Week 40

Well things are going well over here in Taiwan. It's getting a little hotter lately, because from now until about the middle of September happens to be the hottest time of the year. The good part, however, is that we seem to be in the coolest part of the mission, we are the most north and we live high up by the mountain.  So our area is a lot better than most of the mission. I hear down south in Gaoxiong is just pretty terrible in the summer.

This last week was a good week. We had a lot of success at the beginning of the week. We actually saw a really cool miracle on Monday. We had a lesson set up with a potential investigator who we had tracted into last week, so we went to visit him. However, his sister answered instead, and she, being from another Christian church, firmly told us that he was busy and he would be busy for the rest of his life and could never meet with us. So we were walking away when another person, whom we had tracted into recently, came outside and asked us to come and sit with him. He and his family are all very awesome and super nice and his wife said she thought we were "angels" when she first saw us. We were really excited; however, if there is one thing about those types of families in Taiwan (really nice and really willing to sit down and talk to you, usually also very rich) it is that they believe every church and they aren't looking to join any church. It turns out they are also not super interested in baptism.  But we met a really nice family, and maybe one day we will go back and we will be able to change their minds. We gave them a video they could watch together as a family.

The rest of the week went well, but towards the end of the week we had a harder time. People didn't answer their phones and we weren't able to find any new investigators at the end of the week. We met a lot of cool people on the side of the street, and maybe this week we can meet with them. 

This will be a good next week. We have zone conference in a couple days and 3 of the members of my MTC district are going to the same zone conference as me, including Elder Millett. It will be good to see all of them again. Also, this is going to be a crazy transfer because of all the new missionaries coming at the end of the transfer, and because we have 10 missionaries going home in the middle of the transfer for school. Our mission is really young right now, because of the visa problems. Also, we have the least amount of missionaries we have had in the last 2 years. So, we will see what happens.

Love you all, 

Elder Quist

Week 39

豐原 我愛你

So it turns out that I am staying in 豐原for this next transfer and Elder McDougal is still my companion! I am so glad because 豐原 is such a good place! We had 6 investigators come to church yesterday and we have some great things happening in the 東豐 branch!

Also, I finally learned how to type characters efficiently on the computer. Texting in Chinese is actually pretty easy and I can text pretty fast now, the biggest limit is knowing characters for me. But I am being blessed, and even though I don't have time to study characters this early in my mission, I already recognize a lot and I am able to communicate in texting.

But besides all that, the district is almost exactly the same. We just had Elder Varvel move and we had Elder Steele move in. Elder Steele is in the same generation as me and he is a really nice guy. He is Elder Hintze's new companion. 

This week we learned some startling news about 柯姐妺, or Sister Ke. We learned that she was actually in the sisters' area, because she recently moved from our area to their area. So the sisters will finish teaching her, but we still will be able to attend her baptism. It is sad, but that is how missionary work is. 

We actually got two investigators this week, they are twins and their Chinese name is 謝, or xie, the same xie as xiexie, which means thank you. They are great investigators and they are really looking forward to baptism. We also have a new investigator named 林, or Lin. She is the wife of a recently activated member and she also really wants to get baptized. And then lastly, we had a less-active come to church recently, 吳 Jiemei, or Sister Wu. She told us she wants her two kids to get baptized who are not baptized yet and we are meeting with them tonight. So we are getting really blessed over here in 豐原.

In other news, we had our English party this last week. Every 6 weeks we have a party at our church and we invite all the ward members and all our English students. This month's party was a camping party and we told ghost stories, roasted marshmallows and played some cool games. It was really fun and we had a lot of people come to it.

Then on Saturday we had a ping pong competition. It was a ward activity and we went with our RC. It was really fun.  I did okay and we also had some good food there too.

Today was a sad day. I went to the mission home and said goodbye to Elder Fox, my trainer, who is going home today. It was good to see him again, and he said he is coming back to Taiwan sometime, and at that time he will visit me.

Everything is going well out here. I am loving it more and more every day. Tonight we are meeting with some new investigators up on a beautiful mountain side overlooking 豐原and hopefully they will accept the gospel! 

I love you all! 

Elder Quist

We had to go up on the mountain to find a member.

Me and Elder Fox, my trainer

Week 38

This was a good week. Nothing super spectacular. Nothing super hard. Just another good week. We had the chance to meet with some old investigators and also to meet some new ones. But besides that, it was just a missionary work filled week.

We were able to meet with an investigator this morning. His name is David, and he has been meeting with missionaries for a while. He is preparing for his baptism and is supposed to be baptized next week. It will be weird because I already have an RC named David, so I will actually have to call them by their Chinese names. 

The typhoons came this week. The anticipation was pretty high the first couple days of the week. However, the typhoons didn't really hit Taiwan at all. There was one day you could definitely tell there was a typhoon, but it was only light rain and some wind. After that day the weather was pretty much like normal. 

I am really enjoying my time here in Fengyuan. This next week is transfers; however, I don't think I will be moving anytime soon, but I guess you never know. The transfer after this one is a huge transfer, with 30 new missionaries (the huge "right after graduation" wave), so this next transfer will be a "prep" transfer, getting ready to receive all these new missionaries. The next couple of transfers are really going to shift the balance of the mission, we are going to become a really young mission. That means there are going to be two groups of missionaries because of it. One group is the slightly older generations who end up all going senior companions because the mission is so young, and the other group is the slightly younger generation, that, because their generation is so large, will probably stay junior companion for a longer time. I don't know what side I will fall on those two sides, but I think I fall on the slightly older generation side. I guess we will see what that means about my future mission. 

