Week 25- October 14, 2012

Week 25

October 14, 2012

Hey everyone!

I feel like I was just here writing my weekly letter home, time flies...

The highlight of this week was General conference (this is where the prophet and apostles of our church speak worldwide to everyone in the church.)  I've never been so excited to listen to Conference. It was the real deal. Elder Holland's talk was powerful and really profound. It was interesting to think about do we really love God and how do we show it? I feel like sometimes I’m like, yeah of course I love God, but then when you really start thinking deep about it, you realize that there are things you can do or stop doing to really show your love for God more. I loved Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about people’s common regrets in life and being happier. I loved Elder Eyring”s Sunday morning talk as well as Elder Bendars. Elder Bednar gave a similar talk to that while I was in the MTC, which I already talked about in my previous letter, so I won’t expound on it more…just that it was a great talk. You gotta love Elder Nelson’s shout out to the missionaries in his talk, "Ask the missionaries." I heard about the whole missioaryn age change thing (now the boys can go on a mission at age 18 and the girls at age 19 years old.)  That'll be good especially for the sisters because they need more sister missionaries out there. Sister missionaries are honestly way better than the elders!  Conference was also cool because our St. Lucian investigator, Benjamin came. He is close to getting baptized (he has to get married next month first), but he wasn’t sure if president Monson really is a true prophet of God. But after to going to conference he knows that he is!

This week we had a funeral in our chapel for an older member that died recently. The crazy thing was that he was the only member in his family and he said in his will that he wanted his funeral done in our chapel. So a ton of non members showed up to the funeral (90% of the people there.) Some were mad that the funeral was being held in our church because a lot of them were Buddhist.  In fact, one time when a man was speaking saying how cool it was that our church has hope for an afterlife, a non member guy shouted out "are you Buddhist or a Mormon?!" He was obviously mad that he was supporting our church’s teachings. But after the funeral, we got to talk to some of the non member people there.

Another cool thing is that we have a baptism this upcoming Thursday. It is the awesome Philippino sister named Rosemary. It is going to be at 8:30am so I don’t know who’s going to show up!

The language just keeps getting better and better. The hardest thing though is when during lessons the investigators and members start speaking Taiwanese. I have no idea what they are saying when that happens and Taiwanese is super hard to learn. Plus we're not allowed to learn it, only suppose to focus on Chinese. It’s all good though!

That’s the what’s up over here. Hope everyone learned great things from Conference.

Jia You (keep working hard!)

-Jordan Chatman

Jordan in the back.  This was at the 3rd transfer

Week 24- October 7, 2012

Week 24

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Hi everyone,

Another week has gone by fast. It is amazing how fast the weeks go by. This week our main focus was a Philippine sister named Rosemary and a young man from India. Both of them are really close to being baptized this month, so we are really trying to help them get there. We also met this guy from Canada. He left everything he had in Canada to move here and marry a Taiwanese girl. But when he got here, her parents were against it. So she ended up leaving him. Now he is stuck here without a job and has been really depressed. He had been doing well in Canada, but since being here his life has been messed up. So this led him to meeting with us. We were helping him learn about our purpose in life. The lesson we had with him went great and he is willing to stop smoking, drinking and everything else, to turn his life around. Then yesterday, we called him to invite him to church. But he's now going back to Canada because his old job opened up. So hopefully, the missionaries over there can keep teaching him.

Also, this week, we went on about a 30 minute MRT ride to Xin Zhuang, where this recently converted (newly baptized member) man from Africa lives. He had not been heard from recently, so the bishop wanted us to go see how he's doing. So we went out to his house, on the roof of this apartment, which was really hard to get into. All the people there only spoke Taiwanese, so I couldn’t understand. Luckily, my companion speaks it, so we finally got in. After all that though, he wasn’t even home. Oh well, it was the effort that counts.

