Week 53 - The heat is coming

你好!

Well, this has been another really good week. As for things to write about though, it may be a little shorter, so I am apologizing in advance. The main reason it is a little bit shorter is because the majority of the week was finding. We still had a good number of lessons, especially with less actives, but looking back at the week, I just remember the heat and the rain as we were finding. Seems to have left a pretty big impact on my wrist (got a bit of sun) and some of my white shirts now as I am trying to work out some of the stains from the rain.

So, to begin off this week's letter, wanted to share a little about our district. It is super special, and one of a kind to say the least. In our district we have 3 Taiwanese missionaries, 1 kiwi (from New Zealand), and 2 Americans. Now for what makes us one of a kind is that the two Americans are not from Utah. 

The Zhunan District

Left to Right: Elder Huang (He was the AP when I came to Taiwan), Me, Elder Huang (Yes, there are two Elder Huangs in the District),  Elder Deethloff, Sister Kueng, Sister Xiao

Pretty much everyone in the mission is from Utah, so this is a pretty rare thing in the mission. Also for district meeting, we have it in 竹南 (Zhunan), which means for district meeting we have a 25 minute train ride and about a 30 minute walk from the train station to the chapel, which is usually pretty good. The only thing was that coming back, it decided to pore. Luckily, both of us brought umbrellas with us, but we still got pretty wet.

For lessons this week, we have been working a lot with less actives, which has been really good. Along with less actives, we have also been working with some recent converts that have been having a little bit of a relapse, but it is getting better. This is one thing I really feel that I am learning from Elder Huang (黃長老) is just how important the less actives. There are about 350 less actives in the ward, and over the last transfer in a half, he has got in contact with all of them and we are now working with a good number of them, which is super cool. Not to mention, it means that we get a break from the rain/sun which is super nice. Gives us a chance to dry off or cool down, depending on the day.

As for something Elder Huang (黃長老) and I have been working on is finding by the spirit, which really has brought up some interesting experience. The coolest one from the week, was actually finding a less active that was baptized in 嘉義 (Jiayi) six years ago, and then 5 years ago moved to 香山 (Xiangshan), and his record was never sent so we had no idea that he lived in our area. In my last interview, one of the questions I asked President Day was about finding with the spirit. He said sometimes we will get a prompting to go down an alley to find nothing, but the reason the spirit will do that is to help us find the one, to slow us down a little so that will can run into them. To say the least about that evening when we were finding, it really felt like we were just going down the most random roads and in circles, but in the end, we were able to find the "one," which was such a cool experience. And with that, it means that we will have another less active we get to work with, which is super cool!

As for the new area as a whole, it is pretty good. I am getting use to being back in the countryside again, but I am missing parts of the city, in the aspect of being able to do contact on foot. We do bike contacting here because there really aren't that many people on the road/side walk here, so we have to bike to try and keep the down time to a minimum. (When I say down time, I mean the time where we aren't able to talk to anyone because the next person is another 5 minute walk away) So, things here are going pretty good.

Well, my time is pretty much up. Thanks for all the emails and prayers!

我愛妳們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S.  Just to show how small this world really is, Sunday at church, I was talking with a member and we got on the topic of who his 福音長老 (Gospel missionary/Missionary who baptized him), and he said it was Sam Curtis, which was a very familiar name. At first, I didn't realize who it was, but when he said they lived in Suzhou, I made the connection. So, to say the least the world is pretty small, or it could just be Taiwan is really small too :P

Harold and Elder Okeson

Week 52 - New Area

你好!

Well, this was quit the exciting week, but also a little sad. It has been fun being able to serve in 
新埔 (Xinpu) with Elder Brinton, but that has been brought to a close as I have moved again. I will get more into where I am at now in a little bit, but to share a few fun things from the week.

So to begin the week, since I let it leak that I Elder Brinton or I could be moving, the YSA (Young Single Adults) said they wanted to 情 (Feed us) before one of us left, and to say the least, it was amazing. They had fresh Mangos! I don't know why before my mission I didn't really like them, but all I can say is that they are truly amazing. Along with that, we were also able to say some good byes and get some photos too.

Moving forward to Tuesday, it was pretty interesting with Elder Willis having moved, our beloved District leader. The interesting part was that he told me that I would be in charge of running district meeting. Lets just say, that took some work to prepare for. As for the rest of Tuesday, it was spent finding in the rain. We have been told by the members that for the next two weeks that it will be raining all day everyday. And looking back at the week, it is doing pretty well keeping that promise.

Now for one of the bigger things from the week, English class!

