Week 22- September 23, 2012

Week 22

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Hey everybody,
This week was exciting! To start last week, I got the call that I was going to be moving to a different area. My two companions got the call that they would both stay there but train two brand new missionaries. So on Thursday, they had to go to Taipei for a meeting to learn about how to train the new missionaries. So that means I stayed and spent the day in my area with Elder Beck. He was an elder who I was in the MTC with (his companion who is from Singapore, also had to go to the meeting in Taipei). So Elder Beck and I spent the day doing missionary work. That was an adventure because we've both only been here about three months. So our Chinese isn’t the greatest but we managed to get through the day. We had to teach the law of chastity later that night to a family which was interesting because teaching that subject in English is hard enough. We had never taught it before but it turned out okay because we brought a member that helped us. Then later the next morning, we woke up and traveled to Taipei for the meeting to find out where we were being transferred. That was another adventure because we had to take a bus to the train station, but none of the buses would stop for us (probably because we are wei guo ren -foreigners). It wasn’t until a Taiwanese grandma came to the bus stop that a bus finally stopped. We took the bus to the train station, but we weren’t really sure which stop to stop at and then which MRT subway to take.  The MRT station is huge and confusing. We both can’t read Chinese characters because we aren’t supposed to be learning those yet. But luckily some ladies started talking to us and they were members of the church. So they help us find our way. So at the meeting, I found out I was getting transferred to Jin Hua. This is the same area that the temple is in and I got a native companion. This area is sweet. The church is right next to the temple. It was super nice and is four stories tall. We are also a part of two wards (groups of people that go to church at a certain time in a specific boundary), the Jin Hua ward and only English ward in Taipei (probably only English ward in Taiwan). So yesterday, I met both of the wards. We go to both of their sacrament (church) meetings. However, first at 8:30 a.m., we had a lesson with an Indonesian lady that only speaks Indonesian. Luckily she has an Indonesian member friend whose English is perfect. She helped translate for her during the lesson. We also had a senior couple missionaries (older people on a mission) help us teach during the lesson. They are called the Kitchens (Elder Kitchen was the first missionary to come to Taiwan back when it was opened for missionaries). Later at 11 a.m., we had sacrament meeting (church meeting) in the English ward which was really weird. There were mainly all white people! I haven’t seen that many white people in a long time! But it was cool because the ward is really diverse. We had an investigator from India show up out of the blue. There is a member from a small country by Ghana in Africa. There are also Canadian, European, and Philippine members. We met with a Philippine sister after church and we set up a baptismal date with her.
That was my week. It is going be good having a native companion. His English is really good and it'll be great for my Chinese. It was sad leaving Bade. I am going to miss a lot of people plus we had four other people that should be baptized in the next two weeks. But I’m excited to be in this area.

Love,
Jordan Chatman

A family, Lin, that Jordan and his companion are teaching that are close to getting baptized. Curtis and Janet ended up getting baptized (the 2 kids)....see later photos

Jenny, a lady Jordan and his companion werere teaching that wanted to get baptized but her mom didn't want her too. Filipino that is Catholic

This is the view from Jordan's apartment in the city of Taipei.