Week 26

你好!

Well, this has been another good week.  As for things to write though, There probably is not as many things to write about this week.  To begin off, here in four days, I hit my 6-month mark on my mission, which is super crazy.  Time has really flown by.  It also means that I only have a year and a half left which makes me want to work even more.  With that being said though, the work is made so much better by the weather here.  This week has been really good, with the exception of yesterday.  There was a big fire over by the church, which caused the sky to be a little gray, but other than that, we get a lot of blue skies and sometimes a good amount of wind.

Last week, we got to celebrate Sister Singh's birthday on p-day.  We all went to 頭份 (Tou fen) to play games and eat at a hot pot, which was 吃到飽 (All you can eat).  Being an Okeson, the first thing I actually found at the 火鍋 (Hot pot) was the 冰淇淋 (ice cream) and 冰 (pretty much shaved ice).  Sadly, the 冰淇淋 (ice cream) they have here is nothing like American 冰淇淋 (ice cream), but their 冰 (shaved ice) really is pretty good.  On my mission so far, I have really found two things I love to eat (along with many other things), which are mangoes and passion fruit, and they had a passion fruit saved ice desert, which was super good.  Also, something I have seen on my mission, which is a little sad, is that I cannot eat as much I use to back at home.  So, even though it was a 吃到飽 (All you can eat), I don't think I was actually able to eat my money's worth because I physically couldn't eat as much as I use to.

This week, I also got to go on exchanges with the zone leaders, which was a good learning experience.  The elder I got to go on exchanges with will be going home here in a transfer, so he is really practiced in finding, which meant I got to learn a lot.  He is super hard working missionary in the aspect of he will contacted everyone on the street we are walking on and on the other side of the street as well.  With Elder Anderson, I got to watch how he would loop everything he talked about back to the gospel.  From that exchange, I could tell I still have a lot of learning to do, which is good.  Also, I learned from the exchange what it means to walk with purpose.  Between every contact, we would practically be power walking.  Well, at least he was, I was just taking longer strides.  So, with that being said, I don't know if Elder Ure and I power walk, but I don't know that because we have longer legs, we are able to cover larger distances in a shorter period of time.

This week, we also got to do a good amount of service, both for members and no members.  The two biggest services were for a member who works at a youth mental disabled home and then of course English class.  Both of which were super fun.  For with the youth, we played tic tac toe with them, which they seemed to really like.  The really challenging part of the game is that they would often switch from being 'x' to being 'o', so they really do keep you on your toes when you are playing.  As for English class, we have also started playing games using the vocab that they have learned through out the lesson.  So for this last week, we played charades, which was really good.  The little kids that came really loved it, and it was super fun to watch.  Also, after English class, I got to answer a few questions on math, which was fun.  And because if it, my math vocabulary is increasing pretty fast, but when you don't know any really, it is pretty easy to make progress. :)

As I mentioned, this week, in general, doesn't have that much to write on because we were spending a majority of the time contacting people. So Thursday during dinner, we decided that we should start keeping track of how many people we contact a day. So, we bought a counter and started keeping track.  And because of it, we are both pretty impressed with the results.  We have been told by the Presidents of the Church that as we keep track of numbers and report them, our results will continually increase.  So, we decided that we could start making more contacting goals.  Usually with in two hours of finding, we will have contacted around 40 people.  On Friday and Saturday alone (6 hours of finding), we were able to contact over 200 people, which was pretty amazing.  We both were pretty happy with the result.  The only problem is that now, we have pretty high standards to hit everyday, so we are just going to need to keep working hard.

Well, my time is about up.  Thanks for all the prayers and letters.

我愛你們,

柯長老

P.S.  Also, we started the measuring wall in 苗栗 (Miao li).  I have found out that I am 197.5 cm (about 6 feet 5 and 3/4 inches tall).  As for my companion, he recently has been studying humility, and measuring his height helped. After measuring, he found out that he was 198 cm (6 foot 6).  So, he no longer can say that he is 203 cm tall.

