Week 53

The Lord's Hand In Our Lives

Despite the rain, this last week was a great week for me and Elder Dalmer. It rained a lot because there was supposed to be a typhoon, but at the last minute the typhoon broke up and just became a lot of rain. However, we were still able to meet with a lot of people and also meet a lot of cool new people.

Last Monday, me and Elder Dalmer biked over to KenDing, which is about a 30 minute bike ride from our house. KenDing is full of beaches and ocean. There we ate at a really good food place and celebrated me being out on my mission for a year!

Then after Monday the rain started. It seemed to rain all day for 3 days straight, which makes missionary work hard, because then nobody wants to go outside or meet with you. However, because most of the people we are working with live close to the church, we were able to just go visit a lot of our investigators.

On Thursday the weather was a little better, so we biked over to ManZhou, which is our secondary area. Basically is it filled with mountains and farms. We have an investigator out there right now, who is a farmer. His name is 郭Guo. He is a really nice christian man, who always gives us something to eat from his field. I always love meeting with him, because he just lives out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farming fields and mountains and he always goes on about the wildlife in the area.  He actually reminds me a lot of Dad. 

This last Sunday was a particularly awesome Sunday. As we did studies in the afternoon (after church) I read a talk by Elder Bednar all about the tender mercies of the Lord. He talks about how the Lord shows his hand in our lives from time to time and these little tender mercies are like anchors that can carry us through our lives. He talks about how the tender mercies come according to our faith and our obedience.  After reading this talk, Elder Dalmer and I discussed it together during companionship study. We talked about how we can be more appreciative and even more receptive to the tender mercies of the Lord. We decided that we would be actively looking for the Lord's hand in our work that night. 

Later that night, we had finished dinner early, and we decided that we would just start proselyting a little earlier than usual. Right as we left our house, we were self contacted by a person who used to go to a christian church and was really willing to start going again! That was the first time we saw the Lord's tender mercy that night. Then later we decided that we would call a member in our ward and see if we could visit her. She told us we could, so we went over to her house and had a great discussion about 1 Nephi 21(a scripture me and Elder Dalmer spontaneously decided to share with her) which talks about the Lord "engraving us upon the palms of his hand" and never forgetting us. After sharing that, she told us that before we called her that night, she had looked up in the sky and asked God if He had forgotten her. Right after she asked that, she said she got a call from us missionaries. It really struck me how the Lord is full of tender mercies and if we are willing to receive them, He is willing to show His hand in our lives. That is probably my favorite part about serving a mission. I think ever since starting my mission, I have been able to more easily see the hand of the Lord in my life and in the lives of others. I can't wait to meet more people who I will have the chance to help see the hand of the Lord in their lives! 

Love, 

Elder Quist

Week 52

NEW LIFE

Missionary work is so different down here. I am serving in one of the biggest tourist spots in Taiwan, so we meet a lot of tourists here. Contacting is hard, but I am pretty good at telling the locals apart from the tourists. 

I had a really good first week here!  The wind is so strong where I am serving, but it is so beautiful. Our apartment is about 5 minutes from the beach.  We are going to a restaurant on the beach today for lunch.  There are 2 people here who are like eternal investigators who take the missionaries out to the most beautiful areas on pdays, but we can't today because it is raining.  We are going to see the waterfalls and the fairy caves next week, though.

The branch here is really small.  There are only 15 active members, 5 of those are male members. There is a lady in the branch who owns a really nice restaurant so she bought our meals on Thursday at her restaurant. It's all seafood.  (That was my one-year mark!  That's about all I did to celebrate it.)

This last week I was able to have a baptism! It was a person who was taught by Elder Dalmer and Elder Ward (the last missionary here), but I got to meet her and she is a really cool person. Her name is Tiffany and she is 15 years old. The baptism was a pretty interesting experience. We had to go to the back of the church and in the backyard they have a "font" that was just filled with dirt and mud, so we spent about an hour just cleaning that out. Then we started to fill it up. However, what we didn't realize (until 45 minutes before the baptism) was that there was a valve we forgot to turn, so the water wasn't filling up! It was supposed to take about 2 hours to fill the whole thing, so we prayed and starting doing all we could to fill it up faster. In the end it was all okay, even though they had to squat a little further down to get all the way under. 

We also had some cool experiences here this week. In this area, every Friday afternoon we go to an old retirement home and sing songs to the old ladies there. I had to do a bunch of solos, but it wasn't so bad, because they are all old and they can't hear what we are saying anyway. 

This area is so interesting!  Apparently it used to be an ancient fortress city, so there are 4 giant brick gates in the city, one is north gate, one is south and east and west. The city really has a beach city feel to it and I am so excited to serve here!

My new companion is Elder Dalmer! He is from Oregon and he is a great guy. He came on his mission only 3 months after me, so we aren't too different in the language or in missionary skills. He is an awesome missionary.  He loves obedience. I can't wait to see what I learn from him. 

