Week 35- December 25, 2012

Week 35

December 25, 2012

Shengdan Jie Kuaile (Merry Christmas),

It feels so weird that it is Christmas right now. Taiwan doesn’t celebrate Christmas because most people don’t believe in Jesus Christ.  So it doesn’t feel very Christmasy, but it is nice to be in the English ward this part of year. Some families have and are having us over during this time of year so it nice to get a little bit of Christmas spirit in there.

The work was a little slow for me and my companion this past week. We had a bunch of people that set up appointments with us and then they just never showed up. That’s always a letdown because you get all prepared and then they never show. Some more good news, Benjamin committed to be baptized next Sunday.  But we told him he first had to come to church on Sunday and make a consistent effort to come weekly. It was going to be good - church Sunday, baptismal interview this week, baptism Sunday….. he was like yeah, “I’m in, let do this.”  But then he never showed up on Sunday for church and won’t answer our phone calls. Not sure what the problem is, but we are working to try and find out. Oh and the girl from Germany that we were teaching, was on the news last week. She sells like these Taiwanese cupcake things and apparently they are really good. So she was on the news which attracted tons of people. So she has to work every day now, all day. We even went out to go visit her, but the line to buy her cupcakes was huge! So we didn’t get a chance to talk with her.  Yes, another great story, another one of our investigators, Shawn, recently hasn’t answered our calls, so haven’t seen in him in 2 weeks! Then we were biking in the Taipei traffic madness and from the corner of my eye, I saw him. We stopped to talk with him and he was excited to see us. He was like, “hey can we meet tonight?” We were like, “of course” and setup a time to meet.  Then he never showed up and stopped answering his calls! Irritating...but not much is in our control. Everybody has their agency, one of the greatest gifts God has given us!

So we are struggling a bit right now in teaching people, but we're going to keep going and hopefully hit some success soon.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Elder Chatman

Week 34- December 17, 2012

Week 34

December 17, 2012

How are ya?

This weekend, we had this huge Christmas Pageant that the English ward put on. It was great! They had a real horse come in carrying Mary and Joseph. Then they had like a big lift where they had angels appear and things like that where they acted out the Nativity Story. It was awesome and we met a lot of new people from it. We spent all our Saturday helping out with that.

All this week was transfers. The way we do transfers is- everyone moving or getting a new companion, all come together to the church and then the mission president does a power point of where people are going to. I got a new companion. He is also from Taizhong, like my last companion, but is a little bit younger (19). My last companion was 26. He is very nice.

This week, our goal was to get Benjamin progressing, but that didn't work out. He didn't show up for 3 of the appointments that we set up with him. He didn't show up for the pageant like he said. He also didn't come to church like he said. When we tried to stop by his house, he was sleeping. So it was hard with him this past week, but we're going to keep trying this week.

One thing cool this week, was we were walking out on the sidewalk and I saw this girl. So I went and started talking to her. She was from El Salvador. She had been to the temple there when it was dedicated and had done the tour it before it was dedicated. I was like no way! So I invited her to come meet with us so we could talk about what we do in the temples and how we can go in.

That’s the excitement from this week. Just trying to touch as many lives as I can out here in the short time that I've got.

Happy holidays!

Elder Chatman

Jordan with his companion and a girl that reminded him of a friend back home, Sister Ge

They hang and sell chickens like this in Taiwan

Some guys they met from Sri Lanka who came for a bike event

This is from a zone meeting.

Week 33 -December 10, 2012

Week 33

December 10, 2012

Hey everyone,

Not a lot of time, so I’ll give you a quick summary.

We met this week with Mara, the girl from St. Lucia. We talked mainly about going to church, trying to help her get the motivation to come. She grew up Catholic and said going to church makes her homesick. So she doesn’t want to come and get homesick. We'll see if the Holy Ghost affects her attitude about that though!

We also went out and visited some of the ward members this week. Our old ward mission leader (who ironically is from Portland) took us out to a BBQ joint that was ridiculously good and we met his dad who was visiting. His dad had just flown in from Niger. He had been there helping, providing medical care to some of the nomadic tribes. We also met with some other families and challenged them to invite some friends to this huge Christmas Pageant performance that the ward will put on this upcoming weekend. We hope to get some solid new investigators from that...

