White ghost/insides exploding

I've been getting pretty good at doing wheely's on my bike, so this week I was able to upgrade and start doing it on a wheelchair! It's pretty fun, the Taiwanese ward members think Elder Fernandes and I are dangerous though. Probably cause they saw what happened when we tried to be cool.

This week was a little rough for Elder Fernandes and I. We had an investigator we have been working with for awhile and were excited for him to be baptized this Saturday. He was doing everything he needed to, and was so close to accepting baptism, but he came up to us and told us he doesn't want to get baptized. There's good and bad news with this story. The bad news is that he is moving to Germany this week and we won't be able to keep teaching him. He is also moving there for five years, so we won't see him for awhile. BUT... The good news is that he said he is willing to meet with the missionaries in Germany while he's there. So hopefully they'll be able to help him progress while he's there. He knows it's true, maybe he's just not ready yet.

Cool story of the week:

Our English class in Miaoli is pretty small and has quite a few problems. We have been trying to get a lot of new students to come, but it wasn't happening for the longest time. I made an ad for the English class and put it on a Miaoli group. The group had the post pending for around three days, so I didn't think anything would come out of it. But then I woke up me morning and had tons of Facebook notifications. Tons of people had seen it and then liked and commented on it. It was getting tons of attention so by 11:00 that morning my post had over 750 likes with lots of shares and comments. I guess it was getting a lot of attention, so someone reported the post because it wasn't the right format or something. They took off the post, but lots of people signed up for the class!! It's the most success from English stuff we've ever had here. And the sisters are meeting with all of those referrals!

A funny thing that happened because of that post is a girl added my Facebook. It was just a Taiwanese girl, so I thought she was interested in the English class. When I added her back though, she sent a message to me and said she had seen me at a restaurant a few days before. She was acting a bit weird but I didn't think much of it. I asked if she wanted to meet with the sisters and she said okay, so I'm setting them up together. The weird thing was, Elder Fernandes and I went into a Family Mart one day, and as we were sitting down a girl walks in and she looked familiar. I thought it might have been her, so I waved and then she smiled and got really freaked out and left as quick as she could. It was really funny, and then she posted this on her Facebook right after. I didn't know what it meant, so I asked Elder Zhuang and this is the translation:("I saw a white guy and my insides are burning") that's actually the meaning, but the words are a lot more weird... something about bad words, white ghosts, and her body exploding.But... She is willing to meet with the sisters so that'll be good.

Elder Fernandes and I are basically just starting out with new people and trying to help them, so we could use all the prayers you can give. Love you all!

-Elder Grayson Thayne

母親節快樂

Happy Mother's day!!!

I hope everyone was able to do something for their Mother! I really appreciate mine!

I was able to talk to my family last night and it made me realize how much I really do miss them. This is the first mother's day I've had where I haven't been able to tell my Mom I love her in person, but I was still able to feel the love coming from them as we talked. Elder Fernandes and I always forget to buy food on Saturday so when Sunday comes around we don't have food! Good thing we can fast haha. But it makes me really appreciate at home that I have a Mom who makes sure we always have something to eat. The food is there. So I really appreciate her and my family as a whole.

The cookie party for English class was a success! And that's saying a lot because taiwanese don't like to eat sweet foods. It was funny because a few of the Beginner class students came in to our class to see what was going on, and then they just stayed and enjoyed all of our cookies! Everyone thought it was fun, and the cookies turned out really good! 

We went and played Billiards (pool) with our main investigator this week. He's super awesome. He is doing everything we tell him to, but he keeps telling us he isn't getting the answer he's looking for that God Exists. We are trying to help him the most we can, but what it really comes down to is his personal commitment and desire to find the truth. He is attending this club that is another religion and so he's pretty confused about which one to go full in on. I have faith that he knows what we are teaching him is true though, and he'll see the blessings in his life soon. Pool was fun, but by the time we left and got back home, all of our clothes stank from all the tobacco smoke we were around. The other Elders were pretty confused when they smelled us at the end of the day

We had a really big miracle one night which was awesome!! We ate dinner inside that night and before we left the house, we prayed that we would find the prepared people we needed to that day, and then we left. That whole night we ran into so many people that we knew. We saw an investigator of the other Elder's. We saw two former investigators at the college campus. We also found a French exchange student that we have been trying to set up for awhile, and then to finish off the night we saw our investigator that we played pool with. It was way too many people that we knew to be a coincidence. I knoe that God directed us that day to the people that needed to hear that we still love them and so does God. He never forgets his children and now I know that for sure because I've seen it first hand. God loves us all and wants us to be happy. If we will come unto him, he can show us the way. 

Have a great Mother's day everyone! I love you all.

-Elder Thayne

Bake me to Church

So this week was super busy! Almost every day we were out of the apartment before 10:00 doing random things. 

Elder Fernandes led a good district meeting this week by having us discuss the most important thing for our missionary work. We had different cards that said things like:" God and Jesus Christ," or " daily repentance." We were all choosing as a district the most important thing, and we chose to be "led by the spirit." If we are led by the spirit, then we will know what God wants us to do, we will be obedient, and we won't have to worry about not being productive missionaries. We all took the invite to go and do something different in our companionship to have the spirit lead us more. Right after we left District meeting, we went on exchanges with the Xinzhu zone leaders. I went with Elder Anderson and it was way fun. It was really busy though. We were biking everywhere super fast and had 4 lessons. Elder Anderson's bike was pretty messed up because he's a really old missionary. Whenever he stopped pedaling, the chain almost flew off. On the way back home that night, we were going down a hill, and his chain wrapped around his Derailer. It destroyed it and it broke it off. We had to just set the bikes on the side of the road and take a taxi home. The miracle from that night is that the Taxi driver was actually Christian! We talked about the Bible with him for a little and then gave him the Book of Mormon before we got off. He was super grateful for it, and before the night was over they set up to meet with him!

We have been really trying to make our English class good here in Miaoli. We are kind of starting new. So we have a few ideas. One of the things we want to do is make chocolate chip cookies here for English class. That may not sound like a big deal, but in Taiwan it's super hard to find all of the ingredients to make them. We are making them on Wednesday with our English class in hopes of getting new students to start coming more. So we are taking them to church through giving them baked American chocolate chip cookies haha!! We'll see if they taste the same!

This week was a bit of a struggle to find new investigators. We found 4 new ones, but by the end of the week 3 of them dropped us telling us they don't have interest. So that's been a struggle, but we are staying positive and know that we will get a lot of success soon.

Probably one of the highlights of this week for me was my interview with the mission president. He told us he was so happy to have both of us together and that he thinks we'll do great. I only have one more interview with President Jergenson before he goes home at the end of June. So I asked him a piece of advice he could give me. He told me that we need to listen to what the prophet's say, and then immediately obey and live by that standard. Or just do what God wants us to immediately. He said that there will be new changes and when the new mission president comes, some things will be different. He said to just listen, and not focus on the way things were before, but how we need to change right when we hear new direction. It was good advice, and he said we can all be happier because of it.

Thank you for everyone who emails me! I really appreciate it and hope you all are doing well!

-Elder Thayne

Bottom picture is from Taizhong mission. The others are here in Miaoli.