13 Weeks Remaining- December 29, 2013

大家好

Here some things we did this past week - 

- We went to the Bishop’s house with a bunch of other members and celebrated his birthday. We ate a bunch of food and sang happy birthday to him. It always fun spending time with the members.

-On Christmas we went to the church by the temple and had a conference with the mission president and all of the Taipei area missionaries. They gave us some training and then we ate a big meal the mission president's wife put together - turkey, rolls, stuffing, etc. It was good stuff. Afterwards, they did a talent show and they gave us a present. The present was a copy of Doctrine and Covenants with 3 columns in it - English, Chinese characters, and the alphabetized pronunciation of the characters (Roman Pinyin). We have this same thing for the Book of Mormon. It was cool because last month I got to help proofread it & help correct it before they bound it into a book. After the Conference, we went back to our area and went to a subway. There we sang carols with the other elders in our district while we handed out gospel pamphlets.

-Later during the week, we went to go visit a less active the ward wanted us to visit. It was in the boonies. We had to take the subway, then a bus, and then we walked up a mountain for about an hour. We get there and there was 2 dogs barking at us. But they would just back up when we walked towards them. So we walked around looking for the house and the area is looking abandoned. But then we looked out into a rice field and see this guy. We asked if he knew the less active, but all he did was wave a machete at us. Eventually we find the house. We knock on the door and an older lady comes out. We tell her that we were the missionaries and she just starts yelling in our face - saying “Why the heck did you come here?! We aren’t Christian!” She was the wife of the less active. After a while though, she calmed down and we were able to sit down and talk to her and the son. She had no interest in the church but the son might start coming to our English class.

-This week, I ate some chicken foot and cow tongue. Also I got shocked walking into some restaurant’s bathroom that was a boy and girl bathroom together all in one. I guess it’s pretty common here but it was the first time I encountered it since being here lol.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas

Love,

Elder Chatman

14 Weeks Remaining- December 23, 2013

聖誕節快樂 (Merry Christmas)

Monday - So to start off the day, we went tracting. Literally, the first doorbell we pressed, a college kid came out. We talked about Christ and such for a few minutes and he was interested. But he was busy at that moment, so we setup another time later in the week to meet with him at our church. That was cool meeting him. However later in the week, he never showed up to our scheduled appointment. We tracted for about an hour and half that night and then went to a subway station exit and handed out flyers to our free English class for another hour.

Tuesday - It was pouring rain so went tracting for an hour in the morning. Then we had district meeting and then after that we tracted the rest of the day until 8pm. At 8:00, we did two baptismal interviews for some elders in our zone. Both of the investigators passed their interviews. One of the investigators was scheduled to get baptized on Sunday, but when Sunday rolled around she got cold feet and didn’t show up...

Wednesday - We tracted all day till 4:00. At 4:00, we met with Zhang Ren Kui, our new convert. He is going strong and doing good. Then at night, we had English class. My companion and I taught the beginner class. English class is one of our mission’s most effective tools for finding new investigators. A super nice lady from China came to our class this past week. She has only lived in Taiwan for 2 months. The sister missionaries are going to try and start teaching her. After English class, we met with our investigator Li Yun Zhong. He is a college student who came to English class about 6 months ago and started meeting with missionaries since. We are probably going to stop meeting with him though because he won’t do what we invite him to do - like read from the Book of Mormon and come to church. We've invited him to do these things almost every lesson but he never does. So it’s pointless to keep meeting with him because he'll never develop a testimony unless he does these things. He is a cool kid though.

Thursday - The Assistants to the President came to our apartment during studies and talked with us about our zone. They gave us some training on being better leaders. One of the AP’s is real smooth. He's from Singapore, already graduated from BYU, served a few years in the military, and is going to Harvard after his mission. Later that night, we did some street contacting, where we go around and talk to people on the road. Also that night, we had dinner with our ward missionaries and ward mission leader at a steak house. It wasn’t an American steak but I just drowned it in A-1 sauce so it was all good. haha

Friday - We did more tracting and street contacting. At night though, we met with the Yang Family. We taught them all about church and how it blesses our lives and then invited them to come. I thought we taught it well but they didn’t end up committing to come. The dad works on Sundays and the mom says their 1 year old daughter has to sleep in the morning when church is. So they are temporarily stuck until we can get them to come to church.

Saturday - We met with one of our newer investigators named Liam. We met him a month ago on the subway. He wasn’t too interested in meeting then but as he was leaving we gave him a flyer to our English class. Then 2 weeks ago, to our surprise, he showed up to our free English class and has started meeting with us since. We taught him the Restoration this week and it went really good. He committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Believe it or not, he actually lived in Portland, Oregon for a couple of years.

Sunday - We had church, studies and then met with another one of investigators named Chen. He is a college student. We met him one day while tracting. He was riding by on his bike and we stopped him. We reviewed the Restoration with him this week. We taught it to him 2 weeks ago but he forgot most of it.

