Another Transfer...

Transfer week!!! I've been banished to Hualien where the earthquake happened! They decided to send a few Elders from Taipei to help with the cleanup, and that includes me! I will be helping with the cleanup service and sharing the gospel with people there...I was wondering how far I wanted to take this, but I don't want everyone to freak out. 

I'm actually staying in Sanchong for this next transfer with Elder Hyde. I was pretty sure I was staying and Elder Hyde would stay here too because he's only been here for one transfer. The sisters are staying together again and Elder Endicott left from training. The district pretty much stayed the same. A few of the ward members were happy that we were all staying! So hopefully the work will be able to pick up a bit!

English class was also good this week! All of the grandma's that I teach in intermediate class were really happy that I'm staying. I will be staying and teaching them. It was fun because I taught about directions and how to lead someone with English directions!  We played some games and they really liked it. At the end I taught a spiritual share on how to receive direction in your life. And how Jesus Christ and his teachings can be that direction. I had a member come up to me after saying that what I taught on was an answer to her prayers, and how she realized she needs to focus on raising her family instead of trying to chase her dream job. Family has become number one for her.

Our investigator Brother Chen is doing really well! He is super funny and was at church with us yesterday. He is really savage to the other people in the ward so it's really funny. He'll tell people that they became fat over Chinese New Year and then us missionaries just laugh. They will just say whatever they want and most everyone is okay with it. But missionaries have to be careful what they say or they will offend someone, it's funny. But he is doing really well and he came to scripture class last week when we were talking about Lehi's vision of the tree of life. He said that the Iron Rod was the Book of Mormon. He didn't even know that is in a hymn!!! He's so cool, and he said he'll play frisbee with us tomorrow. He's 43 but super healthy.

So yeah! We are working hard and having a good time doing it! That's the key to having fun! 

Here's some pictures:

My companion, us with members, me when I had hair haha.

Love you!

-Elder Thayne

你吃飽了沒?( Are you full yet?)

This week was Chinese New Year!! Really different because everyone went back  to their parents house, so most of the people in Sanchong went to every other place in Taiwan haha. Everyone asked us what we were doing for the new year and we just said we keep doing missionary work. They're all so surprised, but we still stay in our areas and do what we can. 

Krispy Kreme!!

 We have a security guard at the bottom of our apartment building who knows us by name and always does the same things. We come in after a long night and he says “你吃飽了沒?” we say yeah we ate. And then he asks us where we went to eat and then tell him. And then he asks us if we went to church that day, and we usually just say no we're on the streets today. He's just a really weird guy but he's so funny. He likes to shake our hands whenever we come in, and the past few times it's been cold he grabs my hand and then slaps me and tells me I need to keep my hands warm or I'll get sick. Sometimes we walk in and before he stands up to greet us, I hide behind the furniture and he has no idea where I am. Elder Hyde then tells him that I left him, and he doesn't see me for the rest of the night. I then come in the next day and he gets up and walks over to me demanding where I went. It's pretty hilarious, stuff like this happens every single night with him.

Since it was Chinese New Year this week, members of the ward fed us. It's over 6 days, feeding us 12 meals. I have been putting on a little bit of weight because they make me eat so much. When we want to leave, they say:" you have to eat more or we won't let you leave." So yeah my stomach has been hurting these past few days...I think it's being forced to get bigger 

It's been a pretty slow week with the work because most everyone is gone, but it's been interesting. The Sanchong ward combined with the Luzhou ward for Sacrament meeting yesterday, and they asked all 6 of us in the district to give talks. Everyone had their ideas for talks, and I had totally forgot about the talk so I prepared a little during Saturday night. I decided to do it on loving someone enough that you will do the hard thing to help them. I told them that the last time I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting apart from testimonies was in Lehi Utah with my family and friends. It's pretty weird to think that was over 6 months ago. I basically talked about how God loves us so much that he will give us trials as an opportunity for us to turn to him for help. I also shared the story of our cow Creamy and how I spent so much time with her every day and I loved her. I told them how she got sick, and we tried to keep her alive, but it just got worse and worse until we had to let her go. When I shared that part some of them were crying and thanked me after. I was just happy they could understand my Chinese!! It was weird after though because all of the members started asking me to share stories from the farm, cause it's so different to them. They think it's so funny but cool! I love that I was able to have that opportunity growing up cause not many do. 

