Week 40- January 28, 2013

Week 40

January 29, 2013

nimen hao,

This week we had transfers.  My companion and I both stayed though.  I’m happy about that because my companion is pretty cool and I love this area. A lot of new missionaries came in too and a lot went home….. like 20 left and 15 came in - so a ton of people are training now.  (That is when the missionaries who have been out a while teach the brand new ones coming in.)

Our investigator, Miguel is still going strong. We taught him some commandments this week and he accepted those no problem. We are stilling aiming on him getting baptized in 2 weeks. He is really a miracle investigator. When we first met him, he was friendly but just not willing to listen to us and was deep in his Catholic faith. But then my old companion left and took Miguel’s phone number with him.  So we had no way to get in contact with him. Then two months later, a sister missionary met him on the road and from that we were able to start meeting with him again. Since then he has been super willing to listen and accepting of our message.

Besides Miguel though, we don’t really have any investigators that are progressing. All of them always seem to come up with some excuse of why they can’t meet with us or why they can’t come to church. So this week, we really need to go out find some prepared people to teach.

People always ask about how my Chinese is coming along and if I have any mess up stories. Well this week, I have two mess up stories. The first is when I called 2nd Nephi (that is a book in the Book of Mormon) ugly. In Chinese the word for read and look is the same (kan). During a lesson an investigator was commenting on how 2 Nephi was hard to understand and I said yeah 2nd Nephi is difficult to read (nan kan). But sometimes when you say nan kan it means ugly so I said yeah 2nd Nephi is ugly. haha

Another one is when I asked a kid if he had mental problems. The word for question and problem is the same. The kid raised his hand during the lesson so I asked if he had a question.  But I guess somehow I said it like I asked if he had a mental problem. J Sometimes when you think of something in English, translate it directly to Chinese in your mind, then say it, it has a different meaning. Sometimes a word has two different meanings also. Also you have tones and if you say a tone wrong, you can totally mess up the meaning. A guy in the English ward served his mission here and said one time on his mission he gave a talk about pig’s feet accidently. This is because when you say zhu1 jiao4, it means pig foot.  But what he was really trying to say was zhu3 jiao4 which means bishop. It is funny stuff!

Anyways that’s the excitement of this week. Jesus Christ lives. Follow Him and you will have happiness and peace in your life.

-Elder Chatman

Week 39- January 21, 2013

你們好,

I'll give you a quick recap of the week:

Tuesday - We went on exchanges. The district leader, Elder Lin, came to my area with me and my companion went to the district leader's area with the his companion. Elder Lin is from Gaoxiong and is going home this Friday. He is the like nicest guy! We've been in the Chinese ward together for the past 3 months, so I'll miss him. Anyways, together we visited a former investigator - Zhong mama and baba. They are probably in their 70's and their son is a temple worker. They stopped meeting with missionaries before, because they are devout Buddhist  But we are gonna try and start teaching them again and see if we can make any progress. This week we just got to know them and invited them to pray every day. We also had a district meeting today and then went English boarding. That is where we go handout English class flyers and talk to people about our free English class for an hour.

 Wednesday - We met with Miguel and taught him the Word of Wisdom (our health code.) He said he drinks coffee or tea every day. "It's an Italian thing," he says, ha ha, but he is totally willing to give it up to follow Christ! He went to Hong Kong later that night and doesn't get back until today. So I'm not sure how it's actually going for him though. Later that day, we had English class. Elder Baxter (from Utah) and I taught a group of about 20 people some English things out of a textbook they give us.

Thursday - We went out to Tianmu (about a 30 minute subway travel, and a 20 min bus travel) to go find a less-active family. The English ward council asked us to go visit. We tried to stop by and see what was going on with them (because if you call them they will be like -hey yeah maybe next week and then never actually setup with you. Then you call them again and they won't answer.) Anyway the family had moved addresses -so no luck there. The other family we tried to visit out in that area had moved as well...

Friday - We had a training meeting with some of the Taipei zones and the mission president. We learned about how to find more people to teach and some family history stuff. Then we went to a park and did an hour or so of just talking to people about the gospel. Later that night, we met with Ashutosh and start teaching him the new member lessons.

Saturday - We met with this man from Ireland named Tom. One of the weirdest lessons I've ever taught. He was going off about numerology, the 12 deadly sins, and some other stuff. He was a nice guy but it was a little different. Later that night, we had a correlation meeting and had a ward activity where we watched a movie called 17 miracles with some members and investigators.

Sunday - We were at the church from 10:30am - 6:00pm. That was a long day. We had an English ward correlation meeting, then a 3 hour English ward church meeting, then a 3 hour Chinese ward meeting. We had an investigator (which is person interested in the church) randomly show up in the Chinese ward. We haven't taught him in a while because he wasn't willing to do anything we invited him to do. So it was a miracle to see him there. He 復活ed (Resurrected) as we say....... Then later that night, we subway-ed 45 minutes out to Xin Zhuang and gave Michelle a priesthood blessing. She was hospitalized earlier this week and just feeling really sick (not sure from what though). I think it's because she hasn't had a day off of work in like 3 weeks, but that's just me lol  Anyways, we gave her a priesthood blessing last night, so hopefully she'll start feeling better.

Anyways that's the excitement of this week! God is love! And remember "without charity ye are nothing."

我愛你們

莊長老

Elder Jordan Chatman

A random photo at the park....

People in the park

A guy on the subway with a cool flat top.

