Week 14-July 29, 2012

Hey everyone,

The highlight of this week was probably Saturday. On Saturday I got the opportunity to baptize one of our investigators named Liao Dixiong, a man probably about in his 30's. That was a wonderful experience and a really happy day for him. Baptisms here are a lot different than at home. We only had 6 people besides us show up to the baptism! 2 of those people were our investigators and 3 of them were a family. At home, baptisms are usually packed and there is a big celebration afterwards- a little different here.

We have a baptism setup for this upcoming Saturday and the Saturday after that too. So this area has been doing great in missionary work. We actually had another baptism setup with this 18 year old girl who works at a shop. Her boss and coworkers were recently baptized. So when we have met with her, it has been good to have them there. So her baptism was setup for late August and on Thursday, we went over to teach her at her work.  When we showed up, she was passed out drunk on the couch! This was not good!! So she is going need a little more help and time!

Otherwise, we've been teaching a lot of people.

I know this is God's true Church again restored to the Earth today! I wouldn’t be out here if it wasn’t.

-Jordan

 This is Jordan's companion, Liao Dixiong, and Jordan at the church.  This is the Jordan's first baptism in Taiwan.  He got to baptize Liao, who is a man in his 30's who they were teaching.

This is a meal at an Italian restaurant there.  Jordan said it is cheaper to eat out there than it is to buy groceries.  Groceries are really expensive. This meal cost $3. 

Week 13- July 22, 2012

Hey eveyone!

It’s amazing how fast the weeks go by. So this week we had 40 lessons, which is unheard of! The standard is like 20 lessons or something and we blew that away. They are so many people here that are interested in hearing the gospel, so we have been really busy trying to teach everyone.

This week I got to go on exchanges, which means you switch companions for the day. I went to a bigger city called Taoyan. I went with 2 of the missionary leader missionaries (a zone leader and assistant to the president). That was cool because both of them are from Taiwan. Their English was pretty good so it was awesome to work on my Chinese with them. I met a ward member while I was with them who is an Aborigine. This means his ancestors were one of the first people to live in Taiwan. So basically like a Native American in America. The Aborigines here look like Native Americans. He was a really cool guy and helped us teach an investigator.
So there is this older lady scheduled to be baptized next week. But she called us this week and said that she didn’t want to get baptized anymore because she has no friends at church and her body just can’t take going to Church (she is like in her upper 70's). So went over there and talked about how what really matters is the next life and how she needs baptism to be saved! Plus we said if she really believes that this is the true Church, then those others concerns shouldn’t matter. So she now is going to get baptized again and said she made up her mind that she wants baptism.
A lot of people hear smoke! My companion guessed probably about 65% of adults smoke! So we have been trying to help a few people give up their addictions. They have read the Book of Mormon and prayed so they know this church is true and want baptism. They just struggle to give up smoking in order to receive baptism! So we have been working with a few people on that!
People here are really poor compared to America. Some of the poorest people in America would be considered rich here! I haven’t seen any houses yet! People live in apartment type things and in really dirty living conditions. But they are some of the nicest people and are happy!  I have heard now 9 languages - English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Tag log, Spanish, and Indonesian.
Some cool things, if some says your name trying to get your attention, you can say "yo"!  It’s real Chinese so I like doing that! The fruit here is really good, especially the mangos! They have the things called fruit milks. It is milk that tastes like the fruit. So good! My favorite is probably the papaya milk!

We do personal study time for 4 hours each day. 

1 hour is personal study - Book of Mormon, Preach my Gospel, etc.

2 hours is companion study - role plays, plan lessons, etc.

1 hour is language study - study Chinese

We do that everyday for the first 12 weeks and then study time gets smaller

The ward is really friendly. We had 14 investigators at Church yesterday! We actually have 2 sets of missionaries in the ward...us and the 2 others we live with. The ward loves missionaries. There is a members in their early 20's that are single and not doing much, so they help us teach lessons.

We get some member referrals.

Anyways to close, I want to say. I know this Church is God's true. I know the Church was restored to the earth today through Joseph Smith. I know that the promise in the Book of Mormon is real! If you read and pray about the Book of Mormon with a sincere heart, you will receive an answer that it is a true book from God. Everyone that hears the message about the Book of Mormon and has sincerely done that, has received an answer! Those that didn’t really read or didn’t pray with a true desire, never received answers!

Elder Chatman

This is of me and the Taiwanese missionaries when I went on exchanges. The one on the left is the Assisant to the mission president, Elder Fang, and the one on the right is the zone leader, Elder Sheng. He is really dark and jokes saying he is black and my brother.

