47 Weeks Remaining -April 28, 2013

Hey everyone,

We had a good week out here. We had transfers this week and it was crazy becuase my last companion got called to be a zone leader and he's only been out 6 months. Most people aren’t called to be zone leader until like a year and a half in to their mission. So I got a new companion. He has been out 1 transfer (6 weeks) longer than me and used to be a district leader and senior companion. So we are co-senior companions and then I’m the district leader. It’s a little different from having a 4th transfer junior companion to now having a 9th transfer companion. He’s completely different from my last companion. My last comp was super talkative and funny. My new companion is super quiet and doesn’t speak much during the lessons. So I do most of the teaching but his testimony is powerful and he's super nice. He’s from Utah and he's taller than me by about an inch. So the two tallest elders in the mission are together lol.

 Monday, we went and visited a recent convert who is a young man and taught him about the temple and invited him to prepare to go in. Then we were going back home and I had this impression to stop by this less active young man’s house. In previous weeks, we had called and setup with him but then he would never showed up for his appointment. I felt like we should stop by, so we did and he was there. We got to know him, shared a Book of Mormon scripture with him and are going to start working with him. He got baptized when he was 12, but has been at all in these past 7 years.

On Tuesday, we met with Brother Luo. He's probably our best investigator right now. We invited him to be baptized next month. He accepted and is doing great. He's reading, praying, coming to church, etc. and is really starting to develop his testimony. He's probably around 60 years old and is a little strange at times. For example we were teaching him about the plan of salvation and then he randomly pulled out some paper and started drawing Chinese characters on it. He started telling us how they relate to numbers and dates and stuff. But I love the man! He's super humble and willing to learn.

Also this week, we met with Brother Wang. He went to Germany for work stuff for 2 weeks and then just came back. We met with him and reviewed the Restoration and answered some of his questions about what he read in the Book of Mormon. haha He was like I’m not really sure what I just read - Nephi chops a guy’s head off and rules over his brothers, what exactly do you guys believe? The elders who first met with him just gave him a Book of Mormon and didn’t explain anything about what it is. So we slowly explained it and answered all of his questions. This guy is super hungry to learn, but like most Taiwanese has no Christian background. For example, he had no idea who Jesus Christ is. So when he came to church, he felt completely lost because the speakers were talking about temples and stuff and he just felt overwhelmed by all the things being thrown at him. So we are taking it really slow with him.

Sunday, we had Stake Conference. It was great because we had 4 less actives that we've been working with, all show up! The coolest was probably the father and mother that showed up. They hadn’t been to church in over 20 years! The father loved it but when I asked the mom, she was like “eh, it was so-so.” We're hoping to get them back active and then hopefully they'll start bringing their kids.

Something cool I learned this week was that those scriptures in Alma 63 about Hagoth and the ships he builds and sails out in actually went out to the Pacific islands.  That a prophet told the Polynesian people that Hagoth is the father of the Polynesians. Cool stuff.

So that’s what went on this past week.

Love,
Elder Chatman

This is the District before the recent transfer.

They got to go visit the beach in Taiwan on Jordan's pday.

It is not a very clean beach. Beach is called Fu2 Long2 and Wu Mama takes the missionaries there.

This is another picture of the beach. They make awesome sandcastles there when the summer time gets close. Some of them are seen in this photo.

This is a baptism Jordan attended in Xizhi with the elders there. This is Yu Dixiong.

This is a family that had their son baptized.  Jordan's companion did the baptism and Jordan did the confirmation.

48 Weeks Remaining -April 21, 2013

48 Weeks Remaining

April 21, 2013

Hey everyone!

We saw some great stuff happen this week. We met with a former investigator (met with missionaries in like 2005) at his house and invited him to come to church. He is continuing to meet with us. He gave us a sketchy commitment that he was going to come to church and then he actually came. He could be getting baptized real soon here. We also met with Eric again and shared with him about the Restoration. His problem is not being able to come to church because he works on Sundays like everybody else in Taiwan. Those are our 2 best investigators right now. The other investigators are kind of off and on with meeting with us. But we did find a bunch of new people to meet with us in this upcoming week, so that'll be good. 

