I got to baptize Lin Jun Fang and I got a new companion -- Elder Tatton

Hey hello!

Sounds like you guys are having a busy time. Hahaha! Sam sent me an email all about his honeymoon. He's pretty much convinced me to live in Colorado! I mean weed is legalized there and everything. Nothing like getting "High on a Mountain Top". Just kidding! I didn't even know Mom was taking college classes....Why?

As for the music, in order for it to be "Xing (Okay-ed) It has to be uplifting, no romantic tones, 100 years old, no overtones or undertones. Uh..what else... I don't know. Traditional Chinese music would be awesome! I DO NOT want Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Not a huge fan. That's all my trainer would listen to.

Nice to hear Mom's working out with the Latina's. Good luck. They're really good at Mom-ing people out and being loud. But in all seriousness sounds like a lot of fun. Don't forget your stretchy pants (Nacho Libre).

Sorry to hear about Grandpa's health. That sounds just terrible. I hope he's doing better.

This week was pretty good. It definitely was one of the funnest weeks of my mission! I don't know why or how but something just kind of clicked with the language. I can safety say I can have pretty basic conversations with people in Chinese and not sound too stupid. I also had the privilege of being in a trio this week. I was in a trio with Elder Watson from Shalu and my trainer. It was awesome! Seriously. I had so much fun. Elder Watson made me laugh so hard. It was fun managing both areas at once but super killer. I was ridiculously tired and literally almost ran into a wall because I was dying of heatstroke. It was super fun! We also got to baptize this week. I baptized Lin Jun Fang. I already told you his story... right? I don't know why but I was the one picked to baptize him. I thought it was going to be my companion, Elder Mitton. I'm not sure who decided that.... So yes, I baptized him. Hopefully, next year he can get sealed to his family in the temple. That would be awesome!

I also got my new companion today! Elder Tatton from Holliday, UT. He's super awesome and I love him to death already. He's super nice. I've been having a lot of fun today showing him around. Unfortunately, I think I'm killing him (i.e., his mission is almost over and I may be his last companion) this transfer. He's also the District Leader. I can't wait to serve with him, it'll be really fun! Other than that, this week has been really good and really fun.

Elder Mitton was made a Zone Leader of the Taichung East Zone and transferred to the Wufeng Ward. Before he left, we went around so he could say good bye.

That's all I really got to be honest. I'm sorry, I'm not too good at writing emails back to you guys.

Oh yeah, Jesse is doing pretty good. We struggled through the first lesson because he talks so much! Hahaha! I love it. I was crying laughing at one point.

Here are some pictures from the combined Taichung Zones Conference we had on June 16th, our last with President and Sister Blickenstaff.

I love you!
-Silas

John Wayne, famous ties, old buildings, heat, crazy people, and changes

Hey hello!

Happy Fathers day!

Glad to hear the wedding went well! Sam told me all about it and sent me some pictures. It looked like a beautiful wedding. I wish I could've been there and to be honest I was bummed out this week because I couldn't be there. The Timpanogos temple looked really cool! I'm so happy for both of them! They're perfect for each other. Man, Mo Bettah's sounds so good. Sounds like the perfect wedding haha!

This week was alright. It was really hot this week. We just do the same stuff day in and day out. Lots of biking, lots of sweating. I don't know what to really write about. This week we should be having a baptism. He's 45ish and his ex-wife is a member. They have two kids. The reason why she is his ex-wife is because she divorced him, because he didn't want to get baptized and she wanted to get married in the temple. So he progressed really quickly and gained a testimony. So we should be baptizing him. Someone in the ward will probably baptize him. So that should be fun! Other than that, this is my last week with Elder Mitton. So I should be getting a new companion on Monday. This week we are in a trio, because one of the other elders in our apartment died today (i.e., his mission ended). Our ward mission leader is awesome. His name is John Wayne. He speaks English and Chinese. He is super fun to talk to. Sis. Blickenstaff is really trying to get me to finish my phase 1 language training stuff. So lots of pressure on that.

We get a new mission president soon! I can't wait to see the changes he'll make in the mission. Apparently, they're going to be changing up some rules as soon as they get here.

Lately there's been a lot of run ins with crazy people. I don't know what's in the water here but there are a lot of crazy people! I was doing some calls at a 7-11 and I looked up out of the window and some girl was just staring at me with this huge smile. So naturally as a missionary I smile back and wave and she just stands there. She was like literally 4 inches away from the glass right next to me just staring. I kept looking over at her and she just kept this creepy grin on her face. I started laughing cause it was so weird. Then she just disappeared. Then another crazy guy walked in and he had a weird pink shirt on and these tight jeans. He then sat down next to me and was trying to talk to me about the NBA finals. It was weird... There's just tons of crazy people here. It's probably the weather here that makes them go crazy. It's always a nice 140 degrees.

Anyway! Good week for the most part. It's been really hot. We're required to take breaks every now and then because it's dangerous to be outside for long periods of times. Some people don't believe in wasting time though. So we're stuck outside contacting for 4 hours straight.

Love you! I miss you all so very much!

 

I didn't even know it was possible to rain this much

Oh boy. Sounds like a terrible week. Hahahah! I love the new nickname for the van though (The Blue Whale). That's a pretty cool feature, blowing like a whale every few minutes. That's super scary that President Gibbons got into a car accident. So his he okay? That sounds like a pretty sketchy car accident. I hope Grandpa Burge is okay too! That's really scary that he was having chest pains. So...is he okay too? I also think it's crazy that Sam and Krista are feeding 70 people! Hahaha! Sounds like that will be fun to plan and get all the food for.

Well my week was pretty alright. We didn't really do anything different. Just a lot of teaching and a lot of feeling stupid for me. It rained a lot here. It still is and will rain for another week. It's so bad. The most rain I have ever seen. I didn't even know it was possible to rain this much. We've picked up some new investigators this week. This week we met Jesse while tracting. He was Military Police. He speaks pretty alright English. So we teach him in English, because even for my trainer Chinese is hard.. So we teach as much as we can in Chinese and then when we can't say something we say it in English. He's really really really really polite. He's very Taiwanese. So we always have to be drinking something. We always have to be comfortable. Everything so, when we're teaching him he's constantly running around the room adjusting fans, filling up our drinks asking us if we're hungry. It's pretty funny actually. He has a lot of interesting questions and he always says in a Chinese accent, "Excuse me! Excuse me! I'm so sorry! Please! Excuse me! May I ask? Excuse me! I don't mean to O-Fend. Are you you tairen (Jewish)". He'll always start it off the questions he asks us like that. We taught him how to pray and he doesn't really get it. When I showed him an example, he literally repeated what I was saying while I was praying. Then he randomly did a prayer in the lesson. Hahahah! He's really nice though and has an interest to learn more. He's one of my favorite investigators.

Like I said nothing really new this week. Just a lot of the same things. Sorry to hear things back home are a little crazy! It's also a shame that I won't be there for Sam and Krista's wedding.. I really wish I could be there. But it sounds like there's a lot of drama going on.. Doesn't sound to fun... "Excuse me! Please! Excuse me! But! I must say! I'm kind of glad I'm not home right now for that! Sorry! I just had to say, "Excuse me!"


Love you guys!

I'm not progressing with the language fast enough

Hello!

This week was alright... I just kind of felt stupid the entire week. I don't really feel like I'm progressing in the language fast enough. I feel stupid all the time. I can't say basic sentences without screwing up the grammar. It's pretty horrible. Everyone looks at me like I'm stupid. Some Taiwanese people will flat out even tell me straight up, "You can just speak English." That makes me feel bad... Other than that, nothing really happened this week except that I was riding the bus back from somewhere and the bus was just packed like people were almost pushed out of the door packed. So the bus driver refused to go because there was just way to many people on the bus. So he over the intercom told all these kids to get off and walk. Well many of the kids didn't like that and so they all start swearing at him and stuff as they're getting off. Then one of the kids yelled out a bad word. The bus driver didn't like that... So the bus driver leaned out the door and started going, "Guo Lai, Guo Lai." (Come back.) It was pretty hilarious. Nothing happened and we just drove away going 150 mph all angry.

Sounds like Kayleigh's trip is very actioned packed. That's pretty ZaoGao that they didn't let her check into the hotel because they weren't 21. Getting lost in the temple is pretty awesome too. But, nonetheless it sounds like her trip is very cool and very fun. Whale watching sounds interesting. Super cool that they're nice and close with some of our country's finest - Marines. Let's hope they don't come back with Marine boyfriends....