That's basically all for this week, just a ton of eating, and seeing members.

新年快樂!!

Companionship study at the park!

摩爾門教

This week was actually pretty awesome! For all those who are wondering; my hair is growing slowly but surely! I had some Elders come up to me and tell me they have respect for me cause I cut my hair. Also Shoutout to the Lynch's and the Jonson's Northrup's and everyone else for sending me stuff! You guys are amazing!!

Last P day we went up to the top of a mountain with the zone leaders and Rui Cong. It was crazy cause we saw snow!!! There wasn't much, but it was pretty awesome seeing snow in a sub tropical climate! The really funny thing is that the police were telling everyone they needed to put chaines on their tires because of the snow, but being from Utah it was hilarious. There was like a half inch of snow in the deepest parts and people were acting like they were going on a Klondike! It was so funny. I guess most of them hadn't seen snow before so I can't judge them.🤣

We also had an earthquake this week which some people were freaking out about. It was a 6.0 that hit in Hualien which is on the east coast. I've been there before on a P day actually. I was on exchanges up late talking to Elder Donalson when I felt it. The apartment building I was in was moving side to side so that was fun! If an earthquake like that hit Taipei city tons of building would fall over. Taipei is in a bowl, and the soil is kind of wet, so hopefully we don't get an earthquake here.

So our investigator Brother Chen had a really cool experience. Every year at the end of the year, companies will hold a party for their workers and do a raffle. Our investigator told the members that he had never won it before and he really wanted to. He said he prayed to Heavenly Father and then he won 1st prize!! He won 20,000元。It's pretty insane, but he's super happy and knows it's from God. I'm not saying it works for everyone haha, but it worked for him!!!

A really cool miracle happened. We had some extra time one day so we went to a few less active members homes to make sure the church had their correct home address. We were biking around and the people weren't home, but we were talking to people on the street a lot. As we talked to them, they just kept telling us to go find the young people because they will actually listen to us. People kept telling us, but we talked to as many people as we could. We had an appointment with someone though so we started on our way back home. About halfway home I got a call from the person we were about to meet with saying that he couldn't meet anymore cause his work was moving to a different workplace. So we turned around and biked back close to where we were. The person we were looking for wasn't there so we started on our way to get closer to our house. As I was biking there was an old guy on the street(by the way there are always old people out and about here walking and buying food and stuff) I just said hi expecting nothing to come out of it when he said hi back. We pulled out bikes over and asked if we could share a message about Jesus Christ with him and he said sure! It's super weird to hear that, but he unlocked the door to the apartment building and brought us to the roof to meet his son. It was super funny when he brought us to him cause his son wasn't expecting us at all. The apartment was super messy and we just sat down inside. Once we had all got situated his dad just said:“ you guys can just talk and I'm going to my apartment,” it was super random cause he hair left us to talk to his son. His son was kind of in a trap haha, he couldn't really tell us to leave cause his Dad was the one who brought us there. He was just folding laundry so we sat and shared the Restoration of the Gospel with him. His wife came out to go buy groceries and was super surprised to see us there! The husband just said one word to explain:“摩爾門教,"(Mormons). It was funny. It was a really cold experience though because all that stuff happened with perfect timing. If all of the stuff didn't happen before then the son wouldn't have listened to our message, or got the opportunity to. I could tell that it was only in that setting that it would be possible for him to accept us and listen. The Lord has amazing ways for gathering his children.

So yeah that was basically my week!

Here are some pictures!!