Week 25

你好!

This has been another amazing week, but with challenges.  Probably the biggest challenge has to do with the number of lessons that we were able to teach.  In Chinese, they have the phrase "放鴿子," which if you put it in Google translate, it shouldn't make sense.  But we use it to describe when an investigator, less active, or even member set up with us and then just never show up to the appointment.  So, for this week, the biggest thing was that we got 放 (Fang) multiple times.  But with that being said, this week was still pretty amazing.

As for the big miracle this week, it has to still do with the ward.  These last couple of weeks, we have been able to actually create a good relationship with the ward, which has been amazing.  And this week, we were really able to impress them.  Because of stake conference, we were not able to meet with the ward to discuss stuff that we need help with, but this week, we were able to.  We were able to show them the work that is being done in 苗栗 (Miao li), which in return there are a good number of people that have told us that they would be willing to 陪客 (Member at the lesson) for us.

As for lessons on the street, this week we actually did not do that much.  With lessons on the street, it really is kind of tricky.  Missionaries really have the option of forcing lessons or actually teaching lessons.  The Taiwanese people are really nice and willing to stop and talk, and so if you really want a lesson, you can force a lesson out of any street contact, which consists of two prayers and at least teaching one principle of the gospel.  In the mission, those have been given the name spiking.  As for Elder Ure and myself, we rarely do lessons on the street.  One of the things that Elder Meeks taught me is that you teach simply and then invite them to meet with you again on another day.  So those do not actually count as lessons, but they make the missionary feel better because they know they generally could have interest and that you did not force a lesson out of it.

As for something really fun this week, I got to do math.  The biggest challenge of it though was actually trying to understand the math question and then answer the question in Chinese.  I know that while I have been in Taiwan, my Chinese has gotten better, but as soon as I tried to explain the math question, it felt like I didn't know any Chinese.  I definitely have a lot of learn to do.

This week, we also had interviews with President Day.  Every three months, we have an interview with President Day to set goals and to see if we need any help with anything.  One of the goals that I set with President Day had to do with language.  The plan is to pass of phase two by our next interview that will be in February.  Phase two is 2000 of the most commonly used words in the Chinese language.  As of right now, I am on track to finish up phase two by February, I just have to make sure that I am learning about 22 new words a day, which should keep me busy.

As for English class this week, we have been working to make it a little more fun for the students by including a game of some sort.  This last week, we did a spelling game, which was really fun.  Elder Ure picked about 13 letters and gave the students 3 minutes to think of as many words they could using those 13 letters.  It was really interesting the words that they came up with.  And for the weirdest word that was found was Qzaxtl, which from what Elder Ure has told me is a real word and is the name of an incan god.  The students did not come up with that one, Elder Ure did.  They were all pretty impressed with that word.

As for a big learning opportunity this week, I got to go on an exchange with an elder from 頭份 (Tou fen) who is extremely trunky.  It was probably one of the hardest exchanges I have been on since I got on my mission, just because the elder did not want to do any work.  So, the thing I learned from the experience was first, don't be so trunky that you become lazy.  And second, working hard is more fun than not working.  So, with that being said, I was so happy to be back with Elder Ure and actually working hard to do missionary work.  It really is fun.

As for the week in general, Sunday was probably our busiest day to do missionary work.  We had lessons planned for the entire day.  The biggest one though was with a part member family.  The mother was baptized about 3 years ago and the father is currently not a member.  We have looking to visit with their family once a week, to help him recognize how God has helped him in his life. So, if anyone has any suggestions on how to help someone have faith in God, it would be greatly appreciated, because right now he has absolutely no belief in God, which makes it hard to teach any of the other lessons.  We are working really hard to think of ways to help him grow and understand God.