So you had the missionaries over for dinner. That's pretty cool.

Anyways. The week was good. Glad everything back home is going well! I love you all so very much!

Tracting in the Park with the Branch President and his Wife

Hey! Hello!

Sounds like you're going to be very busy! I honestly don't know what to write this week. I'll be honest not a whole lot is happened since the last time I wrote you. We've just been having a lot of success while tracting and stuff. Like I said, I just love to tract. There's tons of nice people here. But, that being said there's also a lot of weirdo's/bean lovers/drunk guys with no shirts....but it's still fun. We recently did some park contacting and that was really fun. We came across these "Am-ahs" (grandmas) And they were like working out in the park and stuff and they had tons of questions. They mostly wanted to know what we were doing and why we were so young. It was really funny though because while we were at the park on Sunday night, we ran into our Branch President and his wife. So they would do laps around the park and kept running into us and they would be scoping it out and telling us which people they think we should talk to. I think they had a lot of fun. We came across this really nice family and we got their numbers and they were super nice and willing to meet with us. So hopefully they still want to. I'm really enjoying Taiwan and it's a good place. I love it here more and more everyday. I'm still retarded though. I had a good week though. No special plans for p-day. This morning I took my companion to the hospital. He has back problems and he wanted to see what was wrong. A year ago, his first baptism, he pulled a muscle while baptizing and it's hurt him ever since. So we went to a doctor and the doctor told him that he has a sprained muscle. So there's not much he can do. I don't really trust the hospitals here... They're super sketchy and many of the doctors look like they don't know what they're doing. We went to this huge hospital in the Wuqi area. Google pictures for the outside. It's like a skyscraper and it's got all sorts of stuff in it. Since it's socialized medicine there's like 50,000 people in there. There's like stores, a 7-11, a food court, and a Mazu shrine under the helicopter pad. Then there's a revolving restaurant at the top. The thing is super slow though and doesn't even really move. It moves like an inch an hour. So you don't even feel it/notice it.

I love you all so much!

The Taipei Temple trip was really fun!!!

Hey, I have an hour to email (less than an hour). I went to the Taipei temple and it was really fun. We ode the bus. Taipei has a very futuristic feel and has steep cliffs that drop off straight into the ocean. Taichung has a more ancient feel with lots of rice fields.

The temple was really pretty and really interesting. We had to take off our shoes (culture thing) to enter the temple. Inside there were all these Chinese-styled artworks and the chairs were Chinese-traditional-styled. Some aspects of it were really pretty. We did initiatories in Chinese, so I had to say all the Chinese names. I had to read the Chinese characters (which I don't really know) and figure out how to say the name right. It was really hard. I didn't do a very good job... They didn't correct me though, so I guess I don't really know how I did. The actual endowment session was in English though. It was kind of funny and I had to hold back some laughter, because all the temple workers that spoke English all had horrible accents and horrible grammar. That's probably what I sound like in Chinese though, but still hilarious. It was a really fun experience and it was really peaceful.

Yeah it was really fun to see the other mission. It was a nice break from proselyting and very fun to see Taipei. I took some pictures, but I don't have my cord so I'll send them on Monday. If you ever want to visit Taiwan with me, we're going to Taipei. Anyway, not really anything new. Sorry. It's been 3 days.. So I'm just sitting here...Where's Silo?

Going to the Taipei Temple on Wednesday

Hey I'm short on time this week, because we only get an hour. We're going to the Taipei Temple on Wednesday, so my actual P-Day is on Wednesday. I think we will be doing an English session at the temple.

This week has been really good. We've been just doing the same old same old. We got two new investigators this week, and they're really cool, and seem genuinely interested in what we have to teach!

We've been seeing a lot of success from tracting the area, which has been surprising to my companion. It's been really hot here though. I love to tract here. It's always an adventure, and I love it when weird or hilarious stuff happens. We tracted into this old guy and he was super loud and super energetic. He was super happy at the fact that Taiwan got a new president. He kept shouting her name and clapping his hands. It was really funny. It's Taiwanese culture to invite people in I guess. Most people will let us in and give us some warm water (Taiwanese culture) to drink, but will not listen to our message or what we have to say about Jesus. Either way its really fun and there's just always weird stuff going on. Tracting here has been really successful.

I love you all! Sorry not a whole lot of time to write! I love you! I might be emailing Wednesday!