Thanksgiving!!!

Hello Everyone!

I just want to start with what I'm Thankful for. I'm grateful for my Family. Friends, Jesus Christ,Missionaries, Members, all of God's children, and Jeeves(I miss my dog). I'm just Thankful for all these things, because this week was the first Thanksgiving I've ever had that hasn't been with my family. It's not the same, and it really makes you grateful for them even if they're far away. We had an awesome Thanksgiving though.

This week is the week before transfers, so everyone is going crazy. Our Ward has 8 Missionaries right now which is unheard of. We have the normal six, and then Elder Lee and Elder Wang. Elder Lee was being trained by this other Elder who has really good Chinese. In the middle of the transfer, his trainer was called to be the new "Recorder," the recorder's main job is translating, and helping with office work. Because he had to leave, Elder Lee had to move in with the zone leaders. They also got Elder Wang, so everything is a bit crowded over here.

We also were able to go on exchanges this week which was really fun. I went over to Danshui again and Elder Hooker stayed in Bali. It was Thanksgiving day so we decided to go to a "KaoRou." A KaoRou is a place where you can eat unlimited meat and you cook it yourself right in front. I have some pictures and a video. As Elder Wetzel and I were heading to the place, we turned left on a really busy street and Elder Wetzel was in front of me as this car tried to run a red light. It was a good thing that I wasn't too close behind him, cause he almost got hit bad. The guy in the car got way mad and slammed on his breaks and got out of the car. He was yelling some crazy Chinese and put up some hand signs. Elder Wetzel just said back:" Buhaoyisi, wo shi Waiguoren," (I'm sorry, I'm a foreigner). He is also 21 years old from the Naval Academy, so he was ready for the fight if it needed to happen. The guy just got back in his car and left. We were at the KaoRou and ate lots of meat. It's supposed to be unlimited, but with 8 missionaries going full Pyro on their meat, the people got annoyed. They stopped bringing meat to us and just said that they were out. We knew it wasn't true, but we had to go anyways haha. 

Elder Wetzel and I had to bike down to a lesson really quick and met with this lady named Wendy. She is a scientist, so she believes in evolution and asks us all these super weird questions. I heard that she once asked the Elders if after a body is resurrected, does it have cells? Just crazy questions all the time, and keep in mind that this is all in Chinese. Elder Wetzel is 6 weeks younger on Island than me, so our Chinese wasn't very good. We were sharing about Adam and Eve, and she asked a few questions. She knew our Chinese wasn't super good though, so she held off on most. Then she asked a really weird question. She asked if we thought Adam and Eve were black. All I said back was that we are all Heavenly Father's Children, and brothers and sisters. Since we are brothers and sisters, I don't care if our first parents were black or not. It doesn't matter. After that she just accepted what we said and didn't ask any more random questions hahah.

Overall this week was really good! Had some good food, and made some good experiences. I hope you all had a great thanksgiving! 

-Love Elder Thayne

Whoops!(No dinner for us)

Yesterday was an interesting day. We did the normal things for church and then went home to get ready to proselyte. Right now it is cool enough in Taiwan to wear Suit coats, so we wear suit coats to all of our meetings. Elder Hooker and I have started to wear our suit coats the whole Sunday. I decided to not bring my stuff with me and go out finding. We moved our dinner to a little later in the evening so we could find when there was the most people. When we got done with that and headed back home to eat dinner, I realized I left the keys in the bag in our house. WE WERE LOCKED OUT!!! My wallet was also in my bag, so I didn't have money for a bus ride. Our spare keys were given to the zone leaders who live across the river which is about an hour and a half away on a bike. We had to start riding so we left. I called a member that we always rely on to see if he could drive up and get the keys from the zone leader's and then bring them back to us. He said:" Yeah no problem! I'd do anything for you guys!" We were way happy, just talking about how awesome he is and then I got a call from the zone leaders telling me they have to ride down to meet us halfway. The member had misunderstood my Chinese. He thought that I just couldn't get a hold of them so he called them and told them to bring me the keys. We were riding in our suits in the rain and the zone leaders called again saying that the last Elder who was in their apartment took the keys and they didn't know where they were. That Elder had been Whitewashed out of the area so everything happened so fast and they lost the keys. It turned into a big situation where the office elders were involved, but they finally found the keys and we were able to get home! It just used up all of our dinner time and finding time haha. 

