Taiwan Week 31: Start Of A New Transfer

Dear family and friends,

 

So this is the first transfer that nothing about my companionship or area has changed. Elder Stone and I are still companions. Elder Stone is now the new district leader! Elder Fiala left and Elder Bardsley has come in. I'm not sure if that's spelled right. He's really cool. He's one above me, so I knew him in the MTC. I'm way excited. This is his first time as senior, so he's all excited and whatnot. So Elder Stone is on his 8th transfer, Elder Bardsley is on his 7th, and I'm on my 6th. And then Elder Hanset is on his 3rd... Haha. 

So last Tuesday we did district leader exchanges and Elder Fiala came with me in my area. It was pretty fun. We ate at my favorite bread place for dinner. There is no other bread like it here. Then that night we had a new member lesson with Zhu Zhang Qi. It was pretty good. They also fed us curry and rice. So I was about to explode by the end. But then the rest of the night kind of fell apart. So Zhou Heng (member that comes around with us often) took us to a former that he knew about and we were able to sit with him, but no luck in getting him interested again.

Wednesday we went looking for some less actives only to find out that a few of their addresses don't exist. So that was fun. Following that, we ate at Feed Me. It has a supersize burger. I got the supersize spicy chicken and Elder Fiala got the supersize hamburger. It was so intensely painful to eat. It was big. We then headed over to the church because our investigator Liu dixiong said he was outside the gate. He sounded pretty worked up. So when we got there, we found him and an 11 year old ward member sitting on the curb. Liu was pretty worked up and the boy was comforting him. Turns out that he was just on his way home from school and stopped to help. I just thought that that was such a great example of Christlike character. The boy didn't know what he was getting himself into, and was actually pretty nervous and scared in the end, but stayed all the way through until we got there. Liu dixiong has had some problems come up, so we gotta keep working with him. We then went to thank the boy afterwards. Then we hopped on a train and headed to Tianzhong to find a recent convert that has gone less active. I've never met him, and we were so close, but his dad said he was out with friends. So we found and sat with another less active. He's planning on coming to our two ward Christmas party.   After that we returned home and headed to English class party. A cool ward member beat me in bobbing for apples and still hasn't stopped letting me know. Then we went caroling. While caroling, we got turned down a ton. But there was this one older lonely man that had this huge smile on his face as we sang to him. That was just what he needed. I'm so glad we got to touch his heart. That was a really cool experience.

Thursday and Friday have morphed together in my head. We went to find a former that was really close to getting baptized. He willingly welcomed us in and talked to us for a while. But he says that he doesn't have interest in church anymore. The whole experience felt weird. There's something that is stopping him, we want to know how we can help him. But he wouldn't let us know.  We also biked out to one of our more far away areas of Beidou and ate lunch at the really nice 3 week old McDonald's. Then we were able to sit with a former family that has a lot of potential. The dad just has a very shifty work schedule, so it's hard for them to come to church. But they were very nice. Then we found a secret less active. He's not on the ward list because he went less active and then moved without anyone knowing. He still believes it's all true, but his work schedule doesn't allow him to come to church. We've thought of a few ways to help him, so we're going to keep working with him through the ward. He knows a member family that lives near him already. So that's really convenient! 

Saturday we had a mission wide service day. Our zone went to a hospital and caroled and shared the Christmas story with all the patients. We also got to act it out for the retirement center. It was a lot of fun. They shared some of their talents as well. It was fun. Then we had a lesson with Zhang dixiong. His wife is a member and helped peike. They brought pizza to us for dinner. We were talking about promptings of the Holy Ghost. His wife is the Friday night gospel class teacher. She helped out a lot. We still need to keep working with him though. 

Sunday was all over the place for church. We have been meeting with this long term investigator. Missionaries have been meeting with him for a long time. He's an older guy that's loud and loves to joke around. We finally got him to come to church. We walked with him there. Once we got there, we were surprised to find out that he's actually a less active! Some of the older members knew him. Turns out he was baptized a long time ago, went less active 7-10 years ago, his address on the ward list was wrong and has been marked as not real, and somewhere in the switch of many missionaries and poor record keeping became an investigator to the missionaries. Whenever we bring up baptism, he says he doesn't understand. So that might have caused the confusion. It was way weird though. Hong dixiong also came and had to leave early. He's so good, but can never stay for the full time! And he's busy during the week, so we only see him on Sunday mornings. We had a contacted referral come as well. He was contacted by the other Yuanlin Elders. Turns out he's actually in their area. So next week he'll meet in their ward. What luck... It was quite a weird day. It gets weirder, but to know about that, you have to write me an ask about it first... Haha! 

