November 18, 2012

Our ward mission meeting

 

 This is a picture of the cell phone referral system. I got a referral this last week from Elder Nickell in TaiZhong!!

 my nickname "Bai Shuai Shuai" it's also a brand of laundry detergent

  san chong at night and some good english 

 Some shots of San Chong at night.

 

 My super photogenic companion in this picture.

I've taken up watercoloring. This one is of Jesus.

 My trainee is obsessed with Taiwanese ice cream. He ate these 4 gallons in 2 days.

 Elder Davidson (Mr. Basketball for the state of Washington who's on scholarship to play ball at BYU after the mission) and myself (Who was the 3rd leading scorer in University of Utah Intramurals 2 years ago)

 This must be where ALL that mail I'm not getting is going.

 Our sweet Utah Jazz and Chicago bulls hats we've bought off of old guys on the subway.

This week was not too shabby. I began the week still afflicted with my stomach ailment and still taking a medication for it that made me drowsy, but I received a blessing for it Thursday night and have been doing much better since. Despite getting over the sickness there were still a lot of great things that took place this week.

This last preparation day we went down to the TaoYuan 3rd ward (my old area). Elder Vandenberghe, my MTC companion is currently serving there. We went down to hang out with him for one of the last times, (he goes home in 4 weeks), as well as to hang out with one of my recent converts there. It was great. I'm going to miss Elder Vandenberghe. Two years ago I never imagined that this dinosaur fanatic MTC companion would become one of my best friends. The convert we were with was Sister Zhan, a.k.a. Nami. She informed me that she is going on a mission!!! She is going to first graduate college next year and then go! It's so exciting. She had a lot of family opposition in joining the church and she didn't tell her family she was getting baptized, but she said now they know she's going on a mission and they've accepted it as well. It's so cool to see someone who receives the gospel and the blessings it brings, and then wants to turn around and share it. YEAH!

Our best investigator here in SanChong had a rough week. We'd been praying for him to find work, especially that would let him rest on the Sabbath. Heavenly Father provided a huge miracle and provided Brother Zhang with a job. His job makes it so we weren't able to meet at all Monday through Saturday, but he had Sunday off. Then as we continued to follow up with him he sounded worse and worse as the week went on. He hadn't been taking the time to read scriptures and pray and then Saturday he said he wouldn't be at church because he's too tired from work. It's really sad to see this happening. He was really close to baptism. We're going to keep praying for him. It's extremely hard to help people develop desire when we're not able to meet with them.

This week a couple of amazing finding miracles happened. We especially needed these miracles since we spent much of last week and the first half of this week dealing with sickness. While sick I decided to call a bunch of the former records we have. I called many people including some that were investigating back when there were still discussions. Many of them were numbers no longer in use. I had a moderately successful calling session but nothing too special. Then, later that night I received a call from a man. I told him we were the current missionaries in SanChong and he said he hadn't met with missionaries in years (9 to be exact). We then invited him to meet and he said he really wanted to. The first time around he only met once, yet it was a good enough experience to plant a seed in his heart that must have been slowly growing this past decade. He came and was AMAZING. We met with him Saturday. He set a baptismal date, agreed to pray and read, and came to church the next day! At church he made many friends, felt the spirit, and said he loved it! He's excited to meet again this week. If I got sick just so I'd have time to sort through some old records and make calls in order to find this prepared soul, then the strictly toast only diet and all the vomiting would be worth it. Let's hope!

This Friday we had another amazing finding miracle. The Lord really was leading people to us this week. We were in a meeting at the downtown Taipei stake center with most of the other missionaries in the mission. During a break, the missionaries were allowed to go out and get drinks and stretch. One of the missionaries in our district noticed a man on the couch and struck up a conversation. Eventually he found out this man lives in SanChong and came there that day with hopes of meeting missionaries and learning about the church. He gave the Elder his name card and we called him that night. Brother Ding is sweet!! He's done a lot of research on his own online and he's the father of a young family with 2 adorable little girls. We met with him Saturday and he had a lot of desire to learn. He said he wants to meet as often as possible and has time in the evenings almost every day. He also lives within a five minute walk of our chapel, but never knew where the chapel in SanChong was (because we're on the 7th floor of an office building). It was a great miracle.