My companion and I almost got in TV this past week. This lady who lives in our apartment community works for a TV station and they were getting a couple foreigners to come on the station. They wanted to ask them questions about Chinese culture and the Chinese New Year. We were supposed to go on this weekend. My companion and I were super pumped but we asked the mission president and he said he didn’t want us to do it. So it’s a no go….oh well.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. 

Remember the Savior this Christmas and feel his love for you!

Love,

Elder Chatman

15 Weeks Remaining- December 15, 2013

December 15, 2013

 大家好

The highlight of the week was being able to meet a General Authority.

Elder Packe,r from the Quorum of the Seventy, came to Taiwan. He did a two hour devotional with us (all the missionaries.) lt was cool being able to shake his hand and feel Christ’s love emulating from God's servant. He talked to us a lot about family history and how we can help our investigators and converts prepare to help their ancestors receive salvation. That’s something that’s a really special treat over here.  If you go back a few generations with the Taiwanese people, their ancestors are all from China, where no one had the gospel. So it’s super cool to be able to be a part of helping the ancient Chinese receive salvation. Family history work is great too in that it helps our converts stay active in the church, which is a huge problem over here. 

What else is new? It is kind of like the weeks in the past..... we've just been tracting and street contacting most of the day. It’s been sad to see some of our investigators lose interest or just not see why the gospel is so important in their lives. That’s probably one of the toughest things to see as a missionary. You develop so much love for your investigators but then seeing them lose desire in your message is tough. But it’s all good. We are excited to go out and try to find some more prepared souls this week.

Love,

Elder Chatman

16 Weeks Remaining- December 18, 2013

December 8, 2013

What’s up everyone?

This week we spent almost every day out tracting and street contacting people. We just couldn’t find anyone that was interested. It feels good doing the Lord’s work and it is just funny when we get rejected. Some guy smoking a cigarette tried to kick us out of a neighborhood. He was saying, “Everyone is Buddhist! Don’t waste your time! Just leave!” We said, “Thanks, yeah we know everyone’s Buddhist. That’s why we are here!” Then we just kept knocking doors which made him mad. He cussed at us in Taiyu and then left. What a funny guy!

Then to top off our wonderful success in finding people to teach, members of our zone aren’t getting along. One companionship - two New Yorkers (one from the nice area, one from Brooklyn) are fighting. So we have a lot of work there, but it’s all good.

This Saturday, Elder Packer (a man in the leadership of our church) from the seventy is coming. Then also Saturday night is a huge nativity activity that the English speaking ward puts on every year. That should be fun!

Zai Jian

Love,

Elder Chatman

17 Weeks Remaining -December 1, 2013

大家好

December 1, 2013

Right now we only have a few investigators that are making any real progress.

We have family that we are working with (mom, dad, and 1 year old daughter) that are coming along really good. They are reading from the Book of Mormon but their biggest problem right now is coming church. They haven’t come at all yet. We had a ward activity this week though that they came too. They met tons of members and got to get a good feel of the family atmosphere our church has that you can’t find anywhere else. So we are hoping this will help them to get to church next week.

This week we probably spent around seven hours tracting. It’s weird how it works. We'll get nothing for the first few hours, then the last house we always find someone. We found two high school kids that were pretty interested. We also found like a sixty-ish year old guy that researches religions but said he hasn’t found one that he feels like he believes. He doesn’t believe the Buddhist stuff. He says he doesn’t believe in Christianity because he says he didn’t believe that someone could be bad, confess their sins, and then go to heaven. We didn’t get a lot of time to meet with him this week. So hopefully next week we are going to meet with him again and explain true repentance, Christ, etc. to him and answer that question. He was a super friendly guy.

It’s getting super cold over here. Temperature-wise it’s probably not very cold but the humidity makes it feel a lot colder than it actually is. I love it though. So much better than the killer heat.

Zai Jian

Elder Chatman

18 Weeks Remaining -November 24, 2013

November 24, 2013

大家好

Transfers were this week. My companion and I both stayed here in our same area.
This week we did tons of contacting and tracting. We got a couple of phone numbers and gave out a Book Of Mormon but not a ton of success this week. Right now we are getting ready to stop meeting with a lot of our investigators. A lot of them just aren't progressing. One guy is super cool!  But we asked him this week, if he got an answer that God exists and the Book of Mormon is true, would that mean anything to him. He said no. He said that his life would pretty much be the same. The whole eternal life concept is really hard for the Taiwanese people to understand. When we talk about eternal things, it really has no meaning to them. They are super stuck on the here and now.
The funny story of the week.... we were out walking around the street contacting people. At one point I looked across the street and I see this guy pointing at us. He then runs across the street pointing at us. He asked us if we can speak Chinese. We say yeah. Then he just goes off yelling at us saying that we committed huge sins if we aren't vegetarians and other stuff. He even poked my companion in the shoulder at one point. I got out there before he could poke me though because that would have made me mad.
Anyways, things are going good....