I will let you know what happens next week. I love you all and I am so grateful for this chance to serve a mission. I learned from Alma 26 (last three verses) that the greatest joy in this life is found in helping others receive the gospel and helping them learn and grow. 

Love, 

Elder Quist

Week 37

Miracles and Typhoons Are Coming

This week was a really great week! It was hard at times but we saw a lot of blessings and the weather wasn't super hot so we survived!

This last Tuesday we had zone training meeting so we went to our zone meeting. We have to take a train to Taizhong City and from there we have to get on a bus and continue to a huge chapel in a city which is actually south of Taizhong. It takes about an hour and fifteen minutes in total travel. So we traveled there and had zone meeting, and then right after me and Elder McDougal had to split and we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I stayed in the zone leaders' area and I was on exchanges with Elder Watson, who trained Elder Millet, my MTC companion. It was a good exchange, but while I was on the exchange I realized how much I like Fengyuan. It is a good city. However, on exchanges we also had a really crazy experience. We were biking up this road in the middle of nowhere, a really narrow road. On both sides of the road were dogs chained up that were trying to kill us when we went past, and as Elder Watson (who was biking ahead of me) made it further up the road, we realized there were a bunch of dogs who were NOT chained up. So all of a sudden I saw Elder Watson stopped at a dead end, surrounded by a bunch of dogs. He told me to bike back as fast as I could, and while I was riding back a dog jumped out of the bushes and tried to bite me! But we ended up getting away uninjured, even though it was pretty freaky.

Then on Thursday we had interviews with President. So we had to travel back to the zone meeting chapel to meet with President. It was a good interview and I learned a lot from it. Then we traveled back to Fengyuan, and from Fengyuan traveled to our secondary area to meet with a great investigator, Wu Dixiong. That day was just full of travel, I was exhausted.

The result of all this travel turned out to be a lack of finding time. So when we got to Sunday morning, we had no new investigators. We were pretty upset about it, and decided to pray for great miracles. So before we went to church on Sunday we said prayers seeking miracles. When we got to church, we saw the miracles come. We had 5 of our investigators come to sacrament meeting and 3 new people show up to sacrament meeting, who we added to meet another time. We ended up with 8 people at church and 3 new investigators, which is crazy and never happens. I realized that the Lord is mindful of everyone and He is a merciful God. I am so grateful for this chance to serve in Fengyuan in the DongFeng branch. This is a great place and I am also so happy I could serve in Taiwan. 

We also had a baptismal service yesterday! Tu Dixiong, an investigator who has been investigating since March, got baptized yesterday! Elder McDougal baptized him and it was a great baptism. I forgot my camera though! So I need Elder McDougal to send me his pictures and then I will send them to you guys. All in all, it was a great week in Fengyuan and I learned that no matter where you serve, you end up loving the are where you serve!

Love you,

Elder Quist

PS This week there are suppose to be three typhoons coming to Taiwan. Two are going to likely just pass by and might not even affect us, but one of them is supposed to focus on Taiwan. So it will probably be really stormy and rainy this week.

Week 36

Moving Up In The World

This week was a really good week! We got the chance to move to a bigger and better apartment. It may not be super high with a really nice view like our last apartment, but we are not as cramped here  and we have AC in our study room now. I actually really like it.

Last Monday we were able to go bowling for PDAY and I did the best I have ever done in bowling! I have never been good at bowling, but one of the Elders in our apartment used to work at a bowling alley, so he showed me how to bowl correctly. So we played yesterday and I won the first game and got second the next game! I bowled a 136 my first game and a 141 the second game!

Then throughout the week we cleaned and prepared our apartment to move. We had to clean hardcore, because our apartment had gotten dirty over the last few weeks. But we got it all done! We moved on Friday, the APs and the Office Elders came and transported all our stuff from our apartment to the sisters' apartment. 

This week we also saw a few great miracles. An investigator who had almost reached baptism about 2 months ago reappeared. She was gone because she had had a death in the family and now she wants to continue learning. She really wants to get baptized and she even came to church yesterday. It helped me realize that the people who are ready to hear the gospel and accept baptism will find it and get there eventually, and even when we feel some people are "lost between the cracks" we can be confident that the Lord is in control and He knows what He is doing. 

Then we also had another cool miracle. We were tracting and we came to this one house. Inside there were two young girls watching TV (spongebob) and a dad and a mom. They saw us and immediately let us in; they even turned off the TV (which in Taiwan means they mean business). So we talked to them for a while and taught them about prayer and how our church can help their family. They invited us back and we are going back tonight to try to teach them more. It was great! I had never tracted into a family like that before!

I have come to love finding more and more. At the beginning of my mission, like most missionaries, finding scared me so much, and I would much rather avoid it. But as I have been able to communicate better and better and my desire has grown, I have really come to enjoy finding. I love when you find cool people on the streets or in a house, and then you actually get to teach them! It is such a good feeling and it just makes teaching them so much better! Even though I am yet to baptize someone I found from my own efforts, I look forward to when that day does come!

Things are good here in Taiwan. It is hot and humid, but things are great. Taiwan is such a great, beautiful place. I can't wait to get to see more of it! 

Thanks and love you all. HAPPY USA DAY!

Love, 

Elder Quist