There was another small miracle this week that helped me remember Heavenly Father answers prayers. I have a small coin purse that I keep my spare change in. Coin purse sounds feminine, it's more of a coin pouch. It was a gift from a member of the TuCheng ward, she got it while she was in Australia so it holds sentimental value. The other night I reached in my pocket to pull it out so I could buy a bottled water. The pouch wasn't there. I was scared. The pouch and the small amount of money it held would have been sad to lose as is, but the real fear came from the fact that just earlier that day I placed the memory card containing my first year of mission pictures in the pouch as well. Losing that would mean losing many, many fond memories. I was stressing. I was convinced the pouch had fallen out of my pocket while I was riding my bike. I decided to pray. While praying I had a distinct prompting to go and check a convenience store we'd been at earlier that day. Prior to praying I hadn't remembered that we'd been to that store earlier in the day. We went back and asked the clerk, who retrieved it from behind the counter. It was a great miracle. I'm so grateful for a Heavenly Father who hears even our smallest prayers. He loves us. He cares about our lives and our goals, hopes, desires, and interests. There are so many people here in Taiwan who have no clue who Heavenly Father is and know even less about their relationship with him. It's such a privilege to share what I've been so blessed from with them. I literally have the opportunity in helping them come to know their Father in Heaven. Our living and loving God. There's nothing better to be doing!

This weekend we're in charge of a ward Thanksgiving activity. The sister missionaries in our ward also won't be there because they're in some missionary traveling choir. So it's been up to Elder Peterson, me, and our ward mission leader to throw together this activity. I'm not much for event planning, especially when I'm proselyting, but it seems to be coming together alright. Our ward mission leader wanted to learn about the origin of Thanksgiving so I've referred him to the movie Pocahontas, which he will then base an explanation of Thanksgiving off of. There will be no turkey, but a recent convert is providing a goose. Also, our 60 year old ward mission leader with be dressing up as an Indian. It will probably be the greatest Thanksgiving activity ever held on the island of Taiwan. I'm thankful to be a part of it.

Elder Peterson and I are excited to have a full week of health. This week we had President's interviews and in our closing prayer he blessed me that I'd have good health for the last 2 1/2 months of my mission so I'd be able to accomplish all I can and need to in the sunset of my mission. We want to go hit it hard this week and find people that will be baptized in the coming weeks and months.

I'm thankful for this opportunity to serve the Lord. It's gone by so fast. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support.

CTR

Elder White

November 11, 2012

The biggest pumpkins in Taiwan our jack-o-lantern

 

 My Halloween costume.

A drawing of my Halloween costume

 My trainee... he believes people like him more and are nicer to him when he wears the glasses

This week was very interesting. My stomach hurt. It hurt really bad. I took Tums for a couple of days. They didn't help. My companion also had Pepto Bismol, but before I resorted to slurping down that awful pink liquid I decided to call the mission president's wife. She asked me some questions while simultaneously entering my answers into an online program she was using. Sounded like an interesting program because it asked me four times if I was experiencing pain in my stomach. After the fourth affirmative answer I think the program realized I was having pain in my stomach and then said I needed to go see the doctor. So we cancelled our afternoon appointments, hopped on the subway and were off to the hospital in downtown Taibei. 

We navigated our way through a giant hospital to the place I needed to go only to find out that they weren't taking any more patients. They referred us to a smaller hospital around the block. I don't think this hospital had ever had a foreign patient. I took my number and waited to be helped at one of the desks. When my number came up I approached the assigned desk to find a woman who looked terrified. I knew it was because she didn't speak English. I said "Hello, how are you?" to her as a little joke and got a blank stare in return. I then began speaking Chinese to her and she let out the biggest sigh of relief. I was referred to a doctor upstairs. This doctor took me and asked me a couple questions. I think he asked more questions about where I was from and why I was in Taiwan than he did about my sickness, but that was okay because I was able to proselyte to him and his nurse. 

Then all of a sudden he said "hold still" and he punched my stomach like 6 times. He then asked "Did that hurt?" I replied "Yeah that hurt. It hurt really bad." Then he said okay. Entered some stuff in the computer, told me I can't eat anything but toast for the next week and prescribed me some medicine. He didn't even tell me what I had. I went and picked up my medicine. Because Taiwan is socialist the visit to the hospital, the check-up, and the medication cost $3 USD. I am now taking some medication called Strocain. I have no idea what that is, but it rhymes with cocaine, so I'm sure it's powerful. They also gave me another kind, which makes me drowsy. I feel bad for my companion. It's probably not fun having a drowsy trainer. We're hoping to rest this P-day, so that I can get feeling better and hit it hard this week.

The highlight of this week was definitely going over the Huang family's house to eat dinner. Brother Huang was glowing as recent converts always do. His wife prepared the most amazing meal. She's from Vietnam. I honestly hope that one day I could have the standing in the Lord's eyes that I think she's obtained. She'd been taking all 4 kids to church by herself for the last 4 years since she was baptized. All the while doing all the FHE, family prayers, and scripture study on her own. She prayed for her husband constantly during that time, and taught him everything there was to know. She helped him so much while we met with him. Brother Huang is borderline illiterate and she helps him read scriptures every day. Because of a work situation Brother Huang has to attend the afternoon ward, and so Sister Huang, after attending our ward for 3 hours with all four of her kids and doing her calling, then attends the afternoon ward with her husband. It was so nice to go and eat with their humble family. Brother Huang is SO COOL!!!

This week we met with brother Zhang again. He is our closest investigator to baptism. He literally can pass the baptismal interview questions and has a testimony. We just don't know what's holding him back, and he won't share with us. We finished up our lesson Tuesday with him really confused at what to do next. Just then we got an announcement that there was a training going on for the sister missionaries this Thursday on how to do temple tours, and they needed more people to bring investigators to the tours at that specific time. (In the Taipei mission the sister missionaries do tours at the temple, similar to Salt Lake City Temple Square tours. The sister missionaries rotate days doing the tours and every couple transfers they have a big training for it)  The bulk of these tours are spent walking around the chapel adjacent to the temple and looking at gospel artwork hanging on the walls, I've had many investigators have really positive experiences through these tours. We thought this might be an answer to our prayers so we set up Brother Zhang to do a tour that Thursday, and we requested the tour be about baptism. 

We went Thursday and the tour began. We started at a picture of Christ visiting the Americas. I'm thinking this is good, we can talk about how he came and talk about baptism. But then we worked our way to a picture of the Martin Handcart company suffering in the mountains. At that point the sister missionary leading the tour asks me to talk about this picture. I give a description and we continue. Next picture... Nauvoo temple burning down and the saints crossing an icy river. It looked awful. More people suffering for their testimony of the restored gospel. I then asked the sister leading the tour if we could go look at the picture of Jesus being baptized. She informed me that because there were so many people doing tours at once they had been given assigned pictures to use. We got dealt a pretty interesting bunch. Jesus in Americas, Martin Handcart Company, Nauvoo temple burning down, and the first vision. Nothing says BAPTISM more than those four pictures. I didn't know what to think. When the tour was finished we stayed back with brother Zhang and walked him around to the pictures that we wanted to show him. It was really good after that and he felt the spirit. I hope it will result in him having a greater desire to be baptized. He wasn't able to attend church this week so we haven't seen him since then.

Overall it's been a little "different" this week with the stomach aches, hospital visits, and temple tours gone wrong. But It's still great to be a missionary. I absolutely love it, and I'm as happy as can be. I'm so grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ and all that He is. He's amazing. I love Him. I loving serving Him. I love representing Him. I hope to become more like Him.

I love you all,

Elder White

November 4, 2012

 Brother Huang's baptism. 

 Brother Huang and his family

 This is a recent convert here in SanChong. Brother Guo. Check out his shirt!!

 Me and Brother Tsai at the fireside

This week was so great. I actually don't really remember Monday through Friday. I was looking forward to the weekend all week.

Saturday Brother Huang entered into the waters of baptism and covenanted with his Heavenly Father. His entire family was there to witness their last member finally make the covenant of baptism. The ward is on FIRE! They've been wanting this kind of growth for the longest time. It's been a little bit of a tough year for the SanChong ward. The ward split. They didn't have missionary Elders for the longest time. Recent converts on the year are very few. Helping this wonderful Brother that so many of the members already knew really has brought a new life to the ward. They now have this family that they can work to help get to the temple and be sealed.

 
Heavenly Father really does answer prayers. After years of prayer, Sister Huang's prayers have finally been answered in her husband being baptized. Brother Huang, his family, us missionaries, and many ward leaders were praying for him to quit smoking and he received the spiritual strength to do so. Prayer is real. It works. It's a direct line of communication to our Heavenly Father. It's free, simple, and we all can do it. I feel like I often take this amazing gift for granted. God's promises in the scriptures are clear. We ask in faith for righteous causes, and he gives them to us. It's so simple. It's a true promise. And this time the promise came true to the tune of a wonderful father, husband, and son of God being baptized and confirmed a member of the church.

 

The other event I was looking forward to all week was the new member and investigator fireside put on by the mission. The first Sunday of every month there is a fireside held in the biggest chapel in Taipei, adjacent to the temple. It's always a great chance to see so many old converts, investigators, and acquaintances. Almost every time I go I'm met with the great news of someone I taught a long time ago in a previous area being baptized or the progression of a recent convert. This last transfer 2 of the people I was teaching before I left TuCheng have been baptized and confirmed!! The real reason I was anticipating this fireside though was that TaoYuan's Tsai Yong Sheng was speaking. Possibly my favorite convert! The one I was in a 6-month battle with Satan over his soul! He speaks with such amazing power! The whole congregation was hanging on every word. The topic was the gift of the Holy Ghost. He talked about growing up Catholic and not feeling the influence of the Holy Ghost. He talked about truly feeling it in our church. He was quoting the Bible like crazy (not a lot of people in Taiwan can do that). It was so powerful. He also thanked me for all the fasting and prayers I did on his behalf. I couldn't hold back tears. I don't know why I was so privileged to have the opportunity to teach and baptize him. He's such an amazing new member and since has had so many friends and families meet with missionaries and attend church with him. He's such a spiritual giant. I'm humbled and feel so blessed to have been able to be his missionary. 

That's how I feel about so many of my converts. They're not MY converts, but I mean people I was blessed with the opportunity to baptize. I don't know why I've been given so many miracles. I don't know why I've been blessed to know so many amazing people and see the gospel and atonement change their lives. I'm so thankful for it though. Missions are so amazing. It's a little bit unreal to me that it's winding down. Time goes by SO fast. I'm so thankful for every minute of it. I'm grateful to serve the Lord in this capacity. Especially in Taiwan. What a wonderful place. What a wonderful people. The best mission in the World. I love the gospel. I love my Savior.

Another really cool thing happened this week. In English class I shared a spiritual message on the atonement. It was a very powerful class and everyone was really feeling it. After class I had a woman come and really want to learn more, so we set her up with the sister missionaries. The even bigger miracle though took place on Sunday when one of our students came to church. We found out he was actually an inactive member. He came back and wants to work toward a temple goal. It was such an amazing miracle! 

I love you all.

CTR 
Elder White

October 28, 2012

More gondola pictures.

I know I've sent some before but some of these are pretty.

 For the Halloween party, we went as mustached missionaries.

It was a great week here in SanChong. Due to the fact that last week's p-day was moved from Monday to Wednesday, I feel as if I emailed just yesterday. I don't know where to begin. How about we start 5 weeks ago when Elder Peterson and I left the move call meeting to come to our new apartment and new area and start this new phase of our service to the Lord as his missionaries. 


We had only one investigator left by the sisters who had previously been working the larger area. Brother Huang. A husband and a father to a wonderful wife and four amazing kids who are all members. Brother Huang's Taiwanese is better than his Mandarin. He had a serious smoking addiction, and was still not praying daily. When he did pray he usually had to rely on his wife to help him. I don't mention these things as to complain about the state of our area as we opened it up, but to emphasize the change Brother Huang has made. The one thing Brother Huang did have going for him was a humble, sincere heart. That day, in the humble Huang home I cried as I the spirit prompted me to promise Brother Huang and his family that they would be an eternal family. Given the circumstances around Brother Huang's current state at that time, that seemed like a bold promise to this family I had just met. Why the tears? Because I knew without a single doubt that those words were given to me by the Spirit and that they were as true as a the doctrine we teach in a lesson. As the spirit prompted me to do, I ended that lesson by giving Brother Huang a priesthood blessing. I was prompted to talk about how much Heavenly Father loves him and his family, how he's been hearing Brother Huang's families' prayers ,and how it's his will for them as a whole family to return to him. He was blessed that as he prayed continually he would have the strength to overcome his smoking addiction and prepare for baptism. I also told him that baptism wasn't the end of his journey, that it would continue to the gates of the temple with his family. It was a really strong spiritual experience. We left the Huang home that day with a swelling desire to help Brother Huang and that family. 


During one of our earlier meetings with Brother Huang we shared the story of Alma and his people in Mosiah 24. HE LOVED IT! He thought it was so cool how they just prayed in their hearts and the Lord still heard them and delivered them. That day Brother Huang began praying in his heart whenever he was tempted to smoke. He thought it was the greatest thing in the world, because most of his smoking temptation was from his friends at work, and it wasn't the most convenient thing to fold his arms, bow his head, and pray in those situations. Once he started praying in his heart, he really started progressing, and the number of cigarettes began dropping. This continued until this last week. Monday he had smoked 1 cigarette. We were so proud of him. The cigarette he smoked on Monday was his last. He passed his baptismal interview this weekend and he, along with the ward are so happy about his baptism next week. I know the power of priesthood blessings is real, and I know that the power of prayer is real. The most happy of all may be his wife, who was assigned with their four children to speak in sacrament meeting this week. She talked about how she'd been praying for this to happen for years. I was so moved by her faith and patience. I'm so happy for them. In the puzzle that is an eternal Huang family, the final piece will be put into place this Saturday evening. Then one year from this time the Huang family can be sealed together for eternity. It is such a huge miracle and it was an edifying and educational experience teaching Brother Huang, but ever more important, is it continued to solidify my testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ as I saw this man change by the power thereof. 


I've asked our ward mission leader if we can do the whole baptism meeting in Taiwanese, since Brother Huang is more comfortable with Taiwanese. He said he'll try. That would be SWEET!!! I hope it can happen. 


I feel like I need to talk a little bit about our Ward mission leader here. He is the MAN!! He is so funny. Brother Hong is his name. He's forgetful, unorganized and irresponsible... and we love him!!! Our ward mission meetings are usually more about the food than the work. Words cannot describe this man and do him justice, you just have to meet him. He's 60 years old, I always joke with him and tell him he looks like he's 40. He laughs so hard. and his laugh is hilarious. He's such a great guy. His conversion story is funny. He met missionaries when he was 26, they taught him everything, then told him he needed to pray for 10 minutes sincerely and see if gets an answer. He did... no answer. they told him to pray for 30 minutes... no answer. They told him to pray for 1 hour... he did... no answer. That was the end, for a while. 5 years later missionaries called the number off of his old record and invited him to a Christmas activity. He walked in late and the choir was singing. He felt the Spirit and got his answer. He was baptized 2 weeks later. Brother Hong is probably mine and Elder Peterson's favorite part of working in SanChong. He's the best Ward Mission Leader in the world. As a gift for all of his hard work I painted Brother Hong a watercolor of him, but he had a mane and a lions tail. Then in quotations "Brother Hong, as brave as a lion" It was really great. 


I've actually been watercoloring a lot lately in my 15 minutes of free time each night. My investigators are really enjoying the watercoloring's of Jesus I've been doing for them. An Elder in a neighboring area even paid me about 15 cents U.S. for one of my paintings. So I've become a professional painter on my mission. 


This week was our ward's Halloween party for the kids. It was really good because we have a 13 year old investigator. We also had Brother Huang's family there. It was a lot of fun but the best part was at one point they sat the kids down and did a slide show on "where ghosts come from" They then went into detail about the pre-earth life and how 1/3 of the hosts of heaven followed Satan and were denied bodies. They came down to earth and sometimes even possess people. It was so funny, for any little kid it would have been the most terrifying thing in the world. It was so blunt. haha. They don't celebrate Halloween in Taiwan so they were doing their best to throw something together, but they terrified all the little children. 


Speaking of possessed people my companion and I were coming home after lunch last week for our Thursday afternoon "weekly planning session" when we began getting chased by this CRAZY guy on his bike. He was screaming at us in the filthiest language the Taiwanese language is capable of making. Then we came to a light and he came up and kicked my bike. It was crazy. So we rode off as fast as we could and thought we had lost him, then all of a sudden we heard him yelling at us from behind again. He chased us as we ducked through alley ways and down back streets for about 5 minutes before we eventually lost him. It was such a weird thing. We did nothing to instigate it. I feel really bad for Elder Peterson though. He meets genuinely mean people all the time. Hahahaha, I've gone almost 2 years of contacting everyone and I haven't ran into people as mean as we seem to run into on a daily basis.
 

