Week 49

My new favorite holiday... Mid-autumn Festival!

This last week I had my first Mid-autumn Festival in Taiwan and it was a really awesome time! During the Mid-autumn Festival, Taiwanese people basically get together and barbecue and eat moon cakes. So there were a lot of people outside and a lot of great things that happened! On Friday (the beginning of the festival), we had some contacting planned. As we contacted that night, it was amazing how many people were outside. We met so many people who were willing to meet with missionaries. 

Then on Saturday, I had one of my best days on my mission so far!  We started the day with a ward basketball activity. Do you remember Roland? He came to the basketball activity and he is still doing really well. We are hoping that he can keep progressing. Then we had English proselyting later that day. English proselyting basically includes us passing out fliers and inviting people to attend our free English Class. While we were proselyting, I met a kid who was super willing to meet with us and learn more about our church! His name is Stanley and he said he would come to church next week!

Then as the day went on, we went to a big park in our area. We have been there before and it has been pretty unsuccessful. But since it was the Mid-autumn Festival, there were a lot of people who were at the park. While there, we met a guy playing basketball. I decided I would talk to him. He invited me to play basketball, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach him more about the gospel! We just went back and forth shooting hoops, while I talked to him about our church and about Jesus. Apparently his mom is christian, so he was really willing to learn. It turned out that I talked to him for about an hour, just shooting hoops and teaching him a first lesson!  (And any of you who know how good I am at basketball know that he wasn't playing with me because he was impressed with my white man skills.) We set up with him again next week, gave him a Book of Mormon, and invited him to pray. His name is Sam, or 莊祐勝. 

And to end a good Mid-autumn Festival Saturday, we had a ward activity at the church. There I had some of the best food I have had since I got to Taiwan and we played a really fun game show with the whole ward. It was a good day!

In other news, we got a golden new investigator! His name is Jeff and he came into a chapel in Taizhong and told the missionaries there he wanted to learn about the Book of Mormon and Jesus. We met with him and he accepted a baptism goal and came to church yesterday. He has three kids (who actually have come to our English class a lot). It was a great week!

We are being blessed here. Sister Lin has a new baptism goal and she is going to hit it. Our investigators are all doing well and I am doing well.  Oh and pray for me. A super typhoon is coming.

Elder Quist

Week 48

Mountains to Climb

This last week was a really exciting week! It was different from most weeks and was packed with lots of things, including some miracles and some answers to prayers.

We got to go to the temple on Wednesday. It was a really great experience for me. The Taipei temple is a beautiful temple, with the Asian culture laced throughout. One of the traditions at the Taipei temple is that there are no shoes allowed in the temple. You leave them by the door before you walk in, no matter what ordinance you are doing. It is amazing to see the influence of God and Christ along with ancient Asian traditions and culture.

Then we had a really cool experience Wednesday night in English class. English class is a great opportunity to find people who are willing to meet with missionaries. We had a meeting with an investigator set up for after class this week; however, since he wasn't in my English class, I didn't know what he looked like. I knew he was in the intermediate class, so I walked into that class before 7, and asked Bill (the guy we had scheduled to meet with) if he could still meet after class. He said he would be able to. So afterwards we met with him and we had a really good lesson in which we learned that he has his own Book of Mormon and he is really interested in learning more about it. As we set up for a return appointment, I was surprised when he looked at me told me that I could call him "Sam." After asking a few questions, we learned that this guy wasn't Bill at all! It turns out I had asked the wrong guy in the intermediate class if he could meet and Bill had never even showed up to class. Sam, on the other hand, had, in the past, rejected the invitation to meet with missionaries, so we as a district had him marked as "not interested."  However, over time his heart was changed, and now he is meeting with missionaries (not us because he doesn't live in our area, but that's okay).

Then we had another miracle with Sam the next day. We were supposed to meet with him at McDonalds at 6 that night. We soon realized that we didn't have his number, we only had the number of the other English student, Bill. So, as the time came to meet with him, we realized there were about 5 McDonalds in our area and we had no idea which one he wanted to meet at. So we decided to go to the church and wait for him. At the church we prayed together that the Lord would help him know he needed to go to the church to meet with us. We waited for about 20 minutes and realized he wasn't coming. So as we were walking out of the church, we got a call from the sisters in the other area. They told us they had been contacting by McDonalds when they came across a student from our English class. He told them that he was about to meet with us, so they called us and we were able to get in contact with Sam! It was a miracle!  There are thousands of people in our area and the odds that the sisters ran into Sam at the time he was supposed to meet with us was a direct answer to our prayer!  I could see that the Lord really is involved in missionary work.  It is amazing how many miracles you see out in the mission field!

