Miracle week!!!

The last P day we had, we went to my old area in Danshui and went uo to the beach with some people. I told them that they need to buy a discraft frisbee because there is a difference. We all played on the beach and went around to some of the farms around there just to look at the scenery. Always have fun P days. 

The title says it all. This week was absolutely crazy with all of the miracles we saw. I'll share a few things that happened. 

The whole time during Elder Hyde and I's companionship, we have been working hard with little success. We haven't seen a baptism together, so we have been working really hard anf doing our best at making plans to see things happen. And I believe that through all of those efforts, we were able to see so many miracles.

So. The Elders in Sanchong have been working with a kid for four years now. He is a little bit different mentally, so he was waiting to turn 20 years old before he could get baptized. 20 years old is the Adult age in Taiwan. He has always been afraid that his parents wouldn't let him get baptized because they are Buddhist. Missionaries have been telling him for three years now to just ask his parents if they would let him, but he was always way too scared. It's only because of the member's help that he has stayed this long. Last week he finally asked his Father if he would sign the paper to let him get baptized...and he signed it!!! We were all super happy for him and we are going to help him get prepared for baptism soon. Finally after 4 years he get permission.

I got word this week of an investigator from my old area in Bali is also getting baptized next month. He had the same problem as the kid before, but his parents wouldn't let him. He's been waiting to get baptized for years. He comes to church as often as he can, and he was pretty much a member. So many missionaries have been with him, and I'm so glad that something good is coming out of the area I served. 

We have been also helping one of our members really get working to share the gospel with his friends. They all don't live in Sanchong so he didn't really know how to share with them. We met with him a few times, and then skyped his cousin who is a Taiwanese Aboriginal. She was really funny and had a fresh different attitude from the other people around here. She was really excited to meet with the missionaries in Taoyuan after we talked about the Book of Mormon with her. So yeah! Fun helping members with their own missionary work. 

One day as we were going around doing normal missionary stuff, I wanted to go to the park to do our studies, so we went over and just sat there by the tree doing our studying. People would come and walk by and talk to us cause it was a Saturday and the weather was nice. While we were sitting there we met two cousins with their parents exercising their dogs, they came up and started talking to us. They were super nice and it was just a really casual conversation with them. We set up one of the kids because he said he wanted to learn about Christianity! As we were leaving the park, we saw him already reading the Book of Mormon!! His cousin's Mom was smiling at us really wide so we stopped and talked to her to find out that she is actually a member of the church!! She hasn't been to church for seven years now, so we hope we can get working with her!

So yeah those are some of the miracles we've had this week!! Really blessed!

Zone conference!

Sorry if this email isn't as detailed as you would like. I wrote it, and then somehow it got deleted before it was sent so this is draft #2.

This week was full of great stuff!! Last

week on Monday we went to my old area in North zone around Bali and had some good fried rice with some of the Elders in the district. After that we went all the way to the south zone to play soccer with a bunch of other Elders. It was super fun and we were pretty tired when we finally got back to our home in central zone getting ready to go back to work!!

This last week was the week of birthdays. The two sisters in our district actually have the same birthday which was last Sunday. They both turned 20 years old!! And then we had another Elder in our district, and some members also had their birthdays last week!!

Elder Hyde and I have really been trying to improve our teaching and lessons. We have been making sure to have the spirit teach them through us. In one of the lessons we taught last week, we were teaching someone the Restoration and he just wasn't really believing what we were teaching. We taught the Great Apostasy and then the spirit just told us to stop teaching because he wasn't open to the message we were about to share. So we stopped and told him we wanted him to start praying to receive a desire to learn what we were teaching before we talk about the First Vision.

We taught another person who owns a shop that sells beer. He's a father and he's a really cool guy who has been meeting with missionaries for over 4 years now. We talked to him about his family and how the best way to raise his family is to build it on the foundation of Jesus Christ. He said he will ask his wife and see if they can meet with us, so we were happy that he was willing to ask. 

