Dear family and friends,
Well... They announced a typhoon, and it came. Hard. It came right
after English class on Wednesday, which was nice because we had a good
turn out with 6 more new people! It stormed during the night and
everything was shaking. I can't even begin to imagine how fast the wind
was going. We had some leakage areas the next morning in our apartment,
but not too bad. I think the morning was when it was at it's peak of the
storm. I tried to get a picture of the street flooding outside our
apartment, but it didn't turn out too well. By the time we got out, the
wind was back down to just crazy storm status, but it was raining really
hard. Storms are the best time to visit people because everyone is
inside. Actually, everyone got calls the night before and said the city
was going to be shut down. So no one had work! We got to visit some
investigators, and they just had to let us in from the storm. Then we
went to visit Tony, a recent convert. His house was flooding really bad.
The water was just pouring in. So we helped him as much as we could
build a blockade. The streets were all completely flooded over and about
6 inches deep and just flowing all over the place. They completely shut
down all the bridges into Nantou because they were flooded over. So we
had no way into our main area with most of our investigators and
members. But we still have a lot in Zhongxing. Our next stop was a
student investigator. And his road became a rushing river. At this
point, we were used to walking around in mid calve deep water.
Taiwan mission rule of thumb: unless the water is up to your waist, you
can still go out an work. And I really enjoyed going out in the storm We
helped them and all their neighbors build blockades around their house.
It was pretty intense. We did a lot of tracting since we were out in an
area with houses we haven't been to yet. Only after an hour since
leaving our student investigators street, we drove past it and it was
blocked off by the police and it was completely under probably 2 feet of
water. Totally rough... That's how the whole town was by the end of the
day.
In other news, I completely passed off phase 1 of my language
learning! I'm so glad. It felt like a huge accomplishment. Now I'm on
phase 2, which is just a ton of flashcards. I'm really enjoying it. I
find that I learn really well with flashcards.
A family in our ward likes to have all the missionaries in the ward
over at the end of each move call for dinner. And they also invite over
other families in the ward too. It was a lot of fun. It was kind of in
behalf of Elder Muhlestein since he's going home, and Elder Allen since
we're pretty sure he's leaving. Move day is next week. He's been here
for 5 move calls. One of the Sisters might move too. And there's also a
rumor going around that they're closing down the Caotun area. When an
area closes down, both those missionaries move out and the nearest
missionaries take over that area. Caotun in the Zone leaders' area, but
since they need to stay there because they're the zone leaders, I would
be the one leaving too. Which would be really sad. We've found some
really amazing people these past 2 weeks. I want to work with them more.
Plus, there was a mini move call today since an Elder needs to get home
for the Air force. So Elder Taylor in Puli moved down to Gaoxiong to be
a zone leader. So cool! And... Elder Nickell is coming up here! Yeah,
Elder Nickell in our home stake that I grew up with. So excited. He's
now in my zone! So that's another reason why I'm hoping not to move.
We have this really sweet new investigator. His surname is Li. We
found him one peaceful night on our biggest bridge just staring off.
He's such a humble guy. We sat with him on Friday night and finally got
to talk about the Book of Mormon (there's always interruptions and not
enough time.) And we invited him to read it. He said "but I'm not always
here. I won't be able to have you two over enough read it." And that's
when we said we were giving it to him. And he just went into complete
shock. He said "you're giving me this book?" Well yeah! And he just
jumped in and started flipping through pages. He was so excited. And
he's been keeping his other commitments as well. Such a solid guy. And
his daughter came to English and really likes it. She also sits in on
the lessons when she can. It's so amazing getting to work with this
family.
Also, the day before the typhoon, we were heading up to meet a
family way up on the mountain, and we sat down to eat out dinner a
couple streets away. The people whose house we were eating in front of
came home. The teenage boy walked up to us and said he knew us. It was a
kid we came up to at the park 3 days after I got here to Taiwan. It was
so crazy. They were warning us to hurry off the mountain before it
comes. They were the funniest to watch as we said we're excited to be in
a typhoon. But they said we could come back and meet with them again.
And we did just that. The whole family is so sweet. We're excited to
meet with them more.
Well that's my week at a glance! I am safe. We're all safe over
here. We looked at the typhoon as a party and all the natives thought we
were crazy. I'm so excited for these coming weeks. We found some really
cool people to teach this past week. I'm going to be getting a new
companion next week as well. That'll be such a change. Elder Allen is so
awesome!
I love you all! Keep the faith! One thing I really loved to read
this past week was when the Lord walked on water and told Peter to come
out as well. He was going until he got scared and started sinking. He
cried "Lord, save me." And the Lord reached out and grabbed him. We're
going to be facing trials in our lives. We'll start sinking into the
water. But when we realize that we can't do it alone and cry to the Lord
for help, he'll be there to grab us and help us.
Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter
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