As for the last funny thing from the week, it was actually during calls.  We have been working a lot to call all of the former investigators to see if they may be interested to meet with us again to learn more about the church.  Recently, I have gotten pretty good with them, the only hard thing is when they surprise you with something.  This week, the thing I got surprised with was actually the person I was calling could speak fluent English.  I don't think I have ever stumbled so much while speaking in my life.  I have gotten so use to talking about the gospel in Chinese and making former calls in Chinese, that when they wanted to speak English with me, it really was a challenge.  So, with that being said, I expect that in the future, my emails will start having even more Chinese in them as it becomes more of what I am use to saying.

Well, my time is about up.  Thanks for all the emails and prayers.

我愛你們,

柯長老

P.S.  We have a 10 pound Turkey in our freezer.  We are excited for Thanksgiving.

P.S.S.  Sadly, it is the wards, not ours.  No on in the ward had a big enough freezer to keep it till Thanksgiving Day.  But, we have been invited to the ward party, so we will get to have some of the Turkey.  We are both pretty excited. 

Preparing for English Class

Elder Ure Questioning what Elder Okeson has done.

Broke the toilet!  Oops, no worries, I can fix it!

Yes Rubber Bands!!!

Week 24

你好!

This week has truly been a blast, and quite a bit different than usual.  With last week's preparation day being changed to Wednesday, this weeks email is a little bit smaller.  But with that being said, there is still so much that happened.

To begin off though, just so everyone knows how to pronounce my companions name, it is said the same way as "your" is pronounced.  And his Chinese surname is 岳.  As a companionship, things really have been pretty good.  Probably the biggest change from Elder Meeks to Elder Ure was their methods of finding.  With Elder Ure, I am really learning how to be bold on the street.  We have had a couple of lessons on the street this week, but not too many.  The biggest thing though was that we were able to get a good number of people from finding this weeks to set up with us in this upcoming week.  We are both pretty excited about this because we have been looking for miracles to pick up the missionary work in 苗栗 (Miaoli).

One of the big miracles we saw this week was with the ward.  Up to now, it has been pretty hard getting the ward to support us in doing missionary work, but for some reason, things just clicked this week and we were able to get a lot of the stuff done that we needed.  The biggest thing was that our ward mission leader will be taking care of getting all of our 陪課 (Member present at the lesson) for us, which is super nice.  I am so use to having to call all the members to try and just find one 陪課, and now he is doing it all for us.  One of the other big ones was that our ward mission leader is going to set up doing 分開工作 (Splits) with the members, which by the sound of it, has not really ever been done in 苗栗 (Miaoli) before.

As for something that has just changed recently, was our studies schedule.  We just found out today that we will no longer be having Studies on Sunday because studies will only be done before Church.  And with our Church starting at 9 am and having PEC (Priesthood Executive Committee) at 8 am, we will not be having studies anymore on Sundays in 苗栗 (Miaoli).

Also, for changes, we are starting to see people pull out there winter coats.  So far Elder Ure and I have not needed to start wearing coats, but here in a couple of weeks, we may start wearing sweaters/vests.  We have both heard that you don't really need to wear a coat til mid December, but at that point, you will be wearing them til March/April.  So as for being cold, it is a humid cold.  Should be fun, wonder if it will we colder than what I experienced in Idaho last winter.

As for things that have happened here over the last last week, we got to attend a member baptism.  It was a great opportunity for us to be able to invite some of our less active to church.  Baptisms are truly a gift from God for missionaries because those are the times where you can really prepare people or help them remember their baptism.  It was really cool.

Also, the last thing for this week, Stake conference.  We went up to 竹北 for Saturday night priesthood meeting, stayed the night in 新竹 with Elder Nixon, my MTC companion, and went back to 竹北 for the Sunday Morning meeting.  It was super fun to be able to stay in 新竹 for the night too because that meant that we didn't need to return back to 苗栗 for the night, which is about a 45 minute train ride away.  That is probably one of the biggest things with 苗栗.  Everything is just so far away.  And to just give you an idea, I am also sending a map of my area home.  The big area, that is my area.  There is a lot of work that can be done.  Anyways, for the meeting in 竹北, it was super good.  Got to practice my Chinese a lot, and there were so many good talks.

Well, my time is about up.  Thanks for all the emails and prayers.