This is at the chapel after a rain storm. Jordan was soaked head to toe!! This happens often when you bike

 This is Maguire, a less active they were helping with great English. He loves the Elders

Week 12- July 15, 2012

Dear Family,

On Wednesday, a couple from the ward here in Bade drove us in their van to Taipei for the temple trip. A temple trip happens once every 12 weeks. Driving here is crazy. We didn’t even have seatbelts in the van we were in. Driving laws are never followed here and they aren’t enforced so people go whatever speed they want, they run lights, they honk at you if you’re in their way and pass slower cars all of the time. It’s crazy. But we made it to the Taipei temple safely. It takes about 45 minutes to get there by car. We went to the temple for a couple hours then came back home. Then later that night, we had an hour and a half English class we teach every week. I teach the intermediate level English. This week I taught them body parts and colors and then talked about the Book of Mormon.

Every day, we have studies for 4 hours. I actually really like studies. My favorite part is personal study. I usually read the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes, the Preach my Gospel booklet, and a book called Our Search for Happiness (by M. Russell Ballard, one of the Church Leaders).

Right now we are teaching a girl named Jan Wen Wen. She is getting really close to getting baptized. She’s been praying and reading the Book of Mormon and knows that this church is true. The only problem is that she works on Sunday so she can’t come to church. We have to resolve that problem and then she'll be able to be baptized. She also has a younger sister that is close to getting baptized but she has the same problem as well. Their older sister got baptized a few months ago and is strong in the Church, so it would be great if they all would be able to get baptized.

My favorite investigator is a lady from the Philippines. She is a care taker here in Taiwan. I like her lessons because they are in English. So I can say a lot more...she has been keeping commitments like not having coffee and keeping the commandments but is having a hard time accepting baptism because her mom from the Philippines doesn’t want her to be baptized.

We had a baptism Saturday and then on Friday we had a miracle lesson. We’ve been meeting with a guy here who is really busy because he works in insurance. He has been struggling with faith. So in the lesson we were like, you gotta make up your mind. We believe you believe in the things, you need them in your life, so take that leap of faith and be baptized. He said yes and will be baptized in 2 Saturdays! So that was awesome.

Then there is an older lady that used to be Buddhist but she felt it wasn’t right. She found our church and knows that is true. We asked her to be baptized and she was like yeah of course. She is awesome and wants these things so badly in her life because she knows they are from God. She will be baptized in 3 Saturdays.

One Friday, me and my companion got to go to Taipei again! It took us 2 hours to get there. We take the bus and then the train. Wow, I never knew so many people could fit in a subway. I literally had people up against me from all sides. You seriously couldn’t fit any more people in the subway. Then right when I think that, at the next stop, more people come in and shove people out the way and squeeze in. It is wild. We went to Taipei because the mission president had a training conference with all of the trainers (missionaries teaching us new missionaries) and the district and zone leaders. That was cool because I saw all of my buddies from the MTC. I haven’t seen them since the plane ride here. It was cool to talk with them and see how they are doing. The only people I didn’t see was an Elder from Australia that I’m friends with and one of my companions from the MTC. They are on like the east coast and down south, almost by the southern tip of Taiwan. It would take them about 5 hours to get to Taipei so they didn’t get to come. I hope I get the chance to serve part of my mission down where they are at for a bit.

Love,

Jordan

A bug trap that they set in their kitchen.  It is full of cock roaches.

This is part of the area where they bike on their mission. 

This is Jordan's trainer with Penny, a member, whose sister was an investigator and the other sister got baptized. Penny herself was a recent convert of less than a year.

This is Jordan eating pea soup at investigator Jimmy's house and loving it!!  HA! HA!

This is Jordan's apartment where he stays in Taiwan.  He shares it with three other missionaries.

This is Jordan's bed....notice the basketball on the floor

These are some investigators that they are teaching. - Jimmy was the investigator, plus his sister and friend

Jordan

Week 11- July 8, 2012

We are going to the temple today, so that’s why our p-day (preparation day) got moved to today instead of 2 days ago. (It is usually on Mondays but this week was on Wednesday.

We bike about 10 minutes to a computer cafe place. This is how we are able to email.

My companion is cool. He's been on his mission about 1 year. He has been in this area for 8 months so  people all know him and love him here.

We are in the Bade area on Jieshou road. It is southwest of Taiwan. You can probably look it up on google maps. The place that we stay is nice. It is 4 of us living there. They say that it is one of the nicest apartments in the mission. The bad thing is we have cockroaches crawling around!

Something cool, right outside our apartment people set up stands and sell fruit. They have all kinds of crazy fruits and you can get good deals. Then there is a drink place nearby. You can get a big sized mango smoothie for $1.