This week we are going to meet with Benjamin and are hoping to have to him prepared for baptism by the end of month!

I've been studying the Atonement this week and I’ve really come to appreciate it so much more since being on my mission. It so cool to see people's lives change as they utilize the Atonement in their life! We all need it, regardless of how much or little we've sinned. Through the Atonement, we can become "perfect in Christ."

Love you all,

Jordan Chatman

Week 32- December 3, 2012

Week 32

December 3, 2012

Hey everyone,

Monday of this week, we went to a senior couple missionary’s house (called the Kitchens) for a family home evening with some of the Filipino and Indonesia members (and a member from Mongolia!).  We gave a spiritual message about gratitude and thanksgiving. Then the Kitchens fed all of us a mini thanksgiving dinner. Elder Kitchen was the first missionary to come to Taiwan (like more than 50 years ago or something). He came with 4 other missionaries and opened up Taiwan. His story about it is really cool.  I will tell you about it sometime.

Tuesday, we had district meeting and practiced teaching with another missionary We had some English class advertising and visited some less active members.

Wednesday, we met with Xu dixiong, our tracting miracle guy, and shared about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then at night, we had English class.

Thursday, we visited some less active members (who we found on the ward list). They let us in, but I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous in there. They had some mental issues, so they were doing some weird stuff. Like when I was saying a prayer, they were like saying stuff and telling me what to pray for...

Friday, we met with Michelle, the sister from Germany. We brought our recent convert from India, Asutosh, which was sweet. They were chatting back in forth in Hindu for a little bit. Her biggest issue right now is not coming to church. But with her becoming friends with a ward member (Asutosh) and us explaining the importance of church attendance, she should start coming ba. (ba is like the coolest Chinese word.  It’s used at the end of sentence to say like you think so, but not 100% sure).

On Saturday, Benjamin got married to a Taiwanese girl. We tried to get him to get married at our church, which would have been great because tons of nonmembers from the Caribbean islands, Africa, and Taiwan attended. But his wife’s family had already arranged it at a different church, so they did it there. The wedding has been his biggest setback because of the law of chastity (you can’t be living together unless you’re married.) Also just being busy getting ready for it, but now that it’s over, he should get rolling. It will be nice to have him help us teach other investigators because we have 2 other investigators from St. Lucia. So it would be great to have his support on working with them.

Recently it has been raining so much which is terrible trying to bike in. Plus biking in Taipei is like playing Frogger. You never know what the million taxis, buses, cars, scooters, or truck drivers are going to do, so you always got to watch your back!

This week, I read 2 Nephi 29 which is a great chapter about why we need the Book of Mormon and not just the Bible! If we ever run into someone on the street that is Christian (which is rare), they usually say that the Bible is the only word of God, so the Book of Mormon isn’t true. For that, I just pull out verse 8 and 9: "Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the ^atestimony of ^btwo nations is a ^cwitness unto you that I am God, that I remember one ^dnation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two ^enations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also. And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the ^asame yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my ^bwords according to mine own pleasure. And because that I have spoken one ^cword ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my ^dwork is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever." This answers their concern powerfully. This is because the Book of Mormon can resolve any questions or concern you are dealing with!

Happy Holidays!

Jordan Chatman

This is an ultimate frisbee game that we played.  It is at a local Elementary School.

Week 31- November 26, 2012

Week 31

November 26, 2012

Hey everyone,

We are getting into the bad weather over here. It is starting to pour rain everyday which is not fun at times because we have to go out and bike in it, which is a mess. Plus when it rains, the Taiwanese hibernate...literally, they are scared of the rain and sun (and Taiwan is just about only those 2 things so I’m not sure why they are living here. J) For example, this Wednesday, it started raining and only 4 people out of 20 showed up for English class because of it. But when it’s not raining, the temperature is perfect.

I guess I’ll give you a quick day by day run down. Monday night, we traveled about 45 min out to Beitou where we had Family Home Evening (an evening set aside for families to have a lesson and be together each week) with a Brother from Mexico and wife. Our recent convert from India lives out there also, so we wanted to take him to it. Tuesday, we had district meeting (our district consists of 3 companionship of elders). Then we had another Family Home Evening that night with a family in the Chinese ward who is getting sealed soon. Tuesday, we met with a recent convert named Julio from the Philippians and taught him a scripture in Mosiah about how through the enabling power of the Atonement, Christ can make our burdens light. After him, we met with Lin Zhi Wen. He owns a store here where they sell a food called hot pot. He recently has been going through a hard time because he had some Vietnamese people staffing for him, but their papers expired. So they were here illegally for a bit and then they got caught. So they got sent back to Vietnam. So we discussed with him about keeping God commandments and coming to Church. He hasn't made any progress since I've been here because he's unwilling to keep commitments beside prayer. Thursday, our ward mission leader (who actually lives in Portland - Brother Skanky), drove us up to the Bishop’s house on a big hill where a lot of the English ward members live. We had Thanksgiving dinner up there with the Bishop’s family and some other families in the ward. The food was ridiculously good. The Bishop went all out for this dinner. We had turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, the whole sha-bang! So good!! I felt so lucky because all of the other missionaries didn't get to do anything because it isn’t celebrated here. Friday and Saturday, I went on exchanges with the district leader, Elder Robinson. He is from California and played high school football. So it was nice to finally talk to someone that plays sports. Taipei 101 is in his area and we did some tracting and less-active visits near it. The area is really ghetto surrounding Taipei 101 until you get up right close to it and then it is super high tech. Then Saturday, we taught a sweet lesson about the Plan of Salvation to one of their investigators. That is it for this week...

I just want to say that I know without a doubt that this Church is true and it is Jesus Christ’s true church and gospel restored to the Earth today, just like when Jesus was on the earth. If you are reading this and you aren’t a member of our church, I would encourage you to talk to the missionaries and set up a time to meet with them. Meeting with missionaries doesn’t mean you have to join the church or anything. They just want to teach you a true message that will bring more happiness to your life than you can ever imagine. Hit them up and give it a try. It won’t hurt to try and wouldn’t it be worth it to know for a fact for yourself if our church is true of not? Either way, I love you guys. God is love!

Elder Chatman

Week 30- November 19, 2012

Week 30

November 19, 2012

Nimen hao,

Another quick week…. it is amazing how the mission starts to pick up and time starts to fly. My first transfer felt really slow but my last transfer flew by...

This week, Benjamin came back and showed interest again. After weeks of him falling off the face of the earth, we finally got into his apartment and were able to meet with him. He is getting married on Saturday and has been super stressed about that. The Taiwanese have a lot of culture things you got to do when it comes to marriage.  So he says he's been tied up in that and trying not to upset the in-laws. Plus, his mom is having trouble getting into the country. So he's been trying to work on that. This week we just did a little gut check lesson to see how he's spiritually doing. He said he knows the Book of Mormon is true and still wants to be baptized! After his marriage, we just got to get him to consistently come to church and then he'll be on his way!

Also, this week we got some bad news that our investigator, Ruby, from Indonesia can’t be baptized anymore. We have to be really careful teaching her because she is originally Muslim and her family in Indonesia is strong Muslim. She’s really scared that if she goes back there that she'll get persecuted. So we don’t want to baptize her and then have her go back next year and have something bad happen.

The biggest problem we are having right now with our investigators is that they won’t come to church. They will say they will come to our face, but then Sunday rolls around and they don’t come. We’ll even call them Saturday night or Sunday morning, but they don’t answer their phone. It’s hard to progress if you’re not coming to church. So we got some work to do with them.

It started to get really cold out here...for Taiwan that is. My companion is freezing but I’m good because it’s nothing compared to the Washington cold (which isn't even that bad). So to me, the weather is perfect right now, not too cold and not hot. If only it would stay like this year around.

I feel really lucky to be in the English ward this time of year because in the ward there is a bunch of us Americans. So they celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. So this Thursday, I’ll get hooked up for Thanksgiving.  It is just a normal day for all of the other missionaries in Taiwan. My bishop in the English ward is having us over.

It’s a great time of year. Let your light shine to everybody around you. Be an example of the believers!