Gan En Jie Kuaile (Happy Thanksgiving)
Love,
Elder Chatman

Jordan's hood lol - neighboor's to the TuCheng Chapel

Jordan's church building, TuCheng JiaoHui is the name of it.

20 Weeks Remaining -November 10, 2013

November 10, 2013

20 Weeks Remaining

大家好

This Saturday our investigator Zhang Ren Kui is getting baptized. He is a super nice guy. He's a junior in college right now. My companion talked to him on the street the transfer before I got here. Then he's met with us once a week up to this point. I am excited for him.

Last night, we met with a less active Melchezidek priesthood holder (a person in our church who had been ordained to an office in the priesthood) and tried to help him become active again. The sisters and my companion and I made pork dumplings with him. He is super cool. He's in the Air Force and he was telling us stories from 20 years ago when China and Taiwan were not getting along. One time he had to fly near China and take photos of their military. So he got there and had to wait 15 seconds to take the picture but at the same time his radar showed two Chinese planes coming right at him to take him down. So right when the 15 seconds were up and the pictures were taken, he did a U turn and booked it back to Taiwan super fast. He flew back from the coast of China to Taiwan in 5 minutes. That is crazy.

This week we did a couple hours of tracting and talking to people on the streets. We had tons of rejection but I do have cool story. We were walking to dinner one day and we passed this guy who was smoking. I had a small feeling that I should talk to him, but I didn’t because I was kind of sick of rejection. So I kept walking. But then when we were like 15 feet away from him, I turned me head to look at him and he was looking at me. So I waved and he waved back. So I went up and started talking to him. He was pretty interested and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and hopefully he sets up a time to meet this week.

Hope everyone’s doing well!

Love,

Elder Chatman

21 Weeks Remaining -November 3, 2013

大家好, 

 So this week was pretty cool. We had Mission Leadership Council. At the beginning of every month, all of the zone leaders, sister leaders, APs, office elders, and the mission president and his wife get together for a 7 hour meeting to talk about our mission vision, problems, goals, etc. First we had some trainings by the mission president's wife, the APs, and the sisters who are in charge of temple square. Then we went to the mission home and had taco salad. It was so good to get some American food finally.(It's funny he calls "tacos"- American food, and it is funny because he would have never eaten that before he left!! haha)  Then after that we had accountability. Each of the zone leaders had to get up and report about our zone baptismal number from last month - why it was high or low and what our plan for the upcoming month is. Our zone had 3 baptisms last month and our mission had 30 baptisms. Our mission president felt like we could do a lot better than that and so he came up with some really cool things that we are going to do as a mission. I love our mission president! This guy is super inspired and comes up with the coolest ideas. Here are a few things he shared with us:

1. White Christmas - We set a mission goal of having 99 baptisms in December and baptizing people on Christmas Day.

2. Missionary Typhoon - Right now on the east coast, there is only a district there but its pretty close to becoming a stake. There just isn't enough members yet. So last week he sent like 20 missionaries down there who only tracted and street contacted people all day for 5 days. They ended giving out a couple hundred Book of Mormons and getting like 140 new investigators for the missionaries down there to start teaching. That was super cool.

3. New Stakes - Right now a lot of the wards have enough members for new stakes to be made but there are sooooooo many are less active that there is not enough Melchizidek Priesthood holders to allow them to make the new stakes. So our mission president broke down the numbers and told us how many more active MP holders each of our wards needs in order for a new stake to be made and then challenged us to get that many by March 1. He thinks 10 new stakes can be made by then (5 in our mission, 5 in the Taizhong mission). If that happens, he said there is a possibility a new temple could be made here.

Love,

 Elder Chatman

This is a leadership council meeting at the mission home of President and Sister Daye.  

22 Week Remaining- October 27, 2013

大家好 

 

This week I went on two exchanges. As a zone leader we have to exchanges with all of the other Elders in the zone. An exchange is basically where we switch companions for 24 hours and so that we can work with the other Elders. So this week I went on two different areas on exchanges. Pretty normal week this week other than that though.

 

Monday we took the bus out to our ward mission leaders house. They fed us pizza and we got to know him and his family a little bit better.

Tuesday we had district meeting then I went to Banqiao on exchanges. That was a little crazy as some of their investigators are a little different. One guy wouldn't let us speak and just went off about how he hates the Philippinos. We had to just get up and leave because he wouldn't let us share anything.

Wednesday we did some street contacting and had English class that night.

Thursday we went on exchanges again. I went a different part of Banqiao with a Taiwanese Elder. I tried to teach him how to work a little harder.

Friday we met with some of the investigators who are progressing pretty slow right now.

Saturday we had this ward Halloween activity where they had some small activities and some spiritual thoughts.

Sunday we had church and did some tracting.

