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.