So every 6 weeks (the last week of the transfer), we hold a English party. Just from the history of things, it usually is pretty bad, but we were able to break that trend this time. We did a good amount of planning and had four amazing activities. We had all of the students break into four stations, and then every 15 minutes rotate. The four stations were Human Battle Ship, The Cup Song (where you are like clapping the cups on the table, everyone in America does it apparently), Bingo, and Musical Chairs. The purpose of the English party is suppose to give the teachers and students a fun environment to practice English along with us getting to know our students a little better. After all of the rotations, we came together into the chapel for a big share, which also went pretty well and then also got a big group photo. After we finished English class, I got the call from the Zone Leaders. At the end of each transfer, the zone leaders will call to let you know if you will be moving or not, and they said I was moving.

Thursday, in my opinion was a very quite day, but that was because I lost my voice. I have thought through what could cause it, and have come to having to be one of three reasons. I will explain each, but please don't laugh too hard. The first reason was due to biking home Tuesday night. With biking, there are always those little accidents that occur where you are just biking too fast, and you see it coming but it is just too late to stop it... I ate a fly. Ya, that a little awkward while biking because I was trying to cough and bike at the same time. It was just super weird, and left my throat hurting a little. So, that was the first reason. The second was because of how warm it was starting to get. Elder Brinton had the smart idea of sleeping in front of the AC, so Tuesday night I thought I would try it out. I think I woke up with a little bit of a cold from it in the morning, but was fine by lunch time. [Note: I am sure at this point, I am sure Mom is rolling her eyes :)] As for the third reason, which is more of a reasonable one, I was doing a lot of talking at English class, so part of it was that I think I was trying to talk too loud for too long at English Class. So, to describe how the day went, it was pretty much Elder Brinton talking all day, which was a good learning opportunity for him. We also were able to meet with a few investigators so that I could say good byes, or at least try my best to.

Now for the point where everything changed, Transfer meeting. Side note, my big suit case wheels on the bottom broke, so that made all of the transfer stuff pretty interesting trying to carry my big suit case around because wheels broke. Anyways, I am back down in my original zone, or in other words the zone with 苗栗 (Miaoli). I am now serving about a 30 minute train ride north of 苗栗 (Miaoli) in 香山 (Xiangshan) with Elder Huang (黃長老),

who is from 台南 (Tainan). So, I am pretty sure you can guess from the name, I get the opportunity to serve with a local which I have been hoping for since the start of my mission, and which is a pretty rare opportunity too. There are only nine Taiwanese Elders in the mission, so it is a pretty cool opportunity. As for the ward, it is pretty small. There are about 60 actives from what I understand and about 400 members on the ward list, so there is plenty of work to be done, but it really feels like the ward is super supportive, so I am super excited to be serving here.

As for kind of a bigger experience from the week, I feel like I am in training again, in the aspect of understanding what is going on. On Saturday night, we went to go visit a part member family and the minute we step through the door, I started 听不懂 (not able to understand what we being said) everything. Explaining one of the benefits of having a local companion is that they can really help your language get better, on the other had they also know the local dialects, like Taiwanese. Because some of the older people never learned Chinese as a kid or have since forgotten it, they have to use Taiwanese to communicate, which is a language that I completely 
听不懂 (not able to understand what we being said). So, to say the least, it was a very interested experience of my companion having to translate Taiwanese to Chinese and then I had to translate it to English so that I could understand. So it really was a pretty funny lesson.

Well, that was pretty much the week in short terms. Thanks for all the emails and prayers! Have a great week!

我愛妳們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

Week 51 - Temple Day!

你好!

Well, this has been an eventful week to say the least. We had exchanges, temple day, interviews, and just so many different types of successes. So, to say the least it was extremely eventful, but I will start with the beginning of the week so that I don't miss anything.

To begin the week off, I got to go on exchanges with our district leader and his companion. Elder Willis, who is now our former district leader, came to 新埔 (Xinpu) with Elder Brinton and I went with Elder Tan to 板橋 (Banqiao, more so the city part by the train station). Elder Tan is from Texas, and he came on with Elder Brinton, so they are the same age in the mission. Pry my favorite part of the exchange was just getting to chat with him as we did finding and also get to see what a six man apartment looks like. To be honest, our apartment, even though it is pretty small, it is super nice and convenient. Their apartment is a little crazy, especially since there is only one shower and the water changes from scolding hot to freezing cold. I was told afterwards that that is how they time their showers, by how many cycles you go through. Back to everything else though, it was really a super fun exchange and fun to just see how a new missionary does work. So to say the least, I really hope I get to break next transfer again. (Break means to be their second companion, so it is pretty much breaking them from their habits that they picked up from their trainer)

As for something we do every day, we get a little bit of time to do Facebook, which in many ways has been such a great tool. It makes daily contact with our investigators a lot easier and also makes it easy to get in contact with potentials that we meet on the street. This may sound like stalking a little, but on Facebook you can actually use a phone number to find people, so for many of the people we meet on the street, we will actually use the phone number they gave us to find them and add them on Facebook. Sometimes they actually add us, but it really is a cool way to just start that communication with them and then hopefully set up a time.