 

That's what's happening out here,

Love,

Elder Chatman

23 Weeks Remaining-October 20, 2013

大家好。一切都好。

Hello from Taipei. It's starting to cool down over here. Yeah! We saw some cool miracles this week.

One I'll mention was with our investigator 李弟兄 (Brother Li). It was my first time meeting him, but I guess in previous meetings he told the Elders he only met with them because he felt too embarrassed to say no and he also said he didn't want to keep commandments. But this week, after our lesson, he totally changed. We read with him from the first chapter in the Book of Mormon and talked about what we read meant to us and how to apply it into our lives. This seemed to really connect with him and he was touched by the Spirit. Near the end of the lesson he said he wants to get baptized if he recieves an answer that the Book of Mormon is true.

Also this week we had stake conference. It was super cool cuz for the conference they did a broadcoast where Elder Holland and Elder Hales spoke to all of the Asia Area. I guess Elder Holland recently replaced Elder Oaks as being the apostle in charge of the Asia Area. So yeah they gave some sweet talks about being member missionaries and sharing the gospel naturally. Then they showed a video called "I'll go where you want me to go" which they showed during the Work Of Salvation Broadcast but it was the Taiwanese verison. They used members and some of local missionaries and basically did exactly the same as the one they did in America but shot it in Taiwan. It was pretty funny seening in the video people that I knew and places I've been. I'm not sure if the Church put it out, see if you can find it.

Hope everyones doing well!

Elder Chatman

24 Weeks Remaining- October 15, 2013

你們好

Well, after 8 months in SongShan, I got transferred. It is bitter sweet. I loved the area, our converts, investigators, and members, but I'm excited to be able to go to a new area and ward. I got transferred to Tucheng which is the west part of Taipei. It's not as much of the big city as my last area (which was in the heart of the city.) So the people are a lot less hectic and more people are willing to talk to us. My new companion is Elder Bastian from Seattle and we are the zone leaders. He's super cool. He ran track at BYU in 2012. So we love chatting it up about the sports world. He just moved into the area 6 weeks ago so we'll probably have a fun couple transfers together. Right now, I'm just getting acquainted with the new area and meeting the investigators. They haven't had a baptism in our area since like June or July so we are hoping to have some in the next few transfers.

Last Saturday and Sunday,  we got to watch General Conference in English at our church. (This is when the apostles and the prophet speak to the church.) I loved it. Elder Ballard's talk about missionary work was great and we are going to try and make sure all of our members heard it.

It was super weird at the last missionary transfer meeting because the eight sisters I was in the MTC with finished their missions and went home! They gave their final testimonies and then left for home. It is crazy how time flies.

Anyways gotta go. we are going to the temple today.
Love,
Elder Chatman

These are pictures that a member in Taiwan (ma ma Wu) facebooked to Leah.  She friended her and then tagged all these pictures of Jordan for her.  It was so great!!

Dinner with the Ward Mission and ward members at Tastys.

Pday trip to JiLong rock zoo exhibit/ocean.

Jordan and his companion Elder Anderson being shuai(handsome cool) after a party at Bao4 Jiating for Tiffany Bao. She was leaving on her mission to Minnesota.

Farewell party at Bao Jia1ting2's house for Tiffany Pao.

Above and Below - Pday adventure with the other missionaries in the Song1 Shan1 ward- Sister Croft, Sister O'Brian, Elder Anderson, Elder Chen and his companion Elder Bennion that Wu Mama took them on.

Below - Pday adventure continued...flying lanterns that you draw on and guys at the area light on fire and float up into the air.

25 Weeks Remaining -October 6, 2013

October 6, 2013

你們好  

We had a baptism this week for Lai Guan Da. Yeah! I love this guy!! He is super cool!!  He’s the man! He's one of the most prepared Taiwanese people that I’ve taught. While in the English ward, I got to teach a lot of prepared people, but none of them were from Taiwan. It’s cool getting to teach a super prepared guy like Lai Guan Da. We'll go out and contact people and tract all day and get nothing but rejection. You just want to say, “man there’s no one in Taiwan that really wants it.” But then meeting people like Lai just boosts your faith and helps you know that there really is prepared people out there. Like I’ve mention before, Lai was introduced to us by his friend who is our assistant ward mission leader. Money! Finally someone out here who put the Apostle’s member-missionary work teachings into action!

I was talking to one of my previous companions, Elder Wesemann last pday. He was telling me how they were walking down this back alley by their church (which is like a floor in a business type building.) They saw this huge guy walking towards them. The closer he got, the more they were like, “wow this dude is a giant.”  It ended up being the 7 footer, Luke Nevill, who played basketball for the Utes a few years ago. Lol  I guess he is trying playing basketball in Taiwan or China so he was here playing or something. What a small world.