I love you all! Christmas is next week! Keep spreading the holiday cheer. Remember the origin of the holiday cheer: Christ, our Savior being born into the world. Through all the pains and turmoil of the world, always remember that a Savior is born to save all mankind.

Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter

Taiwan week 30: Christmas Is Practically Here!

 

Dear family and friends,

 

This past week has been really great with some miracles. The temple was absolutely amazing! I can't even tell you how much I missed going to the temple. I just had this "welcome home" feeling the whole time I was there. It was pouring the whole time we were there, so I got pretty wet as we took pictures afterwards. English that night was a little rough. Our lesson plan fell through and they don't know what they want to learn. And we learned that a really cool student is going into the military this week, so we won't see him anymore. But we got him an English name, Aden. Pretty suave.

Thursday was my birthday. Yay I'm 1/5 of a century old! We had a good finding morning and then lunch with a cool friend in the 2nd ward. We then had a lesson with a contacted referral. We got to the church and met up with another friend in the 2nd ward that bought me a cake. When our contacted referral came through the door, our friend was like "wait. He's a member! Me and him were baptized by the same missionary!" So he's a less active member in the 2nd ward. That was pretty funny. We went to a hotpot for dinner with a less active that lives directly below us. It was really good. I have never been so full in my life. So we shared about "feasting" on the words of Christ afterwards. We're really hoping to work with him and have him help his family also want to join the church. They're all really cool. After that we sat in on the institute class with Zhu dixiong to help him feel comfortable for his first time. Discussing Christ's parables in Chinese is way hard. My head was thumping by the end. But Zhu dixiong liked it.

Friday we biked out to Tianzhong, one of our secondary areas. It's a bit more of a trek, so we brought a big list of formers to visit while we were there. Pretty much no one was home, including one of our recent converts who has gone less active. It was sad. But we did get to sit with another recent convert. He's in his 70's. He's really nice. We had to bike way fast to make it to a lesson at the church. He's extremely golden, but has a way hard time scheduling because of work. We can only meet with him once every week and a half or so. And it's way hard to get him to come to church. But he had questions about baptism, so we showed him the font and talked about baptism. His desire grew a lot, but he wants to come to church at least once before setting a goal. So were able to schedule the 23rd for him to come to church!     During that lesson, our investigator that has a huge fear of water kept calling us. When we'd answer, he wasn't there. It was a little annoying. But then we finally got a hold of him and he said he'd been thinking about baptism for a few hours that day and really wanted to get baptized the next day... What?! So we set up a last second baptismal interview. He has a small smoking problem still, but is really willing to quit. So we've been following up with him everyday on that, and we have a goal for the 22nd. So I'm really excited for him!

Saturday we got to help a member move. It was a lot of fun. A lot of heavy lifting in the rain. That took up all of the morning, so we did afternoon studies. We had a really cool lesson with our long term investigator that's having a hard time feeling that it's true. We had our 2nd counselor peike and we all knelt and prayed one by one for an answer. He's still not entirely sure, but the Spirit was completely there. It was really comforting. We can see that he's progressing. We then visited with a soon to be no longer less active. After helping him work through his problems, he said he could come to church this week. So we sat with him and he was really excited to go to church the next day.

Sunday was great for church! One of our investigators that can only meet on Sundays made it for Priesthood meeting. The lesson was on forgiveness. Afterwards, he said that the whole lesson was exactly what he needed to hear. He couldn't stay for the rest of the time, but he's really excited to come for all 3 hours next week! He loves reading the Book of Mormon and he said praying helps calm his anger at work. He loves all these miracles working in his life since starting to learn about Jesus Christ. Liu dixiong, the one who has a goal for the 22nd, made it to Sacrament meeting and loved it. He started getting worried at the fact that a lot of ward members were going to attend his baptism. But then we sang "Be Still My Soul" and you could tell the Spirit was calming him down. It was so great.    That afternoon we got to attend the dedication of a Sister's house. That was really cool. We talked about the power of the Priesthood and blessings that come from the Priesthood. It was a really cool experience.

And that was pretty much my week! Miracles. Everywhere. Always look for the miracles and blessings in your daily life. No matter how horrible of a day you're having, there is something to be thankful for each day.

 Oh and yeah we are having a ward Christmas party. I'm pretty sure I'm singing a solo... I'm not entirely sure though. I just said I would.