This week has been kind of crazy. We have had lots of weird twists and turns trying to get our smartphones, but we finally have them! The way that our mission works is that we are just using a messaging app to better communicate with our investigators. We are also updating area book records online. Since we aren't using facebook our mission isn't online proselyting yet, our mission is basically the same as before, we just have better contact with other missionaries and members.

Things are starting to pick up here though, we've been getting lots of new phone numbers so hopefully that'll turn into setups. 

Our mission motto is:" Captained by Christ." It's a great thing we can just repeat in our minds whenever we are choosing to do something. I would implore all of you to use this in your life:" Am I being captained by Christ?" It's something that's always helped me make the right decisions. The scripture associated with it is: 3 Nephi 5.13:" Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."

 This is my call because I am a missionary. The thing that most members don't understand is that we are all missionaries. There are so many things we can do to declare the word of Christ to all people; Family, friends, everyone. I know this work is the most important thing any of us could be doing whether we are specifically set-apart or are all called of God. If we have the truth, we also have the responsibility to share it. 

Sorry not many pictures this time. Love you all!!

Elder Grayson Thayne

Finding

The title of this email is finding cause that's basically all we've been doing lately. We are trying to get our investigator pool up, so every day we go finding for about 4 hours. I think it may be starting to pay off though, cause we're getting more people's phone numbers. Some of the hardest things to do is just to go up to someone and start talking with them even though they don't have interest. It can be really awkward sometimes because they know who we are and they try to avoid us haha. Yesterday as we went out finding we had a pretty cool experience. We had just finished a contact and sat down on the side of the street to fill out some information when a lady just walked up and started staring at us. I started talking to her, and she was really friendly. She knew who we were, and she just wanted to thank us for leaving our country to preach about Jesus Christ. What was cool is that she is getting baptized into a Christian church in a week. We asked if we could meet with her and tell her more about Jesus and she said YES!! It surprised both of us so much that when we heard it we both said:"Really??" out loud. We are going to meet with her next week a day before she gets baptized. I hope the spirit will be really strong so that she will know our message is true.

 I went on exchanges with the District Leader this week so that was interesting. We taught a lesson to one of their investigators who always has A LOT of questions. When we read a few verses of scripture with her, we tried to ask her what it meant to her and she just came up with more questions. At one point in the lesson she started talking about Priesthood, and she said if we confer the priesthood onto one person, and they do the same thing, does the power get smaller and smaller? If I had 100% of the power and I gave it to another person would they only have 50% and then the next person have 25%? This was super confusing when she asked this, and imagine all of this in CHINESE. Needless to say, I had no idea what was going on. 

Something super fun but kind of dangerous in Taiwan is biking. Their is lots of traffic here; cars, buses, and scooters. People don't usually obey the traffic laws, so you just have to be careful not to get hit. Bikes are on the lowest part of the Traffic Food Chain. People don't respect you at all. We are usually out at night too, buzzing past cars and scooters and it gets pretty crazy. It's super fun though, and other than that, Taiwan is one of the safest countries there is.

If you haven't already heard the news, Taiwan is getting smartphones. They are making sure that it is just a tool to further the work though. We are going to have lots of controls put on the phones. The main reason is to digitize all of the area book, and planning records and get in better contact with our investigators. They keep stressing that the work will stay the same, we are just getting another tool. We won't be getting Facebook or Messenger. It will be interesting though.

Don't have much to write this week cause I forgot most of it. I've been keeping a pretty good Journal, but my zone leaders have my journal, and they forgot to give it back to me so I'll have to try to catch up on 6 days!!