A cool story- I was on exchanges with Elder Gerrard in Xizhi and we were out tracting. We didn’t get anything on the entire street until the very last doorbell. We rang it, a family guy came out and we end up talking to him for like 10 minutes. We got him to say a prayer and gave him a Book of Mormon.  I love the tender mercies of the Lord. That always happens. After tracting or street contacting, for me it’s always been that last door or last contact that has interest.  It is cool stuff.

Anyways that’s a rap from Taipei,

Love,

Elder Chatman

This is Jordan with Elder Bennion and  Lai Guan Da. It was Lai's baptism day. Lai Dixiong was a member referral from Cao1 Dixiong, the assitant ward mission leader, who recently moved in to the ward. Jordan was good friends with him from his English class in his previous area Jin Hua. Cao1 Dixiong brought Lai Dixiong to church one Sunday, where they met him and later started teaching him until he got baptized. Eventually Lai Dixiong moved to Jordan's next area (Tucheng) for work and Jordan was able to continue to teach him as Lai Dixiong had become less active from being busy with work and going out of town/to America for work and such. Elder Bennion (on the left in this picture), Jordan's trainee/son, later moved to Jordan's next area (Tucheng) as well after Jordan fanxiangd (went home) and was able to continue to stay in contact with Lai4 Dixiong. Tender mercy of the Lord....

26 Weeks Remaining- September 29, 2013

September 29, 2013

26 Weeks Remaining

This week we got to do two baptismal interviews. One of the interviews was for the

elders in Xizhi and one for the other elders that we live with. The Xizhi elder's

investigator was found through English class. We have an hour and a half English class

every Wednesday night. For the last 30 minutes of the class, we share a gospel

message and then after class we talk to the students. We setup times to meet with them

to teach them the lessons. The other elders in our ward found there investigator near a

park. They got his number and set up with him later to teach the lesson. He is about in

his 50-60's and had smoked cigarettes for almost 40 years. But he gave it up and got

baptized yesterday. It was really cool.

So let me give you a run down of our investigators right now:

>Lai - this past week we shared the rest of the lessons with him - tithing, fasting, and ten

commandments. He's been the most golden investigator. His baptismal interview is

tonight and his baptism will probably be on Sunday. We found him through his friend,

our assistant ward mission leader.

>Brother and Sister Chen - their son got baptized 2 weeks ago. We found them through

a member bringing them to church. Sister Chen was in Japan this past week so we

didn't get to meet with them. Right now we just are trying to help them recognize an

answer from God that our church is true.

>Li - his sister is a recent convert in the Taizhong mission. We've taught him about the

restoration and prayer. We are taking it really slow with him and helping him to do the

basics - pray and reading the scriptures. At first he didn't know if God exists but he says

he feels like God is answering his prayers. He's slowly coming along.

>Xie - is a police officer. He is super nice but really quiet so its hard to tell what he's

thinking. The last time he said when he prays it feels like he's talking to himself. So we

shared more about recognizing the Holy Ghost and saying sincere prayers.

>Wang - we've been meeting with him since February. He has read the whole Book of

Mormon. His problem is that he wants to be perfect before he gets baptized and is

scared that he'll not be 100% loyal to his baptismal covenant. So this past week we had

this sweet lesson with him about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how Christ doesn't

expect us to be perfect but expects us to try our best and slowly make progress. It

seemed to start clicking with him and he set a baptismal date for the beginning of

November, which is the first time he's set a date! Before he wouldn't commit to a date.

So he's slowly coming along.

So other than meeting with our investigators, we were pretty much out all day street

contacting people and visiting less actives trying to make something happen.

Love,

Elder Chatman

27 Weeks Remaining- September 22, 2013

Week 27 Remaining

September 22, 2013

你們好 

This week we had another typhoon come. But this time, we didn’t get the call to stay in. So it was fun tracting and street contacting people in the middle of intense rain and wind. I had 2 umbrellas get ripped apart from the wind.

Yesterday, we did the confirmation for Lawrence who got baptized last week. The Bishop asked me to do it. That was fun! I did the confirmation in Chinese on the microphone in front of everyone at sacrament meeting. It turned out really well and to my surprise, the members said they understood it.

This week, we had an outdoor zone conference. The mission president had a great idea to change things up and do something fun for zone conference. So for this zone conference, we bused up to a big mountain. Then we went on a hike and received some training up there. The only problem was that the typhoon started coming in while we were up there. So it rained super hard and was really windy, but it still turned out pretty good.

We visited a lot of less actives this week too. We rang the door of one less active melchezidek priesthood holder we went to visit. His wife said through the speaker that "he was in the bathroom". “Right!!?” We told her we would wait. She kind of turned that down, but then we pulled the-“we are in the middle of a typhoon card” and that got us let in the building. We ended up just talking to her for like 10 minutes at their front door because the husband never came out of the bathroom. But we invited her to bring her family back to church. We’ll see what happens.

That’s the scoop out here in Chinatown.