 

Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter

 

Adopted this dog. Don't know how to spell his name. Its pronounced Ahpeeyah

 

 

Elder Fiala and Zhou Heng

 



At the Temple

 

Statue at Sun Moon Lake

Staring off in an epic manner

 

This is the cake Zhou Heng bought me for my birthday. It looks like it has gold flakes on it. It's completely made of chocolate. There's no flour inside. Just different chocolates. I think it said 97% chocolate. The other 3%, I'm not sure.

 

Elder Nickell and I heading to the Temple

 

Taiwan Week 29: Temple Day!!!

Dear family and friends,

In case you're wondering about the timing of this email, yes it is 4:30 am right now. Because today we're going to the temple (AAAAHHHHH!!!!), we won't have a whole lot of time to email afterwards, so this was an option for us. So I got up at 2:30 today.

I got my birthday package. Thank you so much! I loved it. I also got the cards from grandma and grandpa Buckwalter and Diggy and Ellen. Thank you so much!

Ok so this last week and a few days have been very filled. Last Monday we had dinner at our 1st counselor's house with our recent convert Zhu dixiong and taught the first new member lesson. It was really great. Doing that review really helps. And he's loving the ward more and more.

Tuesday we had a great DTM talking about finding. The zone leaders came out to our district to exchange with the other Elders afterward, so it was fun having them there. For role playing, each person had a secret assigned role. So when we paired off, the person being taught had to act his role and the person contacting them had to use their knowledge to work with their needs. It was really funny trying to teach Elder Jackson, one of my zone leaders. His time is just about up, and you can tell, because he was really good at acting out his part. The rest of the day was pretty rough except for English proselyting. In which we actually had quite a bit of success from this time.

Wednesday we headed out to one of our secondary areas of Shetou. There were some less actives and formers we wanted to find, but it became really hard to find their houses. Luckily a member from the 2nd ward met us out there because he wanted to come around with us, and we used his GPS. That night for dinner, we ate with one of our investigators. He's extremely busy with work and has a hard time coming to church, as well as meeting with us. So every time we meet with him is a great miracle. This time we went over the baptismal interview questions and he doesn't think he's quite ready. That's alright. We'll keep working with him!    English didn't have a whole lot of people. But there were new people nonetheless! We decided that for our English party we were going to take our class caroling. So we're teaching all the classes Christmas hymns in English. I'm so excited!

Thursday was also a little rough. A lot of our plans fell through. But we had a sweet miracle! We were at a 7-11 making phone calls when our bishop called us. He said he was at the church with one of our investigators... We were so confused. When we got there, we found that it was a former that randomly decided to come by the church, and the bishop just happened to be driving by right when he got there. What are the odds?! He's really great. We'll have to work with him a bit, but he already knows a few people in the ward, including the bishopric. That night we met with our Elders quorum president and had dinner and discussed some less actives in his quorum. It was a really good meeting.

Friday was so great. We had weekly planning and then had a few really great lessons out the door! One being a less active who bought us soup for the cold rainy day. It was the most spicy thing I've ever had. I just about died. I found out later that it was pig blood soup. Also a bit of a shock to my stomach. But I got to go back to Caotun with Elder Jackson for zone leader exchanges. It was a lot of fun. We got to visit a kid I knew when I was in that ward. We also tracted into a night older couple. They were very willing to listen to our message, but didn't think they wanted to change their religion.

Saturday morning was really great because I got to run the mountain again! I love that area. Ever since Elder Allen and I left that area, that apartment has just been a 2-man of the zone leaders. And they didn't know about the trails that we would run. So I took Elder Jackson on a really hard one. He loved it. I did too, but I'm now so sore since I haven't run a mountain in a long time! Pretty much all of our plans fell through once we exchanged back. It was rough.

Sunday was really great. We had an investigator come that we hadn't met yet. We had contacted him through referrals and he said he'd come to church. It started out pretty rough with him, but by the end of Sacrament meeting (which we have last), he said he could really feel the Lord speaking to him and he loved it! Following church, we had a 1st lesson with someone we contacted on the street last week. And it was amazing too! Before we had a chance to invite him to church, he said he didn't have much time during the week besides Sunday, so he'll make sure to come to church every week! He beat us to the punch!

