Taiwan

Dear Everyone,   Well, the time has finally come...the very last transfer of my mission. The last leg of the race. And I won't be spending it in Ping Dong. I got a call and I've been moved to the center of Gaoxiong City in a place called ZuoYing. It's kind of weird moving to a new area when I only have 6 weeks left because before I even have a chance to learn the area, I'll be coming home haha. But there are tons of people in this area and I'm excited to serve here. My new companion says that they don't really have anyone to teach, but with such a great area, so many people, and God's help, I think that we can change that.    My new (and maybe final) companion is Elder Neuhaus from Nashville, Tennessee. He's a cool guy and I'm excited to work with him. He just got finished with training so it will be fun to work with a newer missionary again. He also likes to exercise a lot so we are going to have a good time finding a gym and helping me get...

Hey Everyone!     I hope you all had a great week! HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to my Dad and Grandpa too!!! We've had an awesome week down in PingDong! It was a super rainy and humid week, but it was all still good. Towards the end of the week it didn't rain too bad.   On Monday two old friends of Elder Steele and I came to visit us. My old temporary companion J... and our friend who was baptized in the Donghai ward when I was up there named O... Unfortunately, on the day they came up it rained really hard so we couldn't do much. We ate a big lunch and then went shopping for groceries. We sat in the store's massage chairs for a very long time... and then played some ping pong at the church. (I have yet to find someone from Taiwan that is better at ping pong than me! That stereotype is still a lie!)    This week Elder Steele and I have been working extra hard to find more people to teach. We spend pretty much all day riding our bikes on the str...

Dear Everyone,   Thank you for your prayers that I would be able to withstand the extreme heat of Taiwan. God has heard your prayers because it has been pouring down rain for the past three days and is expected to last all week! Now that it's raining though I wish I could go back to the heat haha.   This past week was pretty fun! On pday I went with my good friend Elder Lauti and some old members from my first area in Tainan to go eat at an all you can eat grill. I love eating at those! It was also fun to hang out with some old friends. Then on Tuesday we had a great Zone Training Meeting ZTM. Our zone has been working really hard and doing a great job so we decided to have a fun ZTM for a change. We made a scavenger hunt for them all to do. Each team had about 6 stations to go to and at each place there was a riddle that they had to solve which led them to the next clue. And at some of the stations we had a teaching skill that they had to practice; like, ta...

Dear Everyone,  It was another scorching hot week and we were outside biking for most of it. Elder Steele and I are getting some good tans! All the members are telling us to wear jackets outside so we don't get tan haha. What they don't understand is that if we wore them...we would die.    I got to go on companion exchanges with Elder Varvel this week. We were together in the MTC and he's a great guy. We had a fun time catching up on how each other's mission has been going so far. He's a really great Elder so we had a really fun time.    I also had the opportunity to do another baptismal interview with a guy named C... He is a 27 year old Chinese teacher from Hengchun and is one of Elder Grisenti's investigators. Since it takes about 3 hours to get down do Hengchun, we just decided to use skype to do the interview. C... is a really cool guy and very prepared. He had lots of really good experiences with seeing answers to his prayers and he has a very...

Hey Everyone!!   Well this week was a little slower than most but that's ok.  You know you're doing a good job talking with everyone if you recognize many of the people that you see on the street or in the park or in convenient stores as people that you've met and talked with before. It's really great to be able to talk and meet so many different people here in Taiwan. I've learned a great deal about the people here in Taiwan and their thoughts and feelings about God, life, and their families. Many people aren't sure of who God is, why we are here on Earth, or even how they can have a happy successful family. It makes me very appreciative of the knowledge that we have through the gospel of Jesus Christ! It opens our eyes to a larger picture and gives us hope and new direction! It's really comforting.   On Thursday we also went up to Taizhong for our Mission Leadership Council. It was the last one that we will have with President and Sister Blickens...