I got the chance to go on exchanges with the zone leaders last week. It was a really great time.  I got to learn how Elder Stevenson (the son of the Presiding Bishop!) does missionary work. He is a really cool missionary and he is going home soon. 

Oh wait, the title to my email. The reason I put that as the title was because yesterday we biked up to our branch president's house. He lives on top of a mountain. We biked straight up a mountain for about 2 hours. It was exhausting!  I finally realized why we use "mountains to climb" when we talk about a hard task that we have to do. But I did it.  And I know that as I come across more mountains in my mission, whether literal or figurative, I will be able to cross them.  With the Lord's help, of course.

I love you all and welcome home Davin and good luck Nate! 

Elder Quist

Week 47

Things are going really well here in 豐原 and the rain seems to be gone, so I am happy about that! And I am going to the temple again this week! We are going on Wednesday, so today I'm just emailing for a couple hours and then it is a normal proselyting day. 

A cool story for you from this week... A couple of weeks ago we met a kid at a bus stop and we started talking to him and he seemed pretty nice. But before we could get anywhere, his bus came and he had to go, so we didn't have a chance to get his information or anything. However, on Tuesday we had a lesson, and after the lesson we had about 15 minutes to get home and I had promised my companion I would get him a really good drink before we went home. So, we were racing to a drink stand when we passed this guy on the side of the road and I just had an impression that I should stop and talk to him. I pulled over and introduced myself. He then told me we had already met, two weeks ago at the bus stop! So we got his number this time and we invited him to church. And even better, he actually came! His name is Allen and he seems like a really nice kid. 

A sad story for you from this week... Blackie texted us and told us since he is so stressed lately, he isn't able to meet with us. It was sad, but he told us he would get in contact with us in a few weeks. I am praying that he realizes how much this church can bless him!

As I've said before, this area is a really good one. We have great members, we get fed almost every Sunday lately, and the branch president is a really good guy. We have a lot of work to do from the branch, but it is okay because they help us out a lot too. We are getting this area better and better every week. 

Besides that, we are just working harder and harder to find more people to teach. We are working with some good less-actives right now, including a less-active named Yuan, who is a really cool guy and he has been coming back to church lately. 

I am excited about the work and excited I still have more than a year to get things done! 

Love you,

Elder Quist

Week 46

Rain Rain Go Away

As the rainy season is here in Taiwan, missionary work tends to slow down. These last few weeks we have seen an exceptional amount of rain, and we actually went about 2 weeks without seeing the sun the entire time. It's not so bad, but the problem with it is people in Taiwan do not like going outside when it rains, so sometimes getting people to meet with you is hard. However, things have seemed to be clearing up this last weekend, and I think the weather is supposed to get better as the week goes on. 

Besides the rain, things are going good here in 豐原. Our investigators are working towards baptism and I think we should definitely have a baptism coming up here shortly! The thing we really need to work on now is getting more new investigators. The problem with a lot of investigators right now, including Roland, is that school has just started and students in Taiwan are really overworked in schooling. They go to school anywhere from 9 to 12 hours a day, with most of them going to school on Saturday too for at least a couple of hours. Also, since there is no college in our area, all the college age students are moving out of our area to go to college somewhere else on the island. We work hard everyday to find and teach new investigators, and I know that as I exercise diligence, faith, and patience, I can do all things.

Last week we met a lot of really cool people though, and saw a lot of miracles in contacting. One of those miracles included us meeting a less-active walking home from work one night. He had come to church that previous week for the first time in a few years, and when we met him on the street he seemed really willing to keep coming to church. Then we also met someone on the street who had been to the Taipei temple the previous week. He had gone because his good friend was getting married in the temple! He told us he thought the temple had a special feel about it and that he was really willing to meet with us to learn more about the temple. However, he can't meet until this weekend, so I guess we will see what happens then!  We also met a lot of people who were really interested in learning more about Christians! I could see God's influence last week as He was putting people who would receive us into our path.

This next week is going to be another week of miracles. I am so glad I get to serve here in 豐原.  I have learned a lot here and expect to keep learning more and more as I serve in this great area!  I am also excited to meet new people this week. I think that is one of my biggest motivations as a missionary, the motivation to go out and meet the people who are prepared to hear the gospel. It is such an exciting feeling when you meet someone who wants to learn more and it is even better when you see that person changed from the gospel. I love missionary work!  Sometimes it is hard, but the joy is a joy that you can only find when doing this great work. 

Love you and hope you have a good week,

Elder Quist