Monday was so so great!!! We had a zone scramble, and I got to go with Elder Nickell back to my old area!! So I'm with a friend that I went to elementary school with, in my first city. It was so amazing. We met with a few investigators of theirs that were also mine. One of them is really progressing and has a baptismal date for Christmas day! We tracted into a really sweet family that is Christian and has a bit of interest. It was such an amazing lesson. And then to top off the exchange, we got to go to my recent convert's house, Wu jiemei and Song dixiong. Wu jiemei had her baby. She's is absolutely adorable. It felt to amazing to be there. I felt so at home! And in the end, we were able to set a TEMPLE GOAL!!! Yeah it's still like over 6 months away, but I'm so excited! They're still progressing in this gospel. So mine and Elder Nickells phrase for the exchange was "if only our elementary school teachers could see us now."

And that's pretty much it. I love you all! Sorry I'm now really short on time. I'm now heading out to head up to the temple! I'm so excited! The temple is one of my most favorite places! Do all you can to make it there someday!

 Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter

Taiwan Week 28: This Letter Brought To You By The Letter B (Baptism)

Dear family and friends,

So this week has been, well I'd say pretty epic. We had a great Tuesday full of meetings. And also my district biked to this college in the mountains to do English proselyting. I have never seen such a beautiful campus! A member friend in the other Elder's ward that goes to that college says it's not that high up on the fancy scale, but I think it looked amazing. We also had our 1st counselor take us to one of our secondary areas to visit an investigator and two less active members. We've been working with this investigator for a long time, so it's really great to have a peike come with us to help him understand more. We only got to visit one less active member because of time, but the one we got to see is this really great 87 year old who just has a hard time making it to church since it's so far away. But he made it this week!

Wednesday we got to bike to one of our other secondary areas and spend the day there. We actually never found the people we were looking for. But we ended up sitting with one of the less active's father. He knows a lot about the church and wanted to talk to his dad about it once his son got home! We also got to sit with a guy during lunch. There wasn't much food out there, so we stopped at this little rice and noodle stand where it seemed like everyone ate. We became the main attraction since most people out there don't see foreigners too often. So this guy came and talked to us and we were able to share a bit before he left.    English that night was pretty alright. We talked about a ton of different foods. Describing brownies was really hard since they don't have those here. And then we played hangman. For the spiritual share, we read through the introduction of the Book of Mormon paragraph by paragraph and talked about the significance behind it. That sparked some people's attention. I thought that was pretty cool.

Thursday was a busy day. We had to get up way early to get on a bus for Nantou. We had planner checks and interviews at that chapel. And out planner check was before we were going to get instruction from President Bishop. So we had to get there way early. We got some instruction and then had our interviews. It seemed like it took forever to finish. But the Assistants took us back to our area in their car, which was so much faster! That night we got to meet with Zhu dixiong. We finalized everything for his baptism and our peike helped demonstrate how to be baptized. It was great!

Friday was really great as we got to visit Zhu dixiong's dad in the hospital after weekly planning. It was a very spiritual moment. We were able to find some really cool new people after that. It was a pretty eventful day.

Saturday we had a few new people that we added on the street meet with us. They were all really cool. We also got to meet with our 2nd counselor and discuss the ward mission plan a bit. He has created this epic booklet that should get the whole ward involved in missionary work. It was really intense. There are new ward activities, missionary training, and a new creation of Home teaching for the ward. This made me pretty excited. It'll take time to start up, but it'll be worth it. That night he helped us peike with one of our long term investigators. He's having a hard time feeling that everything is true, but he wants to believe. So having our 2nd counselor there was such a big help. They carried off in Taiwanese for a while too, so Elder Stone and I just kinda sat there trying to maybe follow their mannerisms or something.

That night was Zhu dixiong's baptism! It was so great! A member friend was supposed to baptize him and an 8 year old boy, but he got caught up with work. So last minute, I was asked to to the baptizing! It was a really great experience. The whole meeting was really great. Zhu dixiong has a really great testimony. One thing I liked was that he said the feeling of being baptized is a feeling that comes from God, so he knew it was done by the power of God. The ward welcomed him in really well.

Sunday was really great having him and the long term investigator make it to church. He shared his thoughts on the lesson during priesthood meeting. It's those times when we know that he knows it's true. We just need to help him know that he knows. Also last night we had our weekly FHE. A lot more people showed up, including a less active family that was in our plan to visit after the meeting. What a blessing! Zhu dixiong also came, and we all had a great time. The ward is slowly starting to grow closer together.

And today we went to Sun Moon Lake. Such a beautiful place! That's why this email is late. I had a lot of fun though. This last week was really great! I got to see a lot of miracles. I've really learned to be more patient. I've had to practice my patience this last week. I love you all! Thanks for all you love and support! Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was great!

 Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter