Bali

Hey everyone!

I'm sorry I didn't send an email last week. I'll make sure to send more when I have time.

Well I'm here in Bali. I can tell you a little more about it cause I'm going to be here for awhile. It is in the north of Taiwan, and there is a river right by it. It's actually one of the most rural places in New Tabei City. It still has a lot more city in it though. The biggest city I really knew before my mission was Salt Lake City, and Bali is bigger. Taller buildings and everything. A lot of old people live here, there are a few elementary schools and such, but it's mostly older people. The older people are by far the hardest to talk to. They will usually smile at you if they are in a: "Protected space." Basically a place where you can't talk to them haha. If you do try to talk to them they say:" Bu Yong." That just means. No usefullness. 

The air quality here in Taiwan is pretty bad. It's an Island a sixth of the size of Utah, but it has 26 million people. So many people it's honestly crazy. Everywhere you go there are people. Lot's of opportunities to talk to people! I just wish I could speak Chinese and talk to them. They are all pretty understanding though, they know it's a very hard language. They just never understand what you're saying. 

Something funny that happened, was my hair was growing pretty long. I needed a hair cut. We went to this kinda sketchy place to get my hair cut. I didn't want to go, but Elder Hooker said it was cheap. I was pretty sure they were going to mess up my hair but I did it anyway.They did pretty good on his hair but when it came to mine, they messed up big time. I tried to make it easy on the lady and I said:" Don't even cut any of the top, just cut the sides." I'll let you judge the pictures for yourself. It was so bad that I went and bought clippers myself. I tried to fix it myself, and it looks better but I don't know how to cut hair haha. Oh well, guess I'll just let it grow back.

Hmm I could talk about so many things. We have this investigator right now. Her name is Ke Jiemie. She's honestly so amazing. She came up to the Elders here and asked them if she could get a spanish bible for her friend who is in Jail. They said that they didn't have that, but they had a book that was similar to the Bible, cause it testifies of Jesus Christ. She became more and more interested in our message, and the focus shifted from trying to help her friend who was in prison to her. We've been teaching her a lot now. We came to a lesson with her planning to teach about the gospel of Jesus Christ, but when we got there she said:" I've already given up Coffee, and Tea. I don't drink either. I'm trying to give up on smoking right now, but what else do I have to do?" We were blown away for sure. We still don't even know how she knew about the Word of Wisdom, but we shared that with her. She is willing, she's just going to have to give up some things, but she's amazing. She came to church once, and brought her kids.

Things are going very well out here though. I'm trying to work as hard as I can. I'll keep working on getting more people to teach, but the Lord always provides a way. That's my calling: "Preach the Gospel," I love what I'm doing. It's easy to be out here because I know God approves, and I always have the opportunity to choose the right. I love you all! Enjoy the pictures!

The poster picture is about a motorola cell phone calendar. Notice the date on it.

They have a drink here that is the equivalent to gatorade. It's called:" Shupao."

The snails here a huge! That is actual sizing by my hand.

Lots of people at the Bali Wharf.

A girl that was really cute. Her name is Elsa, and she just threw up the asian peace sign when I got out my camera haha.

Barely made it!

I'm here in Taiwan finally!! It took a lot of miracles to get here but I'm here. 

Wednesday was my last real day in the MTC. We got all packed and then said goodbye to everybody and all of our teachers. We stayed up late that night talking to everyone in the zone and saying our goodbye's. We got up at 4:00 the next morning because half of the missionaries that were going to Taiwan were leaving at 5:00 in the morning. The other half of the missionaries (which included me) would stay and then leave later at 8:00. My companion Elder Beus was in the earlier group so I didn't have a companion most of the day. We got up and cleaned the room and then left to the airport. When we got there we found that our plane to San Francisco was delayed so we had to wait. Our plane to Taiwan was already cutting it close, so we didn't know if we would make it. We arrived in San Francisco, but before we had even landed; the plane to Taiwan was already boarding. We ran off the plane, took our stuff and ran in the airport like a bunch of crazy missionaries. They were just about to leave without us as we ran in. It was a miracle for sure. We then had a 13 hour flight till we got to Taibei, it was super fun.

When we got there it was around 5:00 A.M. over here. The mission president came and picked us up and we left to get to the mission home. The second I stepped outside with my suit coat I could feel the humidity and the heat. I started sweating super quick and it was pretty gross haha. We dropped all of our bags and stuff off and then went out to get some street food. The AP's got us the food, and while they were standing in line, they gave us English Class Fliers. They told us to go hand them out to people and start contacting. The scariest part of doing that is I didn't really know how to communicate. I found this guy and he was on his phone playing a game and didn't want anything to do with us. I had to find like three people before they would even just take the flier. The food was super good though, and we made it back to the mission home to go to sleep. The Elders in my room were heading to bed when these two temple workers walked in our room. The temple is right next to the mission home and chapel, so people will come to the mission home and stay a few days for the temple. These two old guys couldn't speak Chinese, they only spoke Taiwanese so I didn't understand a word of what they were saying. One of them jabbed me in the chest wondering where my missionary tag was. I was already out of my shirt and everything getting to bed so that was weird. I could understand they wanted us to be quiet so we went to bed. At about 3:00 in the morning I heard this drum going. I had no idea what it was and then I saw this old guy banging on the wall for like twenty minutes. Needless to say, I got no sleep that night.

The Saturday was a good day. The AP's went and bought us these things for breakfast called FanTwan's. They were really good, a picture is down below. We then went to the Grand Hotel to a place that Taiwan was dedicated for missionary work. When we got back to the Mission home we received our Trainers! My trainer is an awesome Elder. His name is Elder Hooker. He's from Bountiful Utah, and has been on his mission for about 13 months. He is really good at Chinese, and I rely on him with almost every conversation I have. We got our trainers and then all split up to go to our areas. It was sad cause we had to say goodbye to everyone, but I'll see them again. 

Elder Hooker and I left on the MRT which is the subway here. Then we took a bus till we got to our area. It's called Bali. It's like the northernmost part of New Taipei city. It has mountains in it, surrounded by tall buildings and lots of city. There are so many people that live here and it's really a beautiful place. You can see the ocean and it's great. When I got to the apartment I found out that I don't have a bike yet. The company told us they would get us bikes in the next few weeks so I'm using an exchange bike. A bike that an Elder left here when he went home. Luckily it's still pretty good. We dropped my stuff off, and then went out proselyting. It is probably the most food I'll ever eat here honestly. We went and ate dinner out, and then I wanted a Mango smoothie cause mango season is over now. We met this lady that we wanted to become an investigator. She treated us to CuaBing. It's like shaved ice, but huge. It also has beans and different things. It's not very sweet. I finished the whole thing and felt super full. We wanted to share a scripture with her, but she wanted to go somewhere else. She took us to a restaurant right after and we ate a ton of food there. I basically rolled out of there after. We met this investigator named Zheng Dixiong. He was a super nice guy, he had a little son that was going crazy, but we still taught him. As we were teaching him we started talking about baptism. We didn't plan this before, but I invited him to be baptized my first night! He accepted baptism, but he wouldn't confirm a day because of a few things. We will hopefully meet with him again next week and try to help him. 

I just realized how long this email is, I have so much to say, but that's probably good enough. I love you all and I'll send more pictures next week!!

-Love Elder Thayne

Flying Out to Taiwan (JUST KIDDING)

It's been a good week this week! Parts of it went by slow, and others fast. It was going really fast because our original plan was to fly out tomorrow morning. Last weekend though, we got a notice that our visas haven't come in. They finally told us that they are close, and that we will be getting them sometime this week. We are probably going to be leaving around Thursday this week. A lot of the people that were going to be flying out there were pretty mad. It didn't really make that much of a difference to me though cause I know there has got to be some reason why we are staying a few extra days. It's just getting us more and more excited to get out there!

We taught our last Skype TRC to a member in Australia who is Chinese. It was going pretty well, but I noticed my companion wasn't saying much for some reason. We went the whole lesson, and then after He told me that he wasn't able to hear her, he just heard static the whole time haha. I guess he just bore testimony of stuff I was saying so it worked out. The lady liked us a lot and said that if she came to Taiwan while we were there, she would take us out to eat food. She is actually the one who's daughter fellow-shipped  my teacher when she was less active so they're good friends.

Speaking of my teacher, I love her a lot. She is very opposite from me, but she is amazing. She really cares about her students even if she doesn't show that much. She shared with us her conversion story and it is really powerful. I can tell that she wants to send us out to go and care about people. She wants us to not go out and baptize, but to go out and convert people unto Jesus Christ. That's the only way to lasting conversion, anything else and they wouldn't be able to stay in the church.

We had in-field orientation this week which basically just got us into the right mindset to go out into the field, and it got us all pretty excited. The sad thing is some guys in our zone are leaving. They left this morning. People from Day 1. Things are getting real now. We all know that now is the time to work the hardest we can. It's kind of sad cause I don't know if I'll be able to see most of these Elders again. In my zone, there are 15 missions so it's pretty spread out. Everyone is happy to go though, and start serving real people. The Elders and I that our here still are the oldest ones in the MTC now. 

Well here we are, my 9th week. The MTC has been a great experience. I've gotten to know lots of amazing missionaries, and be able to look to them as an example. I've been taught by two great teachers. Very different from me, but also who loved me. They taught us some Chinese, but the biggest thing they taught us is to have desire. As I'm leaving this week the thing I've really learned from the MTC is to work my hardest and give everything I have to this work. I'm never going to get another chance like this again. So might as well give 100% of myself. 

I love you all so much. 

-Elder Grayson Thayne