我愛你們,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

Week 23

Elder Ure and Elder Okeson in Miaoli

你好?

As for the question of why I didn't email home on Monday, it was not because I died.  It was because today, we got to go to the temple, so our preparation day changed to today.  We were able to go to the temple which was completely in English, so I did not need to wear head phones.  It was super fun, mainly because it had just be so long since I have been to the temple.  There is so much to learn and do, yet so little time to do it.  So for today, it really has been and will be crazy.  We left 苗栗 (Miaoli) this morning at 6:30, to get to the temple by 9 am.  We are going to the doctors for my companion, we need to email, and then catch our train by to 苗栗 (Miaoli) at 4 this afternoon.  So, we don't really have a ton of time for preparation today.  It's just one thing right after another.

Before I explain about going to the hospital, I want to do a flash back to our specialized training from a few weeks ago with President and Sister Day.  They covered a ton of stuff, but two big things that Sister Day covered was dog bites and ingrown toe nails because recently there have been a couple of Elders in the mission with those two problems.  But for today, we are not going to the doctors for a dog bite.  With all of the biking and walking we do, toe nails are apparently a big problem for a lot of the missionaries.  So, I am currently praying that I will not have to deal with any of those problems.

As for Halloween this week, I didn't see anything for it really.  Just down the street from where we live, there is a western school for primary age children, and they had Halloween type decorations, but other than that, we didn't we didn't see or do anything to do with Halloween.  Maybe next year if I am in 台北 (Taipei), I may get to see more of the Halloween type stuff.

As for me and my new companion, Elder Ure, we are doing really well.  We have scared a few people with our height, but it is usually a pretty good conversation starter.  Personally, my favorite thing to do with Elder Ure is to bike up on both sides of someone on a motorcycle, because they see us both, and they almost always start talking to us first, which is nice.  Got to love being tall.  Also, today we found out I am the third tallest in the mission and Elder Ure is the second tallest.  There is an Elder who is slightly taller than Elder Ure, which is super funny.  We feel like at some point, all the Elders who are 6 foot 5 inches or taller should all be put in the same area.  There are 4 Elders that currently fit this description, so it is possible, we just need to see if President Day will do it.  It would be a super fun apartment, that is all I can say.

As I mentioned last week, we were starting to work through calling all of the formers, but this week we have also started looking at visiting all of the members in the 苗栗 (Miaoli) ward.  We found out that there are about 700 members, and only about 70 are active, so we have a lot of people that we will able able to visit.  So some of the goals that we have been setting are having to do with visiting all of the members in the ward, which, if we are able to at least visit two a day, it will take about a year to visit them all, so there is a lot of work to be done.

A couple of the other things that we had this week were zone meeting, which was really good.  The most surprising thing though, was that President Day got the inspiration that morning that he should come to our zone meeting.  The training was on how to use Preach My Gospel and also about missionary schedule, which is what President Day talked to us about.  He talked to us about making sure to follow the schedule and also to pray for inspiration, because without inspiration,we won't be able to reach any of the goals that we have set in our areas.

As for something fun this week, English class was probably one of the highlights.  We were able to cover a lot and also help a lot of our students out.  The nice thing about our class right now is that it is pretty small.  There really aren't that many people, so we are able to do one on one time with everyone, helping them personally improve their English.  With that being said though, we are working on a bunch of new things which we feel will be able to increase the size of our English class.

As for a miracle this week, it actually came from missionaries not fully finishing a record of a previous investigator. 廖姐妹 (Sister Luo) was baptized three years ago, but the missionaries never actually said that she was baptized on the record and left her in the former pile.  So when we called her up this week thinking she was a former, we found out that she was a member and that her husband is not a member yet.  So, for the miracle, we were able to find out about a part member family that will will now be working with to help her husband see how the gospel can help him in his life.  We both were super excited when we pieced all of this together and realized what we had found.

Well, my time is about up for the week.  I love you all and am so grateful for all the emails and prayers.

我愛你們,

柯長老

Elder Okeson