We had a great bond with everyone in the MTC and I thought we would see each other here. But when you get here. you find your trainer and then you are gone. I haven’t seen any of them. Well actually one kid is in my zone from the MTC but we only see them like once a month. Hopefully I will get to be with one of the kids from the MTC because they were great.

The message is received nicely. The people either say no thanks or are interested in meeting. This area has the most activity right now

People like the missionaries it seems. The kids on the streets laugh at us. People stare a lot at us but most people are pretty friendly. People always say you are really tall.

In Chinese being real tall is called " hen gao."

Chopsticks are different. At first I couldn’t use them at all but now I am getting a little better. They don’t have forks here. They use a big spoon and chopsticks so that has been fun trying to learn those.

Oh it rained last week for the first time.  That was terrible. It poured so hard. I had a rain coast on but still got drenched. It is still hot when it rains and the rain just keeps coming. Not cool when it rains and trying to bike in it!

American food is really expensive here and I can’t find much. I’ve been starving most of the time here. I’ve been living off of oatmeal, eggs, and pb and j and those protein bars you sent.  

It’s really different here. Nothing like I expected. It is not a third world country or anything but it is definitely not America….not houses.

It’s been a change trying to get use to it.

Chinese has slowly been getting better. I can understand a bit more and more everyday of what people are saying. What doesn’t help is the fact that they have an accent here. For sh sounds they just say s. so like shen means God. So instead of shen like so sen. They speak so fast too. But my companion’s Chinese is really good so it has been great to be able to learn from him

 So every Wednesday we teach English class. I have to teach my own class of about 15 people. Their English is pretty good. They can understand you, so you just speak English the whole time and play games with them. We do it at the church. It is us 4 missionaries in the area. It is an hour of class where we play games and teach them some stuff. Then the last 30min we teach a spiritual message. I taught the 10 commandments. There is a lot of non members there so the English class is away for us to try and get new investigators.

I’m in a great area. We have some of the highest numbers in the mission. My companion said he thinks were setting records. Its mainly him carrying the load because he knows the language and he's a stud at missionary work. But I’ve been saying a bit more and more in lessons. We teach like 5 lessons a day and a lot of people of are on the edge of getting baptized.

We teach a lot of people from different countries. One investigator is from the Philippines. She came to Taiwan to be a care taker. She believes in everything about the church but her mom is Roman Catholic and doesn’t want her to get baptized. So it is hard for her to commit to baptism. Right now we are teaching hee to keep commitments like not drinking tea. A lot of people love their tea but she had been willing not to drink it so far.

 Biking is crazy. We are in one of the highest biking areas. It takes us like 30 mins to get to our teaching appointments by bike. We bike everywhere. So by the end of the night, I am dead tired. Plus it is so hot that I sweat like no other. One of our investigators asked if I just took a shower because sweat was all over my hair and face that she really thought I had just showered. We have district meeting once a week. It takes us 45 mins to get there.

Food is not bad. I’m not a big fan of the traditional Taiwanese meal. We went to a member’s house the other day. You have some rice then you scoop from some bowls of weird meat and spicy vegetable stuff. One of the foods was those little 1 inch fish that you see in the lake, head and all. It was not very appetizing!

Love,  Jordan

Jordan on one of his pdays.

Above are a Pday trip they took to a nearby mountain with members and other Elder's in the ward

Common Buddhist temple

outside an investigator's house - Tang Brothers

This is the area of - Ba1 de2

This is the Taoyuan and Xinzhu Zones. Jordan is in the very back middle.

Week 10 -Taiwan -July 1, 2012

I don’t even know where to start…… 

We arrived around 11pm in Taipei. Then our mission president and the APs (missionaries that are the assistant to the president) picked us up. As soon as I stepped out of the air conditioned airport I just started sweating. It is so hot, it is like you hit a wave of heat. I return every day to our apartment drenched in sweat and dead tired after biking around all day.

But anyways, we got to the mission home which is right across from the temple. Then we got our bags and went the temple patron rooms in the mission home building. We didn’t get to bed until 2am and then had to wake up at 5:30am. We woke up, got ready, and then went to a place called the Grand Hotel. You should look it up. It is really nice. There is a hill by it where Taiwan was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel. We went there and read the dedicatory prayer. Then we went back to the mission home and ate these weird egg meat sandwiches for breakfast. Then we did some orientation stuff and met our trainers at 12. After meeting with all of these trainers, they assigned us our areas and sent us on our way. It’s crazy! They just throw you right into the fire. I had like 2 min to pack some stuff into my backpack and then leave with my trainer. I had to leave my bags in the mission home and they transfer them to your apartment. I just got them on Saturday. So I had to live in the same clothes for a few days.