-Elder Grayson Thayne

Why did MTC teachers say it wasn't gonna get cold in Taiwan???

Okay so it's only been 5 days since my last email, but I have a few things I can write from this week. It's been a very busy week full of traveling and other things. We've gone to the Mission home 5 times in the past seven days for things, so it's been pretty busy. We went for interviews with President, meetings for English class, a piano practice and now a fireside from last night. It's been busy, but good! It's also been really cold here this week! The teachers in the MTC said it wasn't going to get cold... We checked the weather one day and it was 8℃ here and 11℃ in Salt Lake City. And that's not even accounting for the humidity and the rain. It's actually been pretty chilly. All of the Taiwanese people think that America is so much colder because it snows, but Taiwan is cold too, it's just different.

Something cool that happened this week is we were going around 三重 trying to figure out if some members lived in the apartments that were on the records. We walked up to a door that had another wooden door behind it. We knocked on the metal outer door pretty hard and no one answered. We tried it a few more times and no one came. I thought I heard someone move though, so I was able to squeeze my hand through the metal door and push the wooden door behind it. It opened and then a man from the Philippines came to the door and talked to us. We asked him if we could come back another day and talk to him about Jesus Christ and he said yes! Hopefully he'll set up a time with us! 

We were able to get Elder Hyde's Bike fixed which was good. He refused my free services and got it done by a professional instead haha. 

English class was good this week. I got a few new ideas for how to teach my class better cause we really want to teach them English. A few new kids came that I found on the street and they seem pretty cool. They just live in another area!! They live in 淡水 my old area!! But they were nice, and they should be good referrals if they want to be taught. 

We have also started up this Book of Mormon class every Thursday for people to come to. Both members and our investigators. We just want to help people better understand the Book of Mormon and how important it is to everyone's conversion. We had one investigator come and we also had a bunch of members there. We talked about Nephi and his brothers going back to get the plates. We had a really good discussion and our investigator really liked it. He's brother Chen. He is 43 and super awesome. He dresses super well and he looks like he just turned 30. He's super healthy and really happy all the time. I met him on the street with Elder Welch and he's progressing super well. He's also really funny. So yeah he liked the class!

We went into a Hi Life one night and met a man playing cards by himself. We talked to him for a bit and found out that he is homeless. He's only 65 years old, but he has no job and he doesn't want one. We taught him for a bit and then tried to help him find somewhere to sleep cause it was cold. He had just made some bad choices and didn't have money to live anywhere. He wouldn't accept help though because he doesn't want people knowing he's poor. It's hard and sad, but he doesn't understand how things can help him. I hope he will learn later.

Pics are us in Mormon Helping hands shirts.

The whole Taibei Central zone was asked to do a service project in Taibei for feeding the homeless. All of us missionaries went to help set up tables and chairs and decorations for 2,000 tables and 10,000 chairs. We set them up and tents and it was pretty fun getting to do something different. We were there for 6 hours so it was good. On the way back while we were on the MRT we were talking to some Elders and missed our stop for 三重 so we had to get off at the next one. We got off and two Black foreigners got off as well. They had pretty good hair, and I remembered my friend Elder Fernandes was looking for a place to do a lineup (the people in Taiwan don't know how to cut his hair so it's been a struggle haha). So I went up and asked them where they got their hair done. I got a guy's contact info and we talked to the two guys. They were really cool and were from the Caribbean teaching English. Hopefully they will set up and we can start teaching them!

But yeah that was basically my week. The fireside last night was great. I got to be with a lot of my missionary friends, and the people I know in my ward now. We haven't gotten very far into the lessons with Brother Chen, so when someone bore their testimony about abstaining from coffee and tea he was astonished haha. He couldn't believe it, but I told him we'd teach him later haha! Don't wanna get too ahead of ourselves! At the end of the fireside he told us that he felt like he needs to be a better person. I was pretty happy, last night was a really good night.