None of that can keep us down though. Our area is really taking off. It doesn't seem anyhing like an area that was opened one month ago. It's now one of the most successful in the whole zone. We're so excited for the future of SanChong. We went from almost nothing, to a lot of great people willing to learn about the gospel and progress toward baptism! It's great.


The church is True. Jesus Christ is our leader and Savior. I love him. 
You are all good people.
Elder White

October 23, 2012

Well it's been a long time since I last emailed... 9 days! I hope all is well. You're in my prayers. I hope dad is alright and that we can get this behind us. That sounds horrible. I'm glad to hear that something more drastic didn't take place. I hope all is well. I will pray.

 I feel like this was a big turning point for SanChong. We turned a corner, and I don't ever want to look back. Opening an area that hasn't had missionaries (and the last time there were elders they did more harm than good) as well as training on top of that has been tiring and exhausting. I've seen miracles but I feel like sometimes I'm getting kicked when I'm down as well. There is all this negative hype about this area and I don't want to hear any more of it. I saw an old Taiwanese returned missionary who served in SanChong more than 2 years ago and talked to him about it. He said it's a "good luck" kind of place. It's been hard, there is no doubt about that, but I hope that by the time I leave here it's a thriving area with a good missionary-member relationship, some new convert priesthood holders, and a better feel about it. This week I think was a step in that direction.

Investigator Update!

Brother Zhang is a great humble man who we've been blessed to teach all the lessons to in a short amount of time. He was going to be baptized this coming weekend, but last Saturday he asked to postpone. It was disappointing, and it hurt, but I also feel like we were rushing things and I feel like this way he'll be able to develop a stronger relationship with the ward, and gain that stronger personal witness so that he'll be able to be the type of convert and priesthood holder this ward truly needs. He ran into a bit of opposition from friends or family. One of his largest concerns is that we don't believe in reincarnation. He's still willing to read, and pray, and come to church, therefore I'm not worried. It's impossible to sincerely do those three things and not be converted to the gospel. He attended stake conference with us at a faraway chapel this week. It was a great meeting and he really enjoyed it.

Brother Huang, the last non-member of his family that includes a wife and 4 kids, has been following our plan to quit smoking that we implemented with him a couple weeks ago. He has a lot of support from the ward. He has the prayers of many and he has a strong desire to kick the habit and be baptized a member so his family can progress eternally. This Monday we visited him and he had smoked only 1 cigarette. We gave him the best High Five ever and invited him to completely not smoke Tuesday. Tuesday when I called him to follow up he had not smoked a single cigarette. I know this gospel is true because it's all centered on the atonement. We come unto Christ, and he heals us. Whether it be repentance to overcome sin or our inadequacies, or rather to give us strength to overcome a life-long addiction, the atonement will take care of it all, as long as we're willing to put forth our required effort. We're so excited for Brother Huang, I feel like he's becoming happier and happier. I also feel like the blessing I gave him on our first day in the area is coming true. It truly increases my testimony of those things.

Finding Miracles:

So this last week was one of the tougher weeks of my mission. With that said when Monday came around and it wasn't preparation day (because it's moved to Wednesday this week), it was a little bit... I don't know how to describe it. I just really felt I could have used a P-day. Either way I had a decision to make. I could spend this Monday feeling tired and sorry for myself that I have to go an extra two days before I can rest, or I could choose to be an agent, engaged in actively doing good and see the miracles that await. I thankfully chose the latter and what took place this last Monday was my best day in SanChong as a missionary. I felt like the missionary I was when I was in TaoYuan or TuCheng. I finally felt like I had somewhat of a foundation beneath me in SanChong and I wasn't running this race all uphill anymore.

Sunday night we we're going to eat dinner at our apartment. We were headed back when I felt that I saw someone I just had to talk to. I met brother Zhang, a really great kid who set up for the next day. It was a quick, yet spirit-led contact. The following morning I called to confirm the time we'd agreed upon and he asked if he could bring his friend... um.... of course! The two of them came and were really great. Both set baptismal dates and we're meeting with them again this week. That was the start of a "miracle Monday" as Elder Bogle and I used to call them when we were in the hills of ZhuDong. Then I get a call. It's from a Sister Qiu who is a member of the Tao3 ward. The ward I served in for 7 months! The Qiu family is one of my favorite families! She informed us she has friend who has some marital problems and didn't know where to turn. She told me that her husband had visited this friend the night before, gave him a Book of Mormon and told him he should meet with missionaries. I told her we'd give him a call and see if we could find a time. I called him that night. He said to come over right then. We did and had a great lesson. He was a nice and humble struggling father. His wife has moved out and he's on his own with his two young kids. It was an amazing referral. He'd already been reading the Book of Mormon.