Moving forward to Wednesday our day was pretty much going to the temple and having English class, and both parts of this were amazing. We had about 60 people attend this week, which was awesome and then a good number of new students that said they would also be willing to meet and learn about why we are here in Taiwan and how the Church can help them have more happiness. So, English this week was a big hit. Going back to the more spiritual aspect of things, the temple was so nice. It was just a good time to just think and find a few answers that I have been looking for to help the area grow. So, to say the least, the temple is awesome.

Again jumping forward, Friday was the next big day of the week. We had interviews with President and Sister Day. It was really weird, but I will get to why in just a second. Every time we have interviews with President Day, he always finds out how everything is going and then sets goals with us, including language, scriptural, obedience, and spiritual goals, which has been super cool. So, after talking through with him how I did on my goals from the last interview and then the new goals I have set, he took all of my goals and handed them to me and said to keep setting them personally. He told me that the next mission president may do things little differently, and that was when it hit me. That is the weird part is that he finally was bringing it up with everyone that he will be leaving. President Day really has been a great example and it will be super sad to see he go, but exciting to see what the new mission president has to bring to the mission. Also jumping back a little into the letter, with Elder Willis, our former district leader. It was just after interviews, that he was called to be the new Assistant to the Mission President. He really is a great missionary and it is really cool to have actually got to know him before he goes into the office because it feels like a good number of the people in the office are people that you don't really get to connect to.

As for an update on Esther, she is doing really well. Just with how things are working out, we are needing to push her baptismal date back a little, but she is really making good progress. The hard part right now is that she is struggling a little with the Word of Wisdom, so we are going to be continuing to work with her on that for these coming weeks.

As for something really cool, we found a family of four! We have been really struggling for just finding the prepared, and it felt like they fell right into place for us. They had ran into the missionaries before, but we were able to set up with them and share a small message with them and a little bit of expectations, meaning what they can expect from the message that we would be sharing with them, and they seemed super willing to learn and accept the commitments we would be extending to them, so we are super excited.

So, to say the least, this was a pretty eventful. Lots of things that I will definitely remember and think about for the rest of my mission. So, my time is pretty much up, but just want to say thinks for all the prayers and letters and hope you all have a great week! :) 

我愛妳們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S.  In anticipation of one of us being transferred this week since training is coming to a close, here is a bunch of photos with some of the ward members :)

P.S.S.  As for the "Hump" day, there really aren't any of the traditions of burning a shirt or anything, but you hear of plenty of missionaries that go to a really nice place to eat for their "Hump" day. So, we will see what will happen here in a little over a week. Again, time flies!

Week 50 - Finding all day every day

你好!

All I can say about this week is that it has flown by, which is interesting because we were spending a majority of our time outside contacting people. Even with that being said, it was pretty fun because we got to go on exchanges so that switched up finding a little.

Going into our exchanges this last week, I stayed here in 新埔 (Xinpu) with Elder Clark (柯長老) which was super fun. He actually is going home here in a week and a half, so it was definitely an interesting exchange. Even though he is going home here soon, he still is a really diligent missionary. Pry my favorite part of the exchange was just seeing another method of finding because everyone finds a little different. One thing I really picked up from his is asking inspired questions. We didn't do a ton of teaching, but we were asking people a lot of basic questions that were getting them to think about how the gospel really could change their lives.

Along with going on exchanges with the zone leaders, we also got training from our zone leaders in Zone Meeting, which was pretty good. Pry the biggest thing from the training were just all the changes that were being made. As for the two biggest changes that occurred were that we will no longer be sharing our key indicators in District/Zone Meeting or in other words reporting to the district how are week went and the other is that everyone will be reporting numbers Wednesday, Friday, and again Sunday night. So, there have been a couple of big changes in the mission over the last week. Also, I don't know if other missions do this, but every month we have a new vision. Generally the vision is pretty short and sweet (1 page), but this months is pretty long and detailed (5 pages). To explain a little, the biggest difference between the 1 page and 5 page vision is that President goes into more depth on each of the points that he wants us to focus on, and how we can better hit those points by doing certain things. So, in reality we have the same number of invites in the vision, but we have been given more detailed ideas and methods in which we can achieve those goals that were put into each invite.

As for a success from the week, it was at FHE (Family Home Evening) and then the YSA (Young Single Adults) activity. Recently we have been working with a less active brother and sister, trying to help them both build stronger testimonies, but also reactive them in church activities, which is where FHE and the YSA activity come in. For the FHE activity, we were only able to get the sister to come, but for the YSA activity we were able to get both of them to come along with another less active we have been working with. As for a big surprise as well, when we got the the YSA activity, we noticed that the brother and sister and both also brought a friend with them, which mean we had 2 investigators at the YSA activity which was pretty cool too.

For pry one of the most interesting visits I have had on my mission, it was just this last week on Tuesday. We met with an elderly man, 謝先生 (Mr. Xie), who was a referral. In the referral, it mentioned that they had a lesson with him on the street, gave him a Book of Mormon, and then he had a lot of questions for us, so prepare. So, we prepared to just teach some simple doctrine about the Church and then cover the Book of Mormon again. As for what we planned and what happened, those are two completely separate things. In reality, I really hope my companion 听不懂 (not able to understand what we being said). It pretty much was him chastising us and explaining that we do not fully understand God because we need scriptures, for if we truly understood God, we would know that all we need is the Holy Ghost. So, to say the least, we only got few words in, in which we just did our best to do some very simple testifying.

As for a short little update on Esther, it looks like she will be getting baptized this next week, which we are all super excited about. She has been progressing amazing and has been doing an amazing job of keeping the commitments.

So, that was pretty much our week. We had a good amount of finding, but also some really cool successes. As for this next week, we are super excited to be able to go to the temple and also be able to have interviews with President and Sister Day. Crazy part though, this will be the last interview that we will get to have before our new mission president arrives here in Taiwan.

我愛妳們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S.  It was super fun getting to call home and see you all :)

Week 49 - Summer is coming!

你好!

Looking back at this last week, it was quite the week of finding. We were spending a majority of the time we had out on the street just contacting people, which was both fun and interesting. We were able to meet a lot of cool people and also shared a lot about our Church. As for how the weather is here, we are starting to feel the humidity, but that is about it. It has not been super sunny, but with all the water in the air, it is feeling pretty warm to say the least.

As to begin the week off, we were invited to go to the Young Single Adults Family Home Evening, which was pretty good. We were able to have dinner with the Young Single Adults and also get to know some of the less actives that came as well. After eating and getting to know everyone, we were able to share a small message about the Book of Mormon and how as we study from the Book of Mormon, we are able to be spiritually fed.

Jumping to the middle of the week, the big thing was English class. Elder Brinton and I decided that we wanted to make the activities we have been doing with them a little more fun, so we decided to prepare a few new activities. The big activity that we did this week was actually a cross word puzzle that we made up using vocab from the lesson. The topic for the lessons was communication, so we were thinking of all the random ways that people communicate and then used those words to make the puzzle for them, and it really turned out good. They all seemed to love the activity.

Something that really kind of stuck out this week for us as a companionship was actually WPS (Weekly Planning Session). Recently we just have been having a lot of trouble finding people to teach, but as we were praying and planning, it was super cool to see all of the people that came to mind that we should see about visiting and/or just getting in contact with them. Some of them were less actives, but a larger majority were part member families that we had not visited for a while. So, for this next week, we are super excited because we already have a large number of people that we are looking to go visit.

One of the other things that stuck out from the week was that we were able to have a couple member visits, which were super fun. We prepared little analogy so that the kids would be able to have a fun time participating in the lesson as well. It was also super cool Sunday night as we got to visit the Stake President's home and have a bunch none members and recent converts come attend, including 謝弟兄 (Brother Xie) who we were able to help get baptized about two months ago now. As for a little update with him, he is doing great and was actually just this last week able to receive the Aaronic Priesthood, which was super cool. Sadly though, this next month he will partly be counted as less active because he is going to be gone for training with his work. I don't know if I have told you what his work is before, but he is the sniper head s.w.a.t. team in Taipei City which is also super cool.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the letter, the biggest thing of this week, has been finding, which is also this months vision by President Day. He is wanting us all to focus more on finding and inviting people to come unto Christ. As for a few of the miracles that we have seen this last week during finding was that everyone was super willing to chat. Most of the people we talked to this week though were Atheists, so we were doing slightly different approaches when contacting them, but it was super interesting just getting to teach a lot of the basic doctrines about God and how he can and has blessed everyone's' lives.

Well, my time is about up. Thanks for all the prayers and letters. Have a great week!

我愛妳們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S. As for seeing all the missionaries coming it, it has been super cool, but we are all super scared for in two months when 28 missionaries finish their mission (along with President Day and Sister Day) and only one missionary arrives to replacing all of them. To say the least, it should be pretty interesting these next two transfers to see what happens.

P.S.S. This week, Elder Brinton also got his first taste of Mango shaved ice... He has fallen in love with it :)

Week 48

你好!

Well, to begin the week off, we had a nice big earthquake, which was super interested. It actually happened last Monday during studies, and President Day sent an email out telling everyone it was a 6.6 earthquake, which was pretty big. Along with starting the week with an earthquake, we also had a pretty amazing meal. We went out to eat at an amazing restaurant, and I got a huge western pizza, which was amazing. Recently we have been eating really cheap, so that pizza was just so amazing. But even with that, the week just got even better.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had the opportunity to meet with Elder Gong of the Seventy and his wife. At the Tuesday night devotional, we actually got to eat banana splits, which my companion and I ate a ton. After that, Elder Gong talked to us about the atonement and the importance of the Sacrament, which was super interesting. We read a lot of scriptures together and then had a bit of a testimony meeting, which gave us all a lot to ponder and to be grateful for. On Wednesday, Elder Gong talked to us a lot about the Book of Mormon and working with our investigators. At the end of all of it, he shared his testimony in two basic sentences, which I thought was really interesting. The two sentences were: "No evil man could have written the Book of Mormon, and no good man would have written it to deceive others," and "He paid a debt He didn't owe because we had a debt we couldn't pay." Both of these really got me thinking about the Book of Mormon and also Jesus Christ's Atonement for us.

As for the rest of the week, it mainly consisted of finding because all of our lessons kept falling through. Either people would cancel or just not show up to the appointments, so we were getting to spend a lot of time just trying to find new people to share the gospel with. Before I get into some of the cool contacting experiences, I just wanted to share about one of our golden investigators that we do have that I mentioned last week. This last week was the third time we were able to meet with Esther, and it went amazing. She has read all the way to 1 Nephi 11 and is loving how much easier the Book of Mormon is to read in comparison to the Bible. The second time we met with her, we covered the Priesthood a ton, so that this last time, we were able to cover Baptism with an even larger emphasis. And to make things even better, we ended up have three amazing members come to the lesson as well. Two of them were planned, but the third was just because she was suppose to be helping the other elders, but they got stood up so we thought she could join us as well. As for the lesson itself, it really went amazing. The three members were able to help answer all of her questions and even relate to her because they were all from a similar religious background before joining this church, which helped answer a lot of questions for her as well. So, this next week, we are really looking forward to be able to answer more of her questions and also help her prepare for the baptismal date that we were able to set together!

As for finding this week, we were seeing blessings right and left, which was super cool. Sadly, none of them turned into set ups or anything, but we really felt like we were planting a lot of seeds, not only in the Taiwanese hearts, but some Westerner's hearts as well, which was super cool. One of the thing Elder Gong talked to us about with the Book of Mormon, was also how we contact people. He posed the question, "When you contact people, do you talk at them, talk to them or talk with them. He promised us if we talked with at least 20 people as a companionship a day, that we will find that our investigator pool will truly grow and that we will be able to find more success in our areas. Putting that into a larger effect this week, we really saw the blessings from it. Instead of being the ones bringing up the gospel, they were the ones bringing it up. We had over half of the people tell us that they had actually been contacted by Mormon missionaries up to 10 years ago, but just never had the opportunity to learn much more. We were able to actually find out what people's true concerns were and be able to testify of how the Book of Mormon can help them find answers to those concerns, and so many more, which was truly a miracle in our eyes. And the craziest, we actually had someone come up and contact us, asking us about the church, which is also super rare, but truly a blessing. So, even though we weren't able to have as many set up lessons as we would have liked, we were able to plant a ton of seeds which we are hoping that with enough time will sprout into something more.

As to end the week, we also went to a fireside, which was super successful. We had an investigator and one of our less actives we have been working with come, which was amazing. Both of them seemed to really enjoy the activity and even mentioned to us about finding out about some of the other activities that the church has planned, so we are really going to be working on having them find some more friends in the ward too.

As for the week as a whole, it really was a blast and such a blessing to be able to serve the people here in Taiwan.  Well, time today is pretty much up, thanks for all the emails and prayers! Have a great week!

我愛妳們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S. Sorry this week's letter was a little shorter.  I will try to have more photos ready for next week as well :)