I also saw a cool miracle this week. Yesterday I decided to fast for this new area. After I fasted, however, I remembered that I didn't have that much food to break my fast. So I decided to pray. After praying I went into the kitchen, opened the cupboard, and found a box of mac and cheese! I asked Elder Dalmer about it and apparently he didn't know it was in there. It helped me realize that the Lord takes care of us through all of our needs. 

I am excited to work more with this new area and I will keep you updated on investigators.  

Thank you all so much for you support!

Oh, and there is a typhoon coming straight for us. It is supposed to be a pretty big one, so I hope it doesn't mess up our missionary work too much. I hate the rain, because no one will come out and meet with us when it rains... 

I love you all! 

Elder Quist 

Our most recent baptism, Tiffany

We have beautiful sunsets here!

Week 51

Island Jumping

I really loved this last week. The winter is coming and even though Taiwan doesn't have a real winter, it is getting cooler and cooler everyday. Last week had a very fall feel about it and I loved it. However, I need to forget all about the fall weather, because I am moving! I am moving from Fengyuan, the mission's most northern area, down to HengChun, the mission's most southern area (literally the tip of the island). Apparently it can get pretty hot here, but we are just lucky we are here in the winter and not in the summer. This area is well known for it's beautiful landscape. It is surrounded by the ocean, and apparently very beautiful. I will send some more pictures next week. Apparently, we are the only area in the mission that actually touches the east coast.

My new companion is Elder Dalmer. He has been on island just for a little less than me. He is an awesome missionary and I look forward to working with him. I also am working with a branch again, the HengChun (which means Eternal Spring) branch. I am excited that I can work with the people down here. 

This last week we saw a lot of good things. We were able to find 7 new investigators. They came from miraculous means, like English students setting up, or part member families coming to church. We also found a lot of people from our contacting efforts. I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to serve in Fengyuan! I am so sad that I had to leave, but I know I will love this new area just as much.  It will just take a little time. 

I got to see the entire island today! I road from the north all the way to the bottom. I was surprised how different Taiwan was the further we went south. You will have to pray for me, because apparently this area is pretty rural. There are a lot of stray dogs and everyone speaks Taiwanese, which is the native language of Taiwan. Although most people also speak Chinese, their Chinese is really influenced by their Taiwanese. Also, apparently there is also a lot of biking down here. Since we don't have much of a chapel, we spend a lot of our time biking and looking for investigators. I guess we will also see a lot of foreigners down here, because there is a big world renowned resort in our area called KenDing.

Lastly, we also got to watch General Conference yesterday!  We were delayed because we had to wait for the translation into Chinese (although we still watch it in English). I was so inspired!  I felt this was an especially good session of conference. I really liked the talk by Elder Holland about mothers, although it made me feel guilty for not treating my mom better. 

I hope you are all doing well in America. Congrats to Nate on passing the bar exam and congrats to Zac on getting some cool internship offers and congrats to Josh on a new job!

These move weeks, adjusting to a new area and companion, are always the hardest weeks, so please pray for me.

Love you guys,

Elder Quist

The family from our English class that came to FHE

English Party

My RC's (recent convert's) son and me

Passing through Gaoxiong on the way to my new area

Week 50

Miracles in a Different Way

This last week was a little different from the week before... we still had some miracles, but they were a different kind. We had a lot of trials, as most of our lessons cancelled or stood us up, but we kept the faith and worked as hard as we could! 

Last Saturday we had 8 lessons scheduled, but all 8 cancelled. However, since the Lord is merciful, we saw a miracle of 3 lessons on Saturday that came out of nowhere, including a lesson at a 7-11! We had just been stood up for the 4th time that day, and we decided we should go to the 7-11 to make some calls. Right when we started making calls, two guys came into the 7.  They both looked like high school students. Anyway, one of them just stopped a little ways from us and was just staring at me. So I started talking to him, and he told me they were on a 2 hour break from work. So I sat down with them and we watched "Because He Lives" together, and then we talked about God and prayer. They were really cool kids who actually pray a lot on their own (When I asked why, they just said they do. Prepared souls). So I invited them to church, but they said the weekends are the busiest time for them. Then two of their friends also came into the 7, and also said that they wanted to meet with us sometime. So we met 4 really cool people that day!

I also had the chance to have interviews with President on Wednesday. I love the opportunity to just sit with President and have some personal time to just talk. It was a good time and he gave me some great counsel. 

On Monday we had a typhoon, so President advised that we just walk and stay close to the apartment. So we just made some good calls that night. I heard though that some missionaries got blown over. (I don't know what that means, but it sounds serious!)

This may just be the last week I am in Fengyuan. I am a little sad about it as I love all the people here. I love the branch and I love the people at all the little shops. (I have a list of people who work at the local stores that I try to contact as much as possible.) I love this area!  But it's the Lord's work, and whatever He wants with me is okay. If He wants me to stay another transfer that would be great, and if He wants me to move across the island down to Gaoxiong, that would be good too.

I love Taiwan! I love the people here! I want a Taiwanese companion soon, but I guess we will see what happens with that! 

Thank you for all your support! I love you guys!

Elder Quist