That night I called the Qiu family to let them know (I know they don't live in my area, but it seemed appropriate). They were thrilled that we'd already met with him. I was able to talk to Brother Qiu who I used to play early morning basketball with and he said that we need to pray I can go back to Tao3 ward. It was really cool though to be able to still see miracles from developing trust and relationships with members months ago. The finding miracles continued to go on. Really too many to list. At 8:50 Monday night we were riding home and out of the corner of my eye, probably a hundred yards away in a park I saw a man. I felt like the spirit told us to go talk to him. We turned around and quickly met brother Chen. He's been to the chapel before for English class and we set up for the following night. Last night we met with him and shared the restoration. He loved it and is coming back again tonight. It is always great to act on a spiritual prompting and see a huge miracle because of it. 

Then yesterday we were eating our dinner. We debated whether or not to eat inside or to eat outside at a park or to take it to the chapel because it was a little chilly last night. I don't like eating inside because it limits our opportunities to "talk to everyone" so to the park benches we went. We were having a great dinner when I noticed a high school student sitting on the bench next to us. I made eye contact with him and he quickly looked away. He seemed a little shy. I invited him to come sit with us and we struck up a conversation about God and the gospel. After teaching him how to pray and praying with him he said he had this amazing feeling he can't describe. I asked him if he thought us missionaries are capable of putting that feeling in him. He said of course not. I asked him if he thought he made the feeling happen. He said no. I asked him "well then where do you think the feeling came from?" He said he didn't know. I went on to explain it to be the Holy Ghost, sent from his Heavenly Father as a manifestation that He loves him, and that this is the path God has prepared for him. When we said our closing prayer he said the most sincere, 8 minute long prayer!!! It was great.

Also one other great miracle. I was on the subway here in Taiwan last week when I saw a man wearing a vintage, 1990's Utah Jazz hat. There is no bigger Utah Jazz fan in Taiwan at this time than myself. I was so thrilled to see the old man's tattered Utah Jazz hat I literally yelled in excitement. I went and talked to him. He didn't know what his hat said, nor did he have interest in the gospel. However, he did have interest in the 100 dollars NT($3 US) I offered him for his hat. I took it home, washed it, and sometimes wear it around the house as a reminder that Heavenly Father wants us to be happy in this work. This hat truly was one of His tender mercies.

While there were so many awesome miracles this week, there were still some great, and ridiculous rejections. I actually don't mind getting rejected on the street, it happens, it's just a part of the work, but I really can appreciate when the person rejecting me can make it creative. My companion calls them "Stretch-dads" people who make horrible excuses. He came up with this one night as he was contacting a man who was sitting on a bench. The man said he was busy and couldn't talk. My trainee asked him what he's busy with. He's just sitting on a bench. The man replied "I'm stretching" and rotated his arm a couple times. My comp busted up laughing and now we see what kind of great excuses we can get or what kind of "Stretch-dad's" we meet. I got a really good one on exchanges this last week. I contacted this kid and then asked him if we could sit down with him. He agreed and we sat down on a bench and began to share with him. He wasn't listening too intently, but we continued, just trying to give him a chance. Then, he pulled out his phone and said "Let me answer this" So we were like OK go ahead, but he didn't hit the answer key. Instead he dialed a number, then put the phone to his ear to CALL someone. I looked at the missionary I was with and we were both like "is this kid serious?" "Let me answer this, and then he makes a call. It was funny. Another great contact happened as I talked to a middle aged woman and she started trying to convert me to her branch of Buddhism. Her big selling point was that their branch of Buddhism was in 192 countries. She mentioned it about 5 times in her 2 minute pitch. I told her that is great. I then told her our church is in 193 countries. The Elder I was with struggled to keep a straight face. The woman and I politely ended the conversation, her agreeing to read a brochure I gave her.

I'm really thankful to be a missionary. I love every minute of this SUPER FAST experience. I feel like every second is so precious as it continues to fly by.

I love you all.

Elder White

October 14, 2012

Time is truly flying by. I'm in the last stage of my mission. It's hard to believe that 20 months have passed since I set foot in the MTC. It's been such an amazing journey and experience. I'm glad it's not over just yet. 