Jordan and Ashutosh, a recent convert they taught and baptized from India

Week 38- January 13, 2013

Hey everyone,

The work went great this week. First off we had a miracle with Michelle, the sister from Germany. She wants to be baptized and do everything else to follow God, but has to work every single day. Last week, she had one day off for the first time in a month and so we were able to meet with her. We invited her to pray and ask God for an opportunity to come to church. We also prayed every day for her last week. Then this week, I talked to her on the phone and she said that her boss hired another person to start working there next month. This means she'll get 3 days off of work each week. Miracle! Prayer is real! She was really excited because now she'll be able to come to church on a weekly basis and prepare to get baptized!

This week, we also had some great success with Miguel. We met with him at the church and also at that time, we had a Taiwanese man and his son coming to meet with us. So me and my companion went on splits (this is where you go out to teach with someone besides your companion.) I went with the new convert, Ashutosh and we taught Miguel. The lesson went great and he said wants to be baptized and that he knows the Book of Mormon is true. His date is February 10th, so I'm excited for that. We still have to teach him the Word of Wisdom though and I know he has some problems with that. So we'll see how deep his faith runs this week. It'll be good though.

This week, I went to Taipei 101 for the first time. I didn't actually go up to the top or anything, but we passed by it as we were biking out to visit a potential investigator. Taipei 101 isn't in our Chinese Ward area but because we are in the English ward, all of Taipei counts as our area. So as we passed by, we stopped to take some pictures real quick.

Some other things we did this week - Yesterday we went with an Indonesian sister and visited a less-active Indonesian sister. She was baptized in Indonesia like 10 years ago but hasn't been to church since being here. So we stopped by her store and had a small lesson with her. On a side note, we learned some Indonesian. Then when we were leaving to go back to go to the MRT there was this huge march, mini protest parade thing where there were thousands of people walking down the road waving flags that said huo3 da4 (which means like big fire or angry) and holding up signs for this political party or something.

Also yesterday, Benjamin got confirmed during sacrament and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. His wife came to church as well, so we're going to try and start working with her. Oh and I forgot to mention that he is going to become his country's ambassador starting in March. I also learned that parts of the Pirates of the Carribean were filmed in the St. Lucia island where he's from...

That is pretty much a rap for this week. Again, I know this God's true Church restored to the earth. Anyone that will turn to Christ and follow his restored gospel will find peace and happiness.

Elder Chatman

Jordan by Taipei 101

Jordan from the tall angle....

 Taipei 101

Taipei 101 district

Jordan in an alley in the city where he teaches. They were out looking for a Filipino referral but she wasn't home so they left her a note. These are typical homes/apartments where people live in Taipei .

Week 37- January 6, 2013

Week 37

January 6, 2013

Dajia hao!

Zhe ge libai women you yi ge xili hui!

The highlight of this week was Benjamin’s baptism. I was able to help baptize him. The service went

great and the highlight was where he shared his testimony. I thought he was just going to bear his

testimony, but actually he shared his life story! It was amazing. It’s so amazing that I’m going to

share it. It’s a little gruesome so you don’t want to read this to your kids. So his story was that when

he was younger, he loved the Bible and would teach everyone about it. Then one night, he was

walking with his girlfriend and got jumped by two guys. They beat him and his girlfriend up. He woke

up 3 weeks later after being in a coma. The men told the girlfriend, that they jumped them because

Benjamin’s light was too big. They could see the spiritual light emulating from him and didn’t like it.

A couple weeks after the attack, his girlfriend committed suicide because of what had happened.

Well, Benjamin blamed her death on himself because their purpose in attacking them was because of

him. So for ten years, he fought within himself about what had happened and couldn’t forgive

himself. Then one day in Australia, a missionary rode up to him on a bike and started talking to him

about the subject of forgiveness. This was exactly what he needed and this is how he started meeting

with missionaries. So Benjamin getting baptized was huge for him because he finally felt that he had

been forgiven and was able to forgive himself. So he was crying after the baptism and it was just a

super special experience. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real!

Well now I’m out of time on the computer, but yeah love you all!

Jordan Chatman

A marathon that they had in Taipei. There were hundred of thousands of people  Jordan estimated. 

This is Jordan with his companion and Ethan Tai who walked on at BYU Hawaii. 

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This is at Benjamin's baptism

Dinner at Xie4 Family in the ward and Miguel, our investigator

This is fireworks in Taipei 101 for New Year's Eve.

This is more fireworks on New Year's Eve in Taipei 101

Week 36- January 2, 2013

Week 36

January 2, 2013

Xin Nian Kuaile (Happy New Years),

New Year’s Eve here is a pretty big deal. Everyone goes over to Taipei 101 where they have these huge celebrations and shoot off fireworks from the tower. It is pretty cool stuff but missionary wise it was tough to talk with people then because the streets were empty!

The good news from this week is that Benjamin is going get baptized! I’m so excited for him. I’m glad he finally decided to make this decision. We have put a ton of effort to hold on to him (if you remember the run and hide story from a few months ago!! haha) So hard work has finally paid off. His testimony of the Church is so strong. He loves the Bible and knows it so well. So it was tough for him, at first, to accept the Book of Mormon because he had believed that the Bible was the only word of God.  But after teaching him, he decided to read the Book of Mormon. He was super slow with reading it, but he read it with true sincerity. When he read it, he would read a verse and then look in the footnotes of that verse. He read every Bible scripture verse that corresponded with the Book of Mormon verse. Then after doing this for a while and praying, he knew without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ and adds and supports the Bible. It is great stuff! So Benjamin's baptism will be this Sunday and then later that night, there is a big new convert fireside for all of Taipei. Ashutush (the convert we baptized last transfer from India) is going to be speaking at it!

That is pretty much what has been going on over here. Hope everyone had a happy holiday!

Love,
Elder Chatman