Love,

Elder Chatman

28 Weeks Remaining-September 15, 2013

你們好

quick recap of the week,

Monday - we walked around and tried to visit 2 referrals. Both werent home but we just talked to people on the street around their homes. Then later that night we had family home evening with a bunch of members and our investigator Brother Wang.

Tuesday - District meeting. then we took an hour bus ride to do a baptismal interview for the xizhi sister investigator and then we came back.

Wednesday - had to go to the doctor for my companions ankle then we taught our english class that night.

Thurdsay - went and visited a referal, the guy was gonna mentally slow tho. funny story tho - some missionaries in a different area had an investigator in a hosptal in our area so they wanted us to go visit him. so we had the other elders in our area go visit. they go over to the hospital and it happened to hospital for mental crazy people. they find the investigator and he was a little crazy. I guess a few months earlier he choked the president of taiwan for a few seconds and then got knocked out by the police. and right before he got knocked he said God, receive my soul. and then i guess he like, yeah because of what i did they think im crazy and locked me in this mental hospital.

Friday - we did some street contacting and passed out flyers to our english class. then i went on exchanges to xizhi with elder sosa.

Saturday - elder sosa didnt have any investigators setup lessons so we walked around street contacting and tracting all day. not really any success but its all good. that night was the baptism of the xizhi sisters investigator. she asked me to baptize her so that was cool. their baptismal font is pretty sweet. its outside and looks like a hot tub.

Sunday was our investigator Lawrence's baptism. it went super good. his parents loved. we're hoping they decided to get baptized down the road here soon.

Hope everyone's doin good,

Elder Chatman

A black man's toothbrush is what it says

This was one of Jordan's teachers from the MTC.  He came back to get engaged.  He taught him, The other missionaries there are Elder Anderson, and Sis.Croft 

This is on exchanges in Xizhi out on our #Grind.

This is at the baptism of Lawrence, the young son, with Jordan baptizing him. On the sides are Lawrence's parents. His mom got baptized 6 months later.  

This is at Lawrence's baptism.  He is with his parents and with the ward family (Bao4 Jiating) that introduced him to the gospel.  The girl in the striped green dress is going on a mission this week to Minnesota.

An inactive member that feeds us....Jordan's boy Zhang1 Li4 Hao2

This is the Memorial Hall that is near the Mission President's Office.  They went there on pday.

This is the investigators of the Xizhi sisters in our district.  She got baptized and Jordan got to perform that ordinance.  She asked him to do it. Her name is Kang1 Jiemei.

This is tracting in Taipei. lol.....apartments upon apartments. It makes it real convenient to tract. haha

This is what Jordan eats two or three times a week.  It is a beef fried rice that he likes. It is the Xizhi special. Jordan got it almost every time he went to Xizhi on exchanges.

29 Weeks Remaining -September 29, 2013

29 Weeks Remaining

September 29, 2013

How are ya all? Next week we're having a baptism! Leggooooo!!!!!!!!!

What a week…. to start it off my companion was playing basketball on p-day and ended up tripping on himself. This resulted in what we thought was just a regular "walk it off" ankle sprain at first. But then Tuesday night, he took his shoe off and his foot was all purple. So we went to the doctor and got it looked at. They said he tore a ligament and has a tiny crack in his ankle. We had to buy a boot thing and then he isn’t supposed to walk for 3 weeks. We told the mission president’s wife about it, because she’s the mission nurse. But they were in Hong Kong for some mission president training, so she couldn’t really help us. So basically my companion had to just rest and ice his ankle for a few days. Saturday though, we had a lesson with the son of a family we are teaching. So we had to go on exchanges with the other elders in our apartment so that I could go out and teach the lesson. So I went with my last companion elder Anderson and his trainee elder Chen stayed with my trainee. I think elder Chen slept for most the day. But I don’t blame him because there really wasn’t anything he could do being stuck inside all day. Well, that made elder Anderson mad that elder Chen didn’t do anything. Last night, they started yelling at each other. Elder Anderson was like, let me talk! Then elder Chen was like, say please. Elder Anderson bangs the desk and yells, let me talk! Elder Chen again says, say please. This resulted in elder Anderson getting up and getting in elder Chen’s face saying I am going to punch you if you don’t let me talk! So me and my companion had to go break them up. It was pretty funny because elder Chen would speak in Chinese.  Elder Anderson would understand but then speak in English.  Elder Chen would understand his English and then speak Chinese back. I don’t know why it was just kind of funny to me.

On a good note, we met with Lawrence (son of the Chen family we are teaching). It was great because the Bao family, the family that referred the Chen Family to us, had us and Lawrence over to their house so we could teach him. The Bao family is loaded. They have a pool at the bottom of the apartment. I didn’t know such a nice place existed in Taiwan lol.  I thought I was back in America for a bit haha. Anyways, we shared the rest of the lessons with him. Then Sunday he passed his baptismal interview, so he's good to go for getting baptized next Sunday. Yes sir!