So we got called to an area called Bade/Taoyan. It took us 2 hours to get there but you could drive there in 45 min. It is south west of Taipei. So we walked to the train station, took an hour train ride and then an hour bus ride Bade. We got there and then immediately had to go teach a lesson at some investigators. We had to bike to their home thing. Biking is the craziest thing. Cars and motorcycles fly by you going 50 and they are crazy drivers. I thought I was going to die the first time biking. By now I’m use to it. You just gotta be careful. No problems so far. So anyways, we taught an investigator. The language is a nightmare. I don’t understand 95% of what the people are saying in the lessons. So my companion carries the load. I just bare my testimony and then we have members at all of our lessons. They are really helpful.

My companion is Elder Bowcutt from Florida. He is a stud. I’m so glad I got him. He is a great trainer. His Chinese is fantastic! He speaks fluently with the natives and he teaches really well.  He is really nice and helpful. He took Chinese for 3 years before the mission.

Fast Sunday, yesterday was crazy. A member was suppose to feed us dinner but forgot so we didn’t end up eating until 9pm last night. So I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and protein bar from your package for dinner. A little different than our normal Sunday barbeque chicken, eh?

We have stuff to do all day. We have teaching appointments from 12 - 8:30. We bike from place to place teaching and teaching. We’ve already asked like 4 people to be baptized. They all have said that if they get an answer they will. The Pilipino lady called us (and I talked to her because she knows English) and she said she wants to get baptized. But then she called in the morning and said her mom doesn’t want her too (she is like in her 30s and lives by herself, so I don’t know why her mom tells her what to do) so we are gonna talk to her again this week to tell her to keep praying and reading.

One crazy story- so last night we went to go teach a Indonesian lady and her sister at their home (which is a tiny place with two small rooms). We show up and there is like 5 people dressed up in blue uniforms there. They liked had their right arms raised and they were blessing house. They were doing these chants, then yelling, and hollering and shaking their hands. It was crazy. I had absolutely no idea what they were saying but then they left and we went in and talked to them about the Book of Mormon and prayer.

Anyway that is how things are going so far.

Love,

Jordan

This is all the incoming missionaries coming to Taiwan. On the left is Pres. Grimley and his wife who were leaving in three days.  This is at the Taiwan Dedicatory site.

All the trainers with their new missionaries.

Jordan with his first trainer, Elder Bowcutt.  He was a worker.

Jordan with President and Sister Grimley.  They were his Mission President for a week until the new one came, President and Sister Daye.

Week 9-Leaving to Taiwan- June 26, 2012

This week was the last week before Jordan left.  He did not have time on his pday to write a letter because of packing and all the things they needed to do to get ready to go.  But I, mom, will fill in a few things he said over his short emails and his phone conversation from the airport.  The big event for him was the Sunday before he left.  He was very thrilled to be at church with the prophet and many of the apostles of our church.  He got to prepare the sacrament for the congregation and then bless the bread.  He was thrilled to have been sitting very near where the prophet was.  The prophet spoke for an hour and a half to the new mission presidents getting ready to go on into the field. Mission Presidents are a married couple who are over a mission and they run the whole mission.  They supervise the missionaries and all the many assignments that go with that.  They serve for 3 years.   Jordan got to meet his new mission president, Pres. Daye and his wife at the MTC right before he was leaving.  They are from Tennessee and he liked them a lot!   They will be heading out at the beginning of July.  So he will have Pres. Daye for nearly his whole mission.

He left to Taiwan on Tuesday, June 26. In the airport, he ran across some students who were speaking Chinese.  So he stuck his head in their conversation and spoke Chinese to them.  One of the kids was from Taiwan.  He was very curious about Jordan and why he was here.  He told him he was going to serve in his country for 2 years for his church.  The guy was intrigued. They conversed in mostly english for a few minutesand a little bit of Chinese.  The students were here studying English.  It was interesting how our quiet Jordan is now starting conversations with others.  He was so thrilled to be going to Taiwan.  He called on Wednesday night from Taiwan. He had 60 seconds to tell us that he made it there and that he was fine. We were very happy that he made it there safely.

 This is a picture of Jordan and Carter Lindquist.  He is a young man who is in our Stake back in Vancouver, WA.  He got in the MTC a couple of weeks before Jordan left.  Carter is going on a mission to Mexico.  They were excited to see each other.

 One of Jordan's MTC teacher Liu DiXiong.

Jordan's other MTC teacher Hong Laoshi and Elder Rylea

Jordan's MTC teachers and district

Jordan and Elder Edwards on a temple walk from the MTC