This week was especially tiring. Opening an area while training has most definitely taken it's toll on me. Some days I feel as if I'm running on fumes. My trainee has actually had a big breakthrough this week. He got chopsticks down, so it's a step in the right direction. Now we're just waiting for the day he understands something someone says to him or understands where we are in a lesson. I'm not complaining though. It has been a good experience and I've learned a lot. 

This week we were contacting people in a park and I sat down with this really cool, really prepared kid. I was teaching him about prayer when this Christian woman of another faith came up and attacked us. She was in her 50's with a big crucifix around her neck. Her intentions were good, but she took over the contact and went off about the difference between praying to Heavenly Father and worshiping Buddhist gods. She talked about how with Heavenly Father it's all about praise. Praise through dance, song, movement, chants. Then she proceeded to pull out her ipad and show this kid videos of their church service involving everyone dancing and yelling and singing. It was crazy. I managed to whisper to the kid that this is not at all what our church is like and that if he'd come back in a couple days I could continue to share with him. He said he would and I left thinking that the contact had been killed by the crazy lady. 

Sure enough a couple days later at the time I'd said the kid showed up. He brought his friend as well. He'd been praying everyday according to the way I'd prayed with him and was teaching him to do. He'd also taught his friend how to pray and they'd been praying together. It was a really, really cool miracle. As we continued to share with him and his friend the conversation was again interrupted by yet another middle aged woman. This time she came up and was harassing me with questions about the English class we teach and about how I should probably marry her daughter. Thankfully we were able to get her to leave after about 10 minutes, but at that time the friends I was talking to had to go. I think they may be really prepared and that's why we're getting so many distractions. We'll be meeting with them again this week, and I hope we won't get interrupted. We might want to change the location we're meeting with them at.

Brother Huang came to one of the sessions of General Conference!!! It was a big sacrifice for him to get there due to the fact that conference wasn't at our chapel here in SanChong. It was broadcast to the stake center a short distance away. He's progressing nicely and we made a specific plan to quit smoking for him.

This week we also had a ward activity for a Taiwanese holiday. It was a barbecue. There was one really good part. It was in DANSHUI!!! I had the privilege of returning to my favorite part of Taiwan. It was so nice!! I loved it. For the most part it was a decent activity with the exception that the sister missionaries didn't step up and take control of their group of 15 year old investigators that wanted to follow the white elders around all day. But it was nice to see Brother Guo, a recent convert to the SanChong ward with cancer able to make the trip out there and enjoy the activity with his wife. 

This week I feel as if I learned a great lesson as I was studying the scriptures. I found myself a little impatient with the pace that things were moving here in SanChong. I found myself feeling more tired than I've ever felt on my mission. I began to ask myself why? Why so slow? What might we be doing wrong? Is it me? What more can I be doing? I then stumbled upon D&C 64:32-33 which reads:

32 But all things must come to pass in their time.

33 Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.

I realized that in opening an area, I also am laying a foundation. Solid foundations are built slowly, with much effort. I felt as though as long as I continue in well-doing... using Preach My Gospel methods to establish the work here in SanChong, all things which the Lord has prepared for us here in SanChong will come to pass in their time. I firmly believe that all things includes baptism. Lots and lots of baptism.

I also appreciated President Monson's talk about counting our blessings. I realized I need to be more grateful for the miracles we do have. We have an amazing investigator we found in the first week here, who is likely to be baptized the end of this month. I don't think there could be a bigger blessing than one month after opening an area baptizing a potential priesthood holder. I look at things and in just these 3 short weeks we have 3 of our 4 baptismal dates who have attended at least one sacrament meeting. That's three very solid baptismal candidates, who are progressing, reading, praying, and attending church. In my impatience I was viewing these things as "not enough" or comparing myself to former times on my mission where I was in very established areas, with more proselyting time, and more experienced companions. I realized that once I change my attitude from comparing to being thankful for what we do have, I recognized how much we really do have going for us. I'm much more positive and happy as I face the privilege of spending another week serving the Lord's children in SanChong. 

I love this work. I love the prophet's simple, yet pure and true counsel! I'm humbled and blessed to be a part of the Lord's kingdom on the earth, and more humbled and blessed to be serving in it as a missionary at this time. 

I love you all
Elder White