This week we focused a bunch on working with less actives (those who were baptized but don’t attend too often or at all.)  We have list of about 350 less actives in the ward and just started calling people up. One less active brother told us a few weeks ago that he was "busy".  That’s like the infamous excuse line out here. We felt like we should stop by this week and see if we could catch him at home. So we went outside his apartment one night and buzzed his doorbell. Then a guy walked up behind us asking who we were looking for and it happened to be him. He had just gotten back home so if we had been there any earlier we probably would have missed him. He let us in, we sat on his floor, and chatted with him. Then when we started talking about the gospel and it got crazy. He started going off about how we as a missionaries baptize a hundred people out here but that we would still be doing no good because there is billions of people in the world that still don’t believe. He just didn’t get it. I tried explaining it to him without arguing with the man, but he just wasn’t willing to listen (2 Nephi 33:2 – “But behold, there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as things of naught.”)

This week though, one of our less active members that we've been meeting with came to church. The other one whom I mentioned before from Omen committed to come next week. We also met with this sweet family that got baptized 10 years ago, but just didn’t have a testimony back then and haven’t been back since then. We are going to start meeting with them regularly and hopefully help one of their kids get baptized and bring the family back.

Oh yeah and the president of Taiwan almost got killed. Some guys planted bombs in the train system here and at some spot where the president was suppose to go. But luckily they didn’t go off and they caught the guys over in China. So it’s all good now...

That’s how things went this past week.

Peace

Elder Chatman 

Jordan and his companion and other member, eating at Wu Mamas home.  She feeds them every Sunday night. Jordan absolutely loves her cooking. Ah Bei (Zhang)is at the far right.

This is Jordan learning some fighting moves.  He was outside waiting for an investigator and a random guy was there and started to teach him his fighting moves.

Taipei Central Zone

Old people Lao Ren Jia drive these bikes around all over the city collecting recycling to make some money.

There it is again..... driving a bunch of recycling and such on their bikes.

49 Weeks Remaining- April 16, 2013

49 Weeks Remaining

April 16, 2013

你們好

Hope everyone’s doing well. A quick recap of last week….. We met with this cool man who came in contact with the church through Nu Skin. He went to America and I guess, the Nu Skin boss showed a bunch of foreigners who work for Nu Skin around temple grounds.  After he went there they wrote down his information and then temple square sent it out here, but that was like 3 years ago.  I guess no one contacted him since then.  So we called him up and ate dinner with him and then yesterday we taught him the message of the restoration. He was super receptive and willing to act. We also met with this super cool less active man who we called up. We visited his house and asked why he was baptized, why he hasn’t been coming to church, etc. From what I gathered he didn’t really have a testimony (a true belief in the gospel) when he got baptized.  He just liked the missionaries. So we gave him a new Book of Mormon and are going to try and help him gain a real testimony. Right now we only have one investigator with a baptismal goal. It’s been tough recently to find people to teach. We have literally been talking to everyone on the streets, but its rejection city. That’s probably the hardest part. They just won’t even talk to you...about anything. You ask them how their day is going or what their name is and they usually just ignore you or tell you "bu yong" which means like no. "no" what? I asked you how your day was and you responded by saying no.....Anyways it’s cool. There is opposition in all things, right? There’s prepared people out there. So finding them always triumphs the rejections. Anyways, we have one investigator with a baptismal date and he told us he's moving.  But we are going to find some good people this week. Also this week, we met this super great man from the Holy Land. He lives in Jerusalem. He is just visiting for a bit. Also this week we got to listen to general conference. (This is a bi annual meeting where the apostles and prophet address the church.) Then after Saturday’s conference, we went to the Xizhi for the sisters’ baptismal service and the mission president attended. Then afterwards, he was like “how are planning on getting home?” I said that we were going to take the bus and he was like “I’ll drive you home.” So that was great! He drove us back, but on the highway back, the gps took him the wrong way. So he missed the turn off from the freeway. There wasn’t another turn to get off the freeway for 20 minutes. So we didn’t get back until late. But it was nice to chat with the President and talk about his story about how he got called to be Mission President. He said one day, Elder Christopherson’s (an apostle of our church) secretary randomly called him and his wife and setup an interview with them. Then after the interview Elder Christopherson was like “you may or may not hear from us again.”  Then like a few months later, President Eyring's (another apostle of our church) secretary called them and setup a video conference with President Eyring and them.  At that time, President Eyring called him to be the Mission President. It is cool stuff...