This week, we had met some foreigners. The first one was in the hospital. Some random guy from Seattle of all places was like "hey elders". He was like “you're from the Mormon church right?” “Do you have the title of saint in your church?”  We explained about us being latter day saints and he was “oh like followers of Christ right?” Then he was like thanks and leaves. Weird.

Then in the subway, some lady visiting from England, came up and start talking to us. She was Christian and just curious about why our church and other Christian churches are different. We shared about the restoration and gave her our mormon.org website pamphlet. We would've given her a Book of Mormon, but we only had them in Chinese. It was weird though because this lady straight up looked like a Utah Mormon. Funny!

Love,

Elder Chatman

30 Weeks Remaining -September 1, 2013

30 Weeks Remaining

September 1, 2013

你們好  

Rain, rain, and more rain….gotta love it.

On Monday, this super cool member took us to a barbecue restaurant. They bring you raw pork, beef, etc. and you barbeque it on this mini grill that’s in the middle of your table. It was super good!!

Later that night, we met with this super cool guy who met missionaries down on the southern part of the island, but lives up here. He is a cop and we had a super great lesson with him. We shared a good lesson about the restoration and he was asking us if we've really felt before that Christ lives.  We were able to bear strong testimonies that we know He lives. We've felt it and that if he'll pray and read the Book of Mormon, he'll be able to feel it too.

Later that night, we were getting ready for bed when a pipe or something under our kitchen sink broke and water came shooting out. It started to flood the apartment. We didn’t know what to do for like an hour because we couldn’t figure out how to shut the water off. But we called up our mission operations’ elder and he told us we could go to the top of the building and shut off the water from there. So that’s what we did. The only problem was that we didn’t have any water or gas until we got it fixed the next night.

This week, we also met again with an eighteen year old kid that we tracted into last week. He didn’t have a religious background and was really open to learning.  He is a good kid.

On Friday, we spent the afternoon helping some members paint their house. Then that night and Saturday, I got to do two baptismal interviews for two investigators of the sister missionaries in our ward. So they are going to have two baptisms this upcoming Sunday. That’ll be good for them because they've only had one baptism this year. We've had only two baptisms. We should be having another baptism the 15th though. Lawrence, the really cool son of a family we are teaching, told us yesterday that he was ready and the parents were fine with him getting baptized before them. So we're praying that everything works out with that.

But yeah that’s everything going on here. The Church is true.

Love,

Elder Chatman

31 Weeks Remaining- August 25, 2013

31 Weeks Remaining

August 25, 2013

你們好  

To start off this week, we went tracting in a typhoon. That was fun!! It was nothing serious, just a lot of rain. No one let us in, but that’s okay. The next day, we had to stay inside though because of the typhoon. I don’t know why but they freak out about typhoons over here. If you were just visiting and there was a typhoon, but no one told you, you would probably just think it was a rainy day.

Also this week, some Mormon teenagers that started a band called Beyond 5, came to the church building and did a concert. Tons of missionaries came with their investigators, so it was cool to see a lot of my buddies.

This week, we saw some great miracles with member referrals. One member brought his friend to church and we met with him afterwards. We shared the restoration and set a baptismal date with him. He is a cool guy. Then last night, another member introduced us to his friend who committed to come to church next week. He is another great guy. Member referrals are super cool, especially because recently during tracting and street contacting we haven’t really been able to find anyone who’s that interested. We did however while tracting, Saturday night, give out two copies of the Book of Mormon. So for tracting in Taiwan, there are these big boxes with everyone’s door bell on it. You press it and then speak into a speaker to them. If they are interested, they press a button that opens the door to let you into the building. Well, I pressed on a doorbell, this lady answered and I asked if we could share a message. She was like,”yeah but over the speaker.” So I pretty much had a 5 minute lesson over the speaker about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. In the end, the lady sounded interested and told us to leave her a Book of Mormon in her mailbox.  It was pretty cool stuff.

That’s pretty much a rap from this past week.

Love,
Elder Chatman

While waiting for a bus, they saw this guy carrying around these iguanas.... Crazy!! The guy took them onto the bus! In the picture also, is Elder Gerrard.

32 Weeks Remaining -August 18, 2013

32 weeks remaining

August 18, 2013

你好 ya'll

All heat & rain over here..... it is super weird when it rains because I always kind of  expect it to be cold outside like it gets in WA when it rains. But nope, the heat level stays the same...

This past week we met some cool people. We visited a less active family with the Bishop. They have a daughter serving a mission in the south part of Taiwan. The less active family had a son that never got baptized, but instead went and joined this different type church. It was started by this guy that is preparing people for the 2nd coming and teaches all these different things. We taught him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and such. He was like,"yeah I believe in that, I just don't believe that Joseph Smith passed on his authority and that we have living prophets." It's super hard to teach him because he has different theories due to this other church.