We have had to drop a few of our investigators this week which was pretty sad. I was working with Brother Chen for so long and really hard trying to help him. He got a text from a member that told him about the commandments which kind of scared him off. We haven't taught him or talked to him for 2 weeks now, and we are waiting on the spirit to tell us when we need to get in contact with him again. The ward mission leader came up to me and told me that Brother Chen never had a testimony. It kind of frustrated me because I've put the most effort into him and helping him build his testimony and I know be has one, he just has to realize God has a plan for him. So this week we have been trying to get new investigators. 

Because I'm the teacher for the intermediate English class level, we have a set topic that we need to talk about. This week was:"going to the hair salon". I'd never gone to a hair salon before so I didn't really know how to teach them. I brought my razor and shaved without a mirror having them tell me what to do in English! They thought it was really funny and I didn't get cut! Yes!

Zone conference was by far the highlight of this week! They told us that the Asia area covers all of Asia except for Japan, Korea,. and the Philippines. The area that we are in holds more than half of the world's population, so it's a big responsibility haha. They said the goal for our area is to have every companionship baptize one convert each month. It's a really big goal, but it is possible, so we are really going to try to do it. President asked us if we are really willing to do what it takes to reach this goal. It made me reflect on what I'm doing as a missionary and gave me more motivation to work harder!

That is pretty much all that happened this week. The pictures are just us with investigators and stuff. Love you all!!

-Elder Thayne

So this is Persecution?

Sorry for not writing the big letter to everyone last week! I was pretty busy with P day stuff so I didn't have enough time to write one. Last P day was really fun though! We went and played lazer tag with a bunch of people in the central zone! I was able to see Sister Fissiahi from the MTC!!(I know I spelled her name wrong, but she'd give me credit for trying haha.) I also got the inside scoop on one of her companions from the MTC. She had to return home for a knee surgery pretty early on her mission, and now she's engaged to someone! Pretty crazy, but just goes to show that there's always a happy ending! 

Elder Hyde and I were able to work really hard this week, and we saw a lot of fruit come out of it. We had some people to come to church and found some new people who want to learn. I've been the English Unit Leader in our district ever since I came to Sanchong, and now Elder Hyde is the district leader so we are busy all of the time. We are trying to get English class better because it's one of the only ways we can serve in Taiwan, plus it's a really good way to get people interested in the gospel. 

There is an Elder here who got on the Island the same time as I did and he is a master computer programmer! He made a new English class website for the mission and it's super good and professional. They are really trying to do good things with the English class, and Elder Hyde and I plus some other people in the mission are going to be Beta testing the website with finding new students. Pretty exciting stuff. Just since the website has been made we've had 18,000 visitors on the website And 400 people signed up for the class. Out of those four hundred, we have about 140 that said they want to learn about Jesus Christ. So yeah really exciting opportunities! If this goes really well, they may use this with other missions across the world. Here is the website! It's in Chinese, but you can still check it out! Taiwaneng.com

We went to the mission office a lot this week. We had to go there on exchanges with the Zone Leaders one day and that was really fun. The Zone leaders are awesome! That night we went to a park and set up a Lemonade stand to give to people and shared about how the Book of Mormon can answer questions of the soul. It was a fun activity, and they were able to get a few potentials out of it. I still can't tell the difference with Asians so I started to try to talk to someone in Chinese and I found out they are from Japan. It was really weird cause they couldn't understand English or Chinese!! So we just stood there awkwardly and then gave them a handshake and let them go. 

We also went to the mission office to have interviews with President! It was really good for me to meet with him and get his counsel on how to improve the area. We got some famous street food on the way there and ran into some other missionaries. One of the Elders told me that someone had painted "Mormons go home" on a street lamp by the temple. I thought it was hilarious because it's the first bit of "Persecution" I've seen here it made me laugh.

I also went up to Luzhou on exchanges and went with Elder Donalson. It was fun and I got to see more of their area. He got a flat tire and got it patched by someone on the street and then it got flat again so he got it fixed a second time! 

Don't want to bore you all with the details but it was a busy week and we were able to get a lot done!