Love,

Jordan Chatman

Week 29- November 12, 2012

Week 29

November 12, 2012

Hey everyone,

The highlight of this week was probably Benjamin. I told you the story of him running away last week and so we had been scared that this was going to be it with teaching him. But we had been praying a lot for a miracle with him. And so this week, we dropped of a card at his house with our testimonies on it. Then yesterday, he called us up and acted like nothing had happened, but said he wants to meet again and still be baptized on December 1st!

Also, this week we met this way cool girl from Germany named Michelle. She had been meeting with the other elders before, but because we are the English ward elders, we get to teach her. This week we did a temple tour with her. A temple tour basically is that we and the sister missionaries do a tour of the church right next to the temple and talk about the temple. It’s a really great spiritual experience for investigators. For Michelle, it was went really well and she kept asking, "What do I got to do to go in?" We talked about how baptism was a start and set a goal for her to be baptized next month. This girl is really good. She can speak 7 different languages (include Hindi - what they speak in India) almost fluently!

This week somebody let us into their house during tracting and he was really receptive to our message. He wants to read the Book of Mormon, come to church, get baptized and everything! It is great! That’s my first time having someone let me in their house during tracting.

The Book of Mormon is true! Joseph Smith was a prophet of God! Through prayer, reading, and pondering you can know this! No doubt in my mind.

Peace,

Jordan Chatman

Week 28 -November 5, 2012

November 5, 2012

Week 28

Happy late Halloween from Taipei (although it’s not celebrated here),

This week I and my companion did a lot of tracting. Our mission president wants us to find some more families to teach so we went tracting. What tracting basically is, is that you go from door to door looking for someone who is interested in hearing you. In Taipei there are only apartments so you can’t knock door to door.  Instead outside of the apartments they have a big box with every apartment’s doorbell and a speaker. So you ring the doorbell and then they pick up by speaking and you try to convince them through the speaker to set aside 5 minutes to here a message from you. Tracting doesn’t produce a ton of success here. But every now and then you can find someone willing to speak with you for a few minutes. We probably rang around 100 doorbells this week and only got about 5 people to talk with us.  An older man got mad that we were tracting and threaten to call the cops on us if we didn’t leave. But tracting isn’t illegal or anything bad, so we were like cool go ahead and call. Of course he didn’t and just walked away.  Then right after that a family let us up to their apartment to talk with them, but they ended up rejecting us.

Oh yeah another story (sad one)...one of our great investigators named Benjamin from St. Lucia island was scheduled to be baptized next month. This man was doing awesome and really making some progress. But recently he stopped answering our calls. So we went to his apartment to visit him. He lives in a room on the roof of an apartment building and outside of the door to get into his room is another door with a crack in the top. We came up to that door and knocked. From the crack, I could see him in his room run away into a different room and try to hide. He never came out and answered the door and acted like he wasn’t home. I don’t know if he knew it was us at his house but he has pretty much fallen off of the map! He’s getting married soon though, so maybe he's just stressed with that or something.

I've been thinking a lot this week about revelation and what we can do to receive revelation in our own lives. This is so important for our investigators because if they don’t receive personal revelation, they can never really know if our church is true or not. D&C is filled with scriptures about principles pertaining to how revelation works. I like the scripture in D&C 8:2 that talks about receiving the Holy Ghost through our feelings and thoughts. It says-“Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.” This is a hard thing to do because we are constantly thinking and feeling within ourselves. A general authority in the MTC compared this to having a constant stream of thoughts and feelings in our daily lives and every now and then God will drop in a tiny pebble of revelation. We have to be sure that we are prepared and not pre-occupied so that we can discern this revelation. I know this Church is true! God lives! Jesus is our Redeemer! Through faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end we can utilize his Atonement fully into our lives!

Peace!

-Jordan Chatman

Jordan and his trainer Elder Bowcutt got to go back to Bade and baptize the 2 kids, Curtis and Janet, of the the Lin Family they taught while they were there together

Baptism of Ashutosh (middle) and Rose Andres (far right), 2nd right (Elder Wang, Jordan's companion), 2nd left (Jordan Mayberry) He is a cool member that Jordan loved to talk sports with.

This is a place that Jordan ate lunch at - cheap dumplings for a little less than 2 bucks!