The family we are teaching is doing really good. The son is ready to go, and the dad is almost there. Its just the mom, who didn't grow up Christian like the dad, that is having a hard time. She, like most Taiwanese people, have no real understanding of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ just hasn't clicked for her yet. It super fun teaching them though.

We went and visited tons of less actives this week. We couldn't find very many because they either didn't live there because they wrote a fake address on their baptismal record or they had already moved and changed phones. We met with one lady though but it was weird.  A grandpa let us in, then the less active lady and her mom literally only said hi, please sit, then left us by ourselves for like 10 minutes. She later came back and we were able to teach her about the Atonement. We got a 20 year old less active kid to attend church with us yesterday.

Other things going on - Jeremy Lin is here visiting. He is in our area too doing some speech. We are gonna go proselyte where he's at, might see him.....  Also the Taiwanese pro basketball team beat China's pro team for the first time in forever. The Taiwanese people loved that. lol

 A member our ward was illegal proselyting in China. She is a teacher there or something and I guess started talking about the Book of Mormon and our church and stuff with her class. The students and staff were cool with it and loving it. But when she was telling the ward about it, one of them members who came from China was telling her how you're not allowed to do that in China. He told her that she could've been locked up if the government found out about that.

Love,

Elder Chatman

33 Weeks Remaining -August 11, 2013

33 Weeks Remaining

August 11, 2013

你們好

This week we had zone training meeting. Usually it’s just our zone members and the zone leaders getting together and doing some training.  As the district leader, I had to do a training about using the Book of Mormon on the street. Our mission goal for the month is for every companionship to hand out one Book of Mormon each day. When the time for the training meeting came, the President came and gave us an awesome training. He was understandably upset because our whole mission only had two baptisms last week. Our goal is 80 this month. We usually get around 30 a month and we have around 160 missionaries in our mission. So he came and gave a great training about inviting people on the street to be baptized. He told us how we need to "cut off the chicken head" and be more bold with people. I loved it! We went out and invited 3 people on the street to be baptized this week. They all nicely rejected the invite but its cool doing it.  I think it weeds out the prepared people from the people that still need a little seasoning. It was kind of a tough week success wise. We had a baptismal interview setup with our 13 year old investigator for after church but he didn’t show up. Our recent convert that usually brings him, couldn’t find him at his house in the morning.  So we are going to try and go find him this week. Other than that we're just outside all day talking to people.  We are tracting and just trying to find someone that we can teach and baptize. Enjoy your summer! It’s cooking out here. Thursday was the hottest it’s ever been in Taiwan in 100 years + you add in that killer humidity…….

Love, 

Elder Chatman

A gross looking spider Jordan took a picture of in Taiwan.

34 Weeks Remaining- August 4, 2013

34 Weeks Remaining

August 4, 2013

Whattup ya'll…..

We saw some cool miracles this week. On Monday and Tuesday, we didn’t teach a single person because we got rejected by everyone. Then Wednesday, when we were walking to go visit Luo, our new convert, we stopped this 16 year old kid who was riding on his bike past us. We invited him to come to English class and later that night, he came. After English class, we met with him and shared about God and prayer. Then Saturday, we met with him again and shared about the restoration, gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to be baptized. He set a date for the end of this month. He also came to church yesterday. So he's doing well.

Yesterday at church, the family who the ward member has been bringing for the past two weeks came again. Last week we asked if we could visit them during the week to start having lessons with them, but they nicely said no. But then this week, the member suggested that we meet with them right after church. Genius!!  We asked the family if they were good with that and they said yes. So we taught the family of 3 and the member helped us teach too. We taught the restoration and it went really good. They are going to be a little tough to teach because the dad grew up Christian so he understands most of what we were saying (he grew up in Hong Kong.) But the wife had no religious background, so she isn’t familiar with Jesus, prayer, etc. The great thing is that the member is her good friend, so she'll be able to help her every step of the way. I love member referrals!! They are so much easier than banging your head on the wall trying to tract and contact to people on the streets. But one thing I’ve learned is that if you have just faith in Christ you can see success in whatever you do. If you go out contacting people, just to contact people and don’t really believe that you are going find some prepared soul, you really won’t find anyone. You got first have that faith, and then you'll see a miracle.

That’s what is going on out here.

Love,

Elder Chatman

This was a greats ward activity the SongShan ward took up to a mountain in Yilan about 2 hours from Taipei on the east coast. This is the furthest Jordan ever got from Taipei on his mission. Most missionaries got opportunities to serve on the east coast 4-6 hours away from Taipei. Jordan wanted to go there badly but never left Taipei.

Dinner at the ward activity.

This was going up to the mountains for a ward activity.

This is going up the stairs to the ward activity.

Jordan with Jeff Wu.  Jeff Wu played basketball this past year for Union High School as a foreign exchange student.  This is the school that Jordan played at the year before so it was fun for them to meet each other after both of them hearing so much about each other.  They met at Jeff Wu's parents'restaurant and had lunch.