Last night, we had a fireside for all of the newly baptized people and investigators (people wanting to learn about the church). That was really spiritual until one of the speakers, a new member, started singing and clapping during her talk and talking about her reincarnation. (not something we believe in!) Yeah -not sure about her situation... 

We didn't get to watch General Conference (a broadcast from our prophet and his apostles.) They tape it and then a guy from the old ward in Bade, translates it into Mandarin Chinese. It is for everyone in Taiwan that wants to watch it in Mandarin. But we'll be able to watch it in English next week.

The city is good. It’s just like a crowded Las Vegas here. Biking is crazy because the drivers are crazy and it is packed with scooters and taxis and cars.  We're in the middle of downtown. We live about a 15 minute bike ride from the temple. We live in a really nice apartment. It is really small, just one big area and a bathroom. Some of the other missionaries in the area have big apartments but they live in the ghetto. So I love it where I’m at. Taipei isn’t as nice as everyone says. Before in America, everyone said how nice and technologically updated and stuff it is, but it’s pretty dirty and not that nice. There are some nicer areas though.

The wards here are good, probably around 75 to 100 people at church. There are 8 missionaries in the Chinese ward - us, the assistants, the temple sisters, and 2 other elder.  The English ward members are awesome and really supportive.

That’s about it here. This gospel changes lives!

Love,

Jordan Chatman

Week 23-September 30, 2012

Week 23

Hi everyone,

The new area I’m in is sweet. It’s cool being able to teach in both English and Chinese. This week, I got to teach people from all over the world. One of our best investigators is young adult named Ashutosh. He is from India and came over to Taiwan to study and work. He said he grew up a bit in the Hinduism religion, but his family didn't really believe in it. He lives about an hour from where we live, but we traveled by the MRT out to his apartment last week and met with him. He told us a cool experience about how he used to have really bad nightmares. Then one day, he met the missionaries in his area. They taught him about prayer. Then that night he had another bad dream and in the dream, he prayed the way the missionaries taught him and asked in the prayer to be safe. Then he woke up and hasn't had another nightmare since. He has come to church the past 2 weeks and should be ready for baptism here in another few weeks.

We also met for the first time with the awesome young adult sister from St. Luscious which is an island in the Caribbean Sea. Her Jamaican English accent is sweet.  But we had a great lesson with her. We shared the restoration of the gospel and she started crying during the lesson. She was touched by the spirit.

Sunday, we had a great lesson about the Word of Wisdom (our health code in the church) with a Philippine sister. She is also close to being baptized soon. She has a great spirit about her. We have 4 Philippine investigators right now and they are all great. They are really nice and loving people.

Also, Sunday we called a young man, we had met on the street, to invite him to church and he came. He is this really cool, nice, black man with cornrows from St. Luscious Island as well. He liked church and setup to meet with us later this week

So, we have a bunch of great investigators and then, of course, we have some not so great ones. We met on Tuesday with this younger American guy from New York who teaches English here. He just wanted to debate the whole time and was spitting anti-Mormon stuff at us left and right. He wanted scientific evidence of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, which actually we could show to him. But would that have any effect? No, because there would be no faith. Ether 12:6 says, “Faith is things which are hoped for, which are not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.”

Also, we had a baptism this week. It was a Chinese man that has changed a lot. He used to smoke and to do a bunch of bad things. But through the gospel, he was able to change his life and was baptized this weekend.

That’s the scoop over here.

Have a good week!