Jordan being cool with two of his missionary buddies during English meeting - left Elder Frank Xu, and on the right Elder Zhong

A Halloween activity that the missionaries did in the Jin Hua Ward. This is the ward mission.There were eight missionaries in that ward

Week 27- October 29, 2012

Week 27

October 29, 2012

Hey everybody!

This week was a good one to say the least. Yet again, we came in contact with people from all around the world (Singapore, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Honduras, Hong Kong, and Guatemala just to name a few).

The highlight of this week was definitely me and Elder Bowcutt’s journey back to my homeland of Bade. We arrived an hour early to find that the baptismal font (where they perform the baptism) was broken and the whole chapel had no water. So we ended up getting some clean garbage cans and rolling them across the street. We filled them up and then dumped them into the font. We ended up only having one and a half feet of water. That’s it!! So I had to baptize the 16 year old son and I tried 3 times but it was impossible to get him completely under! (When we baptize people, it is by immersion and their whole body has to go all the way under.) So finally he had to lie down to do it. One of us had to hold his legs down while the other baptized him. But on the way down, he hit his head on the step in the font! I will just say, it was a crazy baptism but we got the job done. We baptized the daughter and son. The mom is also ready to be baptized, but wants to wait for the dad before she'll get baptized. The dad has a smoking problem right now, so we'll see how that goes out there. Anyways, it was a great experience to go out there.

Also, this week we had two baptisms of our own. The first was Asutosh. He is from India and is the most Christ like person you'll ever meet. He is here studying. Then a sister from the Philippians, named Roseandres, was also baptized. We had both of their baptisms yesterday after Church and so many people came that not everyone could fit in the room. It was great! The baptism went well!

It is funny. A lot of missionaries over here think that China is going to open up (for missionary work.) Some missionaries have been having dreams about going to China and a few days ago at a meeting our Mission President said that some big changes are going to be made soon that will amazes us. He said that all of us younger missionaries will have to become leaders and senior companions. Not sure what changes he talking about but we'll see what happens. I’m thinking they might reopen up the Gaoshang mission (southern Taiwan) or something. I’ll keep ya'll posted.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to love the Book of Mormon even more! I really love how it answers the questions of our soul, such as what happens after we die, why are we here on earth, etc. The Book of Mormon has the answers to them all. Whoever you are, you need to read the Book of Mormon and ponder it every day! I feel one of Satan’s biggest tricks is to make us forget the eternal perspective. Reading the Book of Mormon helps us keep the eternal perspective!

God is Love,

Jordan Chatman

This is Jordan with some other elders, eating lunch with Rusty, who is a member in the Jin Hua Ward. This is on a pday. Elder Teshima is next to Jordan. 

Week 26- October 24, 2012

Week 26

October 24, 2012

Hi everyone,

This last week some local news people wanted to film our English class that we have every Wednesday. So if you saw the short clip that was me and another elder from Las Vegas teaching our class.

This week was crazy. We taught and met people from all over the world. Let me list the ones I can think of off the top of my head - India, Gambia, Ghana, France, Italy, St. Lucia, and mainland China. Being in the English ward is cool because there are tons of foreigners here, so we are the elders that get to teach them. Yesterday I got to eat octopus and seaweed soup. That was interesting!

This past week we had a baptism. It was a Phillipino sister who is here working. A lot of Philippines and Indonesian sisters come here and take care of the elderly people (because they don’t have elderly care homes here like in America). The baptism went great. We were a little bit scared at first because 5 minutes before the baptism started she wasn’t there and the person baptizing her wasn’t there either. They eventually got there, but then we couldn’t find a baptismal suit that fit her (it was either huge or way to small.) We eventually found one though. Another funny thing that happened was that she went to the bathroom to come into the font. So the guy baptizing her came out, but she never did. It was because the door to the font was locked. So we had to give her the keys to unlock it and then she got baptized. Other than that, it went good.

We also have two baptism scheduled for this upcoming Sunday. A twenty one year old young man from India and another Phillipino sister are both getting baptized. Both of them were awesome. The young man from India was amazing. He had already being living all of the commandments without even knowing because the culture in India has pretty high morals from what he says.