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true! Live it, Love it, and you'll be happy.

Peace

Elder Chatman

Week 49 -April 1, 2013

Week 49

April 1, 2013

Hey everyone,

Hope everybody is doing good. It started heating up last week, but luckily it cooled back down this week. So we are safe for a while, until the excruciating heat comes back! lol

Last Monday, we went to Taipei 101 and handed-out our English class flyers. We were hoping that some more people would come to our class. Not a lot of success because it was too touristy where we went. There were mainly just people there from China who were taking tours, no one that actually lived in Taiwan.  Then we went to a less-active’s house. He had setup an appointment with us a few days before. But when we stopped by at the scheduled time, he wasn’t home and didn’t answer his phone. This kind of thing happens almost daily in Taiwan. Someone setups with you and then they don’t show up for their appointment. They call it "Fang Gezi"

Tuesday, we had some more "Fang Gezi."   On the street, we found this cool older man and taught him about God and prayer. He, of course, is really into Buddhism, but he at least he was willing to listen.

On Wednesday, we met with a less-active man that owns this like laser hair removal shop. We taught him from Moroni Chapter 6 and he committed to come to church, but he never ended up coming. After the lesson, we ate with him at a "hot pot" store. Hot pot is where they have a bowl of water and they put it on a stove thing in front of you and start boiling the water. Then you throw in vegetables and meat and stuff and eat it with your rice. It’s actually pretty good. We also taught English class later that night.

On Thursday, we went on exchanges. Elder Gerrard came out here with me. He is on his first transfer, fresh out the MTC! haha I felt bad for him! The first transfer is tough. His Chinese is pretty bad and I’m just like “man I remember when my Chinese was like that too!” It comes eventually though. On Friday, we went with the Bishop and visited a less-active family who runs a noodle shop. We ate lunch there and talked to the family a bit. The Dad actually never got confirmed, only baptized (hmm what good does that do?) He has some Word of Wisdom problems though. We are going to try and do a FHE (a family home evening lesson) with them though and see if we can help him out. On Saturday, we went to the chapel by the temple and sang “Called to Serve” at the Young Women Broadcast. Then that afternoon I spoke at the English ward Bishop's 8 year old son's baptism. The son wanted me to speak at it. Later, that night, we visited Brother You and his wife. Brother You is a super cool young guy that used to be an AP (assistant to the president) in this mission like 2 years ago. Then on Sunday, our ward did a little Easter activity (although outside the church it isn't celebrated in Taiwan). All of us missionaries talked about Jesus Christ and sang a hymn. Right now, we have no investigators progressing towards baptism. We had one 17 year old young man that was going strong, but then he called us up this week and said his parents won’t allow him to get baptized anymore...but we are praying for a miracle.

Oh yeah, we had an earthquake this week too. It was a 3.0 here in Taipei and a 6.0 in Taichung. Nothing big -our apartment just shook back and forth for like 10 seconds.

okay here's another cool Chinese character and the gospel relation lesson - so the character for start or beginning is  始 (shi). So on the left side you have a Nu (which is the character for woman) so this represents Eve, the first woman. On the top right, you have the character for a snake, and on the bottom right you have a kou - the character for mouth. Eve, a snake, a mouth make up the character for start or beginning.- I am going to let you figure out the meaning of that. Cool stuff right

Love,

Elder Chatman

Jordan and his companion, Jordan Wesemann, with a member family, Que4 Jia1 Ting2.

Common practice of the Buddhist people to leave out food and drinks to feed the "ghosts."

The people burn fake money to send money to their dead ancestors.

This is a Buddhist temple in Jordan's current area, SongShan.