Love,

Jordan Chatman

Week 22- September 23, 2012

Week 22

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Hey everybody,
This week was exciting! To start last week, I got the call that I was going to be moving to a different area. My two companions got the call that they would both stay there but train two brand new missionaries. So on Thursday, they had to go to Taipei for a meeting to learn about how to train the new missionaries. So that means I stayed and spent the day in my area with Elder Beck. He was an elder who I was in the MTC with (his companion who is from Singapore, also had to go to the meeting in Taipei). So Elder Beck and I spent the day doing missionary work. That was an adventure because we've both only been here about three months. So our Chinese isn’t the greatest but we managed to get through the day. We had to teach the law of chastity later that night to a family which was interesting because teaching that subject in English is hard enough. We had never taught it before but it turned out okay because we brought a member that helped us. Then later the next morning, we woke up and traveled to Taipei for the meeting to find out where we were being transferred. That was another adventure because we had to take a bus to the train station, but none of the buses would stop for us (probably because we are wei guo ren -foreigners). It wasn’t until a Taiwanese grandma came to the bus stop that a bus finally stopped. We took the bus to the train station, but we weren’t really sure which stop to stop at and then which MRT subway to take.  The MRT station is huge and confusing. We both can’t read Chinese characters because we aren’t supposed to be learning those yet. But luckily some ladies started talking to us and they were members of the church. So they help us find our way. So at the meeting, I found out I was getting transferred to Jin Hua. This is the same area that the temple is in and I got a native companion. This area is sweet. The church is right next to the temple. It was super nice and is four stories tall. We are also a part of two wards (groups of people that go to church at a certain time in a specific boundary), the Jin Hua ward and only English ward in Taipei (probably only English ward in Taiwan). So yesterday, I met both of the wards. We go to both of their sacrament (church) meetings. However, first at 8:30 a.m., we had a lesson with an Indonesian lady that only speaks Indonesian. Luckily she has an Indonesian member friend whose English is perfect. She helped translate for her during the lesson. We also had a senior couple missionaries (older people on a mission) help us teach during the lesson. They are called the Kitchens (Elder Kitchen was the first missionary to come to Taiwan back when it was opened for missionaries). Later at 11 a.m., we had sacrament meeting (church meeting) in the English ward which was really weird. There were mainly all white people! I haven’t seen that many white people in a long time! But it was cool because the ward is really diverse. We had an investigator from India show up out of the blue. There is a member from a small country by Ghana in Africa. There are also Canadian, European, and Philippine members. We met with a Philippine sister after church and we set up a baptismal date with her.
That was my week. It is going be good having a native companion. His English is really good and it'll be great for my Chinese. It was sad leaving Bade. I am going to miss a lot of people plus we had four other people that should be baptized in the next two weeks. But I’m excited to be in this area.

Love,
Jordan Chatman

A family, Lin, that Jordan and his companion are teaching that are close to getting baptized. Curtis and Janet ended up getting baptized (the 2 kids)....see later photos

Jenny, a lady Jordan and his companion werere teaching that wanted to get baptized but her mom didn't want her too. Filipino that is Catholic

This is the view from Jordan's apartment in the city of Taipei.

Week 21 -September 16, 2012

Hey all,

Sorry I didn't have time to blog this week.  Transfers are on Friday.  Both of my companions will be training new missionaries so I will most likely be moving somewhere.  We get a new group of missionaries in this week. Gotta go!

Love, Jordan

My companion from Taiwan, Elder Shu. Right now im in a tri-companionship - Elder Murphy (my step-trainer) and Elder Shu

This is a typical soup meal in Taiwan

Common type statues in Taiwan

Different types of food Jordan ate on his mission

Stinky Tofu

Elder Murphy, Jordan's companion dropping off a Liahona talk to Qiu1 Jiemei and family. They are investigators

Daxi, part of Jordan's area. This view is from the top of the hill looking out from Ba1 de2

Week 20 -September 9, 2012

Hey everyone,

I had another really busy week. We visited a bunch of less active church members (baptized members of the church that don’t come consistently) this week. The mission president wants us to visit more of the less active members because in Taiwan there are about 50,000 members of our Church, but only about 10,000 are active! So that is not good, there are millions of people here and only 10,000 active members!

We had a baptism on Saturday. The lady that was baptized is an 18 year old girl named Zhang Yan Ting. We had a great turn out of people at the baptism and one of the young single adult ward members baptized her which was great. It’s a tradition here that you have to bear your testimony (say what you believe in) in sacrament (church), the Sunday after being baptized. She was really nervous about that and went up there and only said 2 sentences! But that is ok, she is learning.

