The Last Week

Dear friends and family,

It's was a sweet power week. We started out with a good night with the single's FHE. I think every two months they like to go out to eat, so that happened last Monday night. We went to the same place we went to for the new year with spicy German/Korean sausage. A lot of people showed up. Everyone just likes eating food. They come for the food.

Tuesday was the Book of Mormon day. We had to place 13 Book of Mormons and set up with them to meet with us later. The morning started out slow. Not a whole lot of success. But we had a DTM on the importance of the Book of Mormon. Then we exchanged with the Zone leaders and just kept going. I went with Elder Scovel to Daya. It was way cold. But we went out and kept contacting everyone. We also did some group contacting as a district there and had a lot of success in the park. As we were down to our final Book of Mormon before our last appointment of the night, I contacted this really nice guy. He was really nice and wanted to talk to me a lot. He willingly set up and was excited to read. Final miracle of the night! It was so great.

Wednesday we had to add 20 people to meet later and we had to do 2 hours of straight contacting for some part of the day. And it was probably the coldest day I've ever experienced on the mission. It was just flat out cold. And there was a wind that had never been felt before in Daya. But we still went out and did it! It was really hard because there wasn't a lot of people on the street, but we still had a lot of success in the morning. We switched back later in the afternoon after English proselyting and went to a dinner made for us at the church. I had never thought about putting fruit in a pasta with vegetables, but it was really good. At English class I taught the beginner class. It was on directions. I turned our chairs into a car like setting and we practiced driving using the vocabulary we had just learned. It was a lot of fun. All 3 of us... haha!

Thursday was a good day after weekly planning. Not a whole lot happened. We just went out and contacted and tracted the day away. A guy in our ward here that's studying at UVU right now came back and we had lunch with him. We got to talk to him a bit about the area. He was the ward mission leader for a little bit when we got back from his mission before he went to UVU.

Friday was adding people for Sacrament meeting. We had a really great lesson with Miguel for lunch. He's a very smart guy and has amazing English. We ended up discussing the doctrine of Heavenly Father through a lot of physics terms. It was a little crazy and a lot of fun since that doesn't usually happen. He has a lot of interest. He's on a roll too. Friday was also Zhuang dixiong's and the Sister's RC Grace's birthday. And they're really good friends. They ended up coming to the church with cake. We watched the Restoration movie with them and had cake that they brought. We weren't acting too excited because we were planning on surprising them the next day.

Saturday was talk to families day. There were a lot of families out! That goal was easy to reach, and a ton of fun. Some of my friends from Xihu also came up to eat lunch with me. I was so happy to see them! And as they left, our miracle add of the week came. He's from Indonesia and his name is Andre. He's really interested in the Book of Mormon. He just jumped right into it and also wanted to come to church! Then that night a bunch of us surprised Zhuang and Grace at a pizza place in the night market. It's owned by part Taiwanese people that were mainly raised in Brazil. The owner is full Taiwanese and married a Dutch guy in Brazil. It was so funny to see a Taiwanese lady with a more South American personality. She was so funny and they make a really good 20 inch pizza. Me and Elder Buhler shared one. It was HUGE!!

Sunday Miguel and Andre came to church! Miguel is really liking church, and the ward is really fond of him. He's really outgoing and gets involved in the conversations. Andre liked it too, but he left really fast afterwards and I didn't get to talk to him about how he felt. But we also were able to give him a Book of Mormon in Indonesian too. Then we had to bus it to the Mission Home because Bishop Stevenson of the Presiding Bishopric came to speak to us! It was really cool. His son just got to this mission too and is on his first move call. So it was a weird moment for him. Bishop Stevenson talked on inviting and re inviting. It was really good. And pretty much the whole mission was there. I love those meetings.

Monday came around and we just went out and had a normal day. All of us in our district was having a hard day. A lot of bad luck. Elder Buhler crashed and was yelled at a few times throughout the day. And the other Elders had a lot of bad luck with lessons, losing money, and cockroaches. So we bought some pizzas before FHE. That was the good part of the night though. We talked about using our talents. The other Elder's RC talked about how he's been shot a few times and still has pieces of the bullets inside him still. It was a cool story.

Yesterday was a full day of contacting and getting some stuff ready for our English party tonight because today is our Temple trip! I'm so excited!

I'm down to my final few days of the mission. This is my last email. I'm so thankful for all the miracles I've been able to see here. I'm so thankful for all the trials I've had. Every moment out here has been so memorable and amazing. I'm really going to miss it. I'm so thankful I've had this chance to serve my Lord and Savior. This is the Lord's work. And when it is done His way, it can't fail. I'm so thankful for the gospel in my life and the blessings of seeing it bless the lives of everyone in Taiwan. I know this church is true. I love it.

I love you all! I'll be seeing you all soon!

 

Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter  卜長老