Taiwan Week 10: Zone Conference

Dear family and friends,

This week has been so much fun. Pretty much every night since we built the bunk bed, we've been having to make adjustments to make the bed more stable. The stuff the mission office originally gave us wasn't nearly enough. While we were there for zone conference, they gave us 8 more metal pieces to help stabalize it. And Chuson, amazing recent convert, gave us some boards to use as well. There's just always more to add onto!

Zone Conference was really so amazing! It was so much fun to see everyone in the north part of our mission. I got to meet a ton of new people. It was a lot of fun. We had lessons on repentence, forgiveness, the purpose of our mission standards, emergency preparedness, and stress management. It was so great. We also had reflections from all the missionaries going home next move call. It really was so touching and exciting. Elder Muhlestein's reflection hit me the most. I'm so glad I've been able to room with him for his last 2 move calls.

Yang Zhang lao is still with us. He's really cool. He adapted to missionary life really fast. Except for the sleep schedule. He's always falling asleep if he's sitting for too long. It's so funny. Time really has flown fast with him. It's sad that he's headed home on Thursday. Two weeks isn't long enough. Even though he's 15.

This week we also were able to serve Chuson. Last week during our exchange, Elder Allen and Elder Croft painted one of his outside walls. So this week we finished the other wall. It was so fun. We were just out on his roof in the hot sun painting this 3 story house. I've never sweat so much in my life. We also brought a simplified Book of Mormon over for his grandma. Or at least who we call his grandma. It's kind of a further distance relative. But she decided she wanted to read the Book of Mormon one day and started reading Chuson's. But his is traditional and she's from mainland China and understands simplified more. So we were more than happy to get a simplified one for her! What a miracle that was.

We've come in contact with some really cool less active members as well. One we've been meeting with for a while call US up and said he wanted us to come over to visit. And after we were done sharing with him, he took us to his mom's house to share a bit with her. And lucky Elder Yang was with us because she pretty much only spoke Taiwanese. He's been teaching us a little bit too. We found another less active group of siblings by the help of neighbors. They had moved a few years back and the old neighbors took us to their new house. We caught them at the perfect time. They were all visiting their mom. Even one of them who lives in Taipei was here to visit. They haven't really had contact with missionaries in almost 10 years. They were so happy to meet with us again. And they said even though they don't live with their mom anymore their mom isn't a member, we're free to come over any time and talk with her and she'll give us food. Pretty random, but really hospitable.

Alright. Now for the big news. We were meeting with the Hong family. The investigating family that passed their baptismal interview a few weeks back but haven't set a baptismal date. We had Song Zhi Hao come peike. He's the recent convert who's wife was just baptized. He shared his baptismal experience. And then Elder Yang shared his because he was baptized 3 years ago. And then there was silence for a few minutes. Then the Hong dad, in his decision making voice, said "Alright. When is the next baptism?" We said the 28th. And him and his wife were all for it! So at church yesterday, the bishop announced it and the Hong family was so excited once it was announced. So they're getting baptized this Saturday! They feel comfortable and welcome in the ward. They know it's all true. They love learning more. Especially about family history and sealing your family together. I'm so excited for them.

Well that's my week in a letter! It's been quite an eventful week. I'm excited to get this week started! I love you all! Please continue to write. Do all you can to reach out to those who are in need of help. Be an example of the believers!

 

Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter