future. I would like it if you could email me our phone number so I know what number to call.

The TaoYuan zone had a really good week in finding new investigators! Which is great because I feel like that's what I was called down here to do. I was really happy about that. This week I saw a great miracle finding as well. We were out on the street riding our bikes around and talking to everyone. I began talking to this guy who said he didn't have any time, then I asked if he wanted to meet with missionaries, and he said he really didn't have time. As he began crossing the crosswalk, I asked if we could call him tomorrow and see if he had time. He allowed and I wrote down his number. The next day we called him, set him up, and he came to the church that night... with a Book of Mormon!!! He had met with missionaries three years before in GaoHsiung. He said he had always felt bad about standing them up at one of their scheduled meetings so that's why he was willing to give me his number. But then he said he had been wanting to run into missionaries in the last three years in TaoYuan, and the Lord finally gave him that chance Tuesday night!! He now has a baptismal date and is reading and praying from the Book of Mormon.

This week we also got to attend Zone Leader Council! A meeting with the mission President and all Zone Leaders and Assistants. The best part is after the meeting we get to go eat amazing food. A new senior sister made homemade lasagna!! WHOA! I haven't had a meal like that since being on island. It was great.

Keep my trainer Elder Erickson in your prayers.

Read the Scriptures and CTR

Elder White