We did some tracting this week (going door to door and knocking on them, seeing if people have interest). Tracting is not really successful here. No one has any interest. As soon as we say we are missionaries, they start shaking their heads and waving their hands. Then they turn around and shut the door on our face. Sometimes, they won’t saying anything and just clasp their hands and start bowing, symbolizing that they are Buddhist. Then they close the door, ignoring us completely. It’s a cool experience though.

We have a bunch of baptisms scheduled for October, so we're working to help those people progress and get ready.

That is what is going on here. I know this Church is true. God is Love

Love,

Jordan Chatman

This is at Zhang's baptism.

Week 19 -September 2, 2012

Hey everyone,

This week was a little different. It was like ghost week or something to the Buddhist religion. So they believe these Buddhist ghosts come at night or something, I’m not really sure what it is. But anyways, so everyone gets these big tables and places food on them and they leave them out over time to feed the ghosts. So we would be riding around on our bikes and we would see everything from Pringles to skinned chickens sitting outside people’s houses. They also burn these paper things, so the city was filled with smoke.  It is so much so, that you can barely see while you are going around. Then earlier this week, we were walking down this alley and ran into a Buddhist celebration. They had a big king type chair and on it a dead pig that was dressed up with a crown and stuff on it. Then lying on top of the pig, there was a skinned goat.  Then they were all around with burning incense and bowing down to it. It was definitely different than I have ever seen. I wanted to film it but I am sure that would be disrespectful, so I didn’t.

This week, we got another companion who is from Taichung Taiwan. His companion isn’t here yet, so he was with me and my companion this week. It was cool having a native to practice Mandarin with 24/7. His English is really good though.

This week, like usual, we were crazy busy meeting with people. We have a baptism this upcoming Saturday, so we are excited about that. The sister being baptized is awesome. She just had some trouble getting to Church.  So that’s what took her so long to get baptized, because other than that she’s been prepared for a long time.

Another investigator is a kid named Lin Ren Shan. He is preparing to be baptized at the end of the month. We thought he was ready, but then we met with him this week. He was like “Yeah yesterday I got baptized in this other Christian Church, but I still want to be baptized in yours.” We were like, huh? I am not really sure why he did that. We had to explain again the restoration and talk about priesthood authority to baptize. I think he understands now.

Recently, we have been visiting a lot of less actives. Our mission president wanted the mission to pick up its efforts in that area. Yesterday, we visited with a father who hasn’t been to church in years. Most less active visits are good, but this man was a little different. He was like “yeah I don’t really think I want to come back to church.”  Then my new companion, Elder Shu, started bearing his testimony about how he knows this Church is true and the blessings we get from it. Then, the man just cuts him off. He says, "stop, just stop." (He said that in English too, which was weird). He was like, “I don’t want to hear it,  …..joining your church was a mistake.”  So that visit didn’t work out too well, but there was not much else good we could do.

This week, we had to teach a lot about why we live the commandments. A lot of people here struggle with things like drinking tea, smoking, pornography, or not keeping Sabbath day holy - those are the big ones. We focused on why we keep the commandments because like President Uchtdorf said, knowing the Why of living the gospel is what provides the motivation and courage to keep fighting and living the right way. My favorite scripture for teaching this is Mosiah 2:41. It says, "And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and ^ahappy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are ^bblessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out ^cfaithful to the end, they are received into ^dheaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it." This scripture is pretty much self-explanatory. If we are righteous, we are so much happier and are blessed now, spiritually and temporally, and we'll be able to live with God again. How cool is that!

Alright, that’s it for this week. I hope everybody is doing well.

Love,

Jordan Chatman

Jordan, some of the other missionaries, and investigators, at a Micheal McLean concert in Taiwan.