This week we got a call from my old companion (Elder Murphy) in my old area in Bade. He said the Li family I was teaching when I was there is getting baptized this week and wants me to baptize them. It takes about one hour and a half to get there. My first companion (Elder Bowcutt) called us up and said he talked to President Day and said we can go on splits (this is when you switch missionary companions for the day.) So me and Elder Bowcutt will go to Bade this weekend and help baptize the family and my companion and Elder Bowcutt’s companion will stay here. I’m happy that I get to go to Bade to baptize them.

Anyways that is the news here!

Jordan Chatman

A lady on the streets with a pig

In the middle is Rosemarie. She is an investigator that Jordan baptized from the Philippians. On the right is Rose Andres. She is another investigator that Jordan baptized from the Philippians

This is Xin Beitou which is the city where Ashutosh lives. The MRT we take to and back from visiting him

This is the same city where the investigator lives

Elder Wang, Jordan's companion, at the MRT station

The lady with her pig on the street

The baptism of the Phillipino, Sister Rosemarie that Jordan taught

A part member family (Lai4) that they were teaching. The kids were members and loved basketball but their dad wasn't a member

A less active member from Ghana that we surprised visited

Jordan's area

This is the church (Church headquarters in Taiwan) right next to the temple which would be a few feet to the right from this picture and mission office across the street from where they were

Week 25- October 14, 2012

Week 25

October 14, 2012

Hey everyone!

I feel like I was just here writing my weekly letter home, time flies...

The highlight of this week was General conference (this is where the prophet and apostles of our church speak worldwide to everyone in the church.)  I've never been so excited to listen to Conference. It was the real deal. Elder Holland's talk was powerful and really profound. It was interesting to think about do we really love God and how do we show it? I feel like sometimes I’m like, yeah of course I love God, but then when you really start thinking deep about it, you realize that there are things you can do or stop doing to really show your love for God more. I loved Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about people’s common regrets in life and being happier. I loved Elder Eyring”s Sunday morning talk as well as Elder Bendars. Elder Bednar gave a similar talk to that while I was in the MTC, which I already talked about in my previous letter, so I won’t expound on it more…just that it was a great talk. You gotta love Elder Nelson’s shout out to the missionaries in his talk, "Ask the missionaries." I heard about the whole missioaryn age change thing (now the boys can go on a mission at age 18 and the girls at age 19 years old.)  That'll be good especially for the sisters because they need more sister missionaries out there. Sister missionaries are honestly way better than the elders!  Conference was also cool because our St. Lucian investigator, Benjamin came. He is close to getting baptized (he has to get married next month first), but he wasn’t sure if president Monson really is a true prophet of God. But after to going to conference he knows that he is!

This week we had a funeral in our chapel for an older member that died recently. The crazy thing was that he was the only member in his family and he said in his will that he wanted his funeral done in our chapel. So a ton of non members showed up to the funeral (90% of the people there.) Some were mad that the funeral was being held in our church because a lot of them were Buddhist.  In fact, one time when a man was speaking saying how cool it was that our church has hope for an afterlife, a non member guy shouted out "are you Buddhist or a Mormon?!" He was obviously mad that he was supporting our church’s teachings. But after the funeral, we got to talk to some of the non member people there.

Another cool thing is that we have a baptism this upcoming Thursday. It is the awesome Philippino sister named Rosemary. It is going to be at 8:30am so I don’t know who’s going to show up!

The language just keeps getting better and better. The hardest thing though is when during lessons the investigators and members start speaking Taiwanese. I have no idea what they are saying when that happens and Taiwanese is super hard to learn. Plus we're not allowed to learn it, only suppose to focus on Chinese. It’s all good though!

That’s the what’s up over here. Hope everyone learned great things from Conference.

Jia You (keep working hard!)

-Jordan Chatman

Jordan in the back.  This was at the 3rd transfer

Week 24- October 7, 2012

Week 24

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Hi everyone,

Another week has gone by fast. It is amazing how fast the weeks go by. This week our main focus was a Philippine sister named Rosemary and a young man from India. Both of them are really close to being baptized this month, so we are really trying to help them get there. We also met this guy from Canada. He left everything he had in Canada to move here and marry a Taiwanese girl. But when he got here, her parents were against it. So she ended up leaving him. Now he is stuck here without a job and has been really depressed. He had been doing well in Canada, but since being here his life has been messed up. So this led him to meeting with us. We were helping him learn about our purpose in life. The lesson we had with him went great and he is willing to stop smoking, drinking and everything else, to turn his life around. Then yesterday, we called him to invite him to church. But he's now going back to Canada because his old job opened up. So hopefully, the missionaries over there can keep teaching him.

