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