Also, this week, we went on about a 30 minute MRT ride to Xin Zhuang, where this recently converted (newly baptized member) man from Africa lives. He had not been heard from recently, so the bishop wanted us to go see how he's doing. So we went out to his house, on the roof of this apartment, which was really hard to get into. All the people there only spoke Taiwanese, so I couldn’t understand. Luckily, my companion speaks it, so we finally got in. After all that though, he wasn’t even home. Oh well, it was the effort that counts.

Last night, we had a fireside for all of the newly baptized people and investigators (people wanting to learn about the church). That was really spiritual until one of the speakers, a new member, started singing and clapping during her talk and talking about her reincarnation. (not something we believe in!) Yeah -not sure about her situation... 

We didn't get to watch General Conference (a broadcast from our prophet and his apostles.) They tape it and then a guy from the old ward in Bade, translates it into Mandarin Chinese. It is for everyone in Taiwan that wants to watch it in Mandarin. But we'll be able to watch it in English next week.

The city is good. It’s just like a crowded Las Vegas here. Biking is crazy because the drivers are crazy and it is packed with scooters and taxis and cars.  We're in the middle of downtown. We live about a 15 minute bike ride from the temple. We live in a really nice apartment. It is really small, just one big area and a bathroom. Some of the other missionaries in the area have big apartments but they live in the ghetto. So I love it where I’m at. Taipei isn’t as nice as everyone says. Before in America, everyone said how nice and technologically updated and stuff it is, but it’s pretty dirty and not that nice. There are some nicer areas though.

The wards here are good, probably around 75 to 100 people at church. There are 8 missionaries in the Chinese ward - us, the assistants, the temple sisters, and 2 other elder.  The English ward members are awesome and really supportive.

That’s about it here. This gospel changes lives!

Love,

Jordan Chatman

Week 23-September 30, 2012

Week 23

Hi everyone,

The new area I’m in is sweet. It’s cool being able to teach in both English and Chinese. This week, I got to teach people from all over the world. One of our best investigators is young adult named Ashutosh. He is from India and came over to Taiwan to study and work. He said he grew up a bit in the Hinduism religion, but his family didn't really believe in it. He lives about an hour from where we live, but we traveled by the MRT out to his apartment last week and met with him. He told us a cool experience about how he used to have really bad nightmares. Then one day, he met the missionaries in his area. They taught him about prayer. Then that night he had another bad dream and in the dream, he prayed the way the missionaries taught him and asked in the prayer to be safe. Then he woke up and hasn't had another nightmare since. He has come to church the past 2 weeks and should be ready for baptism here in another few weeks.

We also met for the first time with the awesome young adult sister from St. Luscious which is an island in the Caribbean Sea. Her Jamaican English accent is sweet.  But we had a great lesson with her. We shared the restoration of the gospel and she started crying during the lesson. She was touched by the spirit.

Sunday, we had a great lesson about the Word of Wisdom (our health code in the church) with a Philippine sister. She is also close to being baptized soon. She has a great spirit about her. We have 4 Philippine investigators right now and they are all great. They are really nice and loving people.

Also, Sunday we called a young man, we had met on the street, to invite him to church and he came. He is this really cool, nice, black man with cornrows from St. Luscious Island as well. He liked church and setup to meet with us later this week

So, we have a bunch of great investigators and then, of course, we have some not so great ones. We met on Tuesday with this younger American guy from New York who teaches English here. He just wanted to debate the whole time and was spitting anti-Mormon stuff at us left and right. He wanted scientific evidence of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, which actually we could show to him. But would that have any effect? No, because there would be no faith. Ether 12:6 says, “Faith is things which are hoped for, which are not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.”

Also, we had a baptism this week. It was a Chinese man that has changed a lot. He used to smoke and to do a bunch of bad things. But through the gospel, he was able to change his life and was baptized this weekend.

That’s the scoop over here.

Have a good week!

Love,

Jordan Chatman