So sorry for the off and on emailing. I also haven't gotten started on my journal goal( 謝謝葉長老)These past few weeks have been a little hard to keep on top of, but I'm writing now so I can give everyone an update.
These past few weeks have been a little difficult for missionary work. Since we have a new mission president, he's doing a lot of things in a new way and so we have to adjust in the way we do the work. It's been a little bit rough on the teaching side of things too. Basically all of the people we have been teaching have made excuses to not meet with us or do the things we've invited them to. Some people that were our really good friends just started ignoring our messages and not talking to us anymore which is pretty sad. We just care so much about these people and want the best for them, they just can't see it.
Our English class was pretty awesome this week! Elder Fernandes and I were trying to figure out something to teach them that could be fun. So we came up with space travel! We taught them some words and phrases and then brought them into the chapel and did like a space expedition role play. We didn't really have materials, but somehow everything worked out and everyone had tons of fun! It was like the space center back home where tons of things and problems happen, and you have to think of ways to fix it all. They loved it and we were happy it all turned out super well.
We've also been trying to find new people to teach. We went out on the streets every single day this week looking for people that would be interested in hearing our message. Every single day we came back to the apartment without anyone new to teach. We put a lot of effort in and on Saturday we finally saw a big miracle.
Ever since I came to Miaoli I have heard of a guy that kind of bullies the missionaries here, especially the sisters. The sisters have been telling us the past few weeks that someone around their apartment throws rocks at them and hits them with a stick! They got pretty scared and whenever they're contacting people on the street they are looking behind them to see if he is around. So this really started to scare the sisters. After they told us about the problem they'd been running into, I remembered on day when I first came to Miaoli that I thought i had been hit by a rock. Turns out I wasn't lying! Elder Fernandes didn't believe me when it happened haha. We talked about it and vowed that if he ever happened to find us again we'd get the police.
What happened is that this last week, we were on our bikes riding around when out of nowhere I hear Elder Fernandes yell and I look behind me just in time to see this older guy(probably fifties) slam his motor scooter into my bike and hit Elder Fernandes with a stick in the back! He turned around really quick and started speeding away. We already knew we were going to chase him down cause we didn't want this happening to future missionaries, so we did that! We biked as fast as we could, and in the process Elder Fernandes' water bottle flew off his bike. He looked back at me and i just yelled:" leave it!" We knew what was more important so we left it to chase the villain down. We chased him for around a quarter mile to the city library. We were out of breath and the Chinese wasn't really coming to us but we confronted him
. We got the police involved and he got off with a warning. But now the Miaoli missionaries will never be bothered by this guy again!!!
On Friday we found this 18 year old kid on the street and he was really nice and said he would come to play basketball the next morning. He ended up coming and bringing his little brother and friend to play with us! We sat down with them after and taught them about God and how to communicate with him through prayer. Later that day we met with another guy we had set up from the street and then at night met with someone else that the Elders before us had taught once or twice. By the end of the day we had 5 more people we were teaching than before!!! We were super happy.
This whole week has a little bitter sweet ending though. The three guys we met with and asked to start praying went back home and told their parents they wanted to pray. The sad thing is that their parents are all Buddhist and told them they aren't allowed to pray. They told us like two hours after we met with them that they can't do it so that's hard. The other guy we met with is moving to Xinzhu in two days and is gonna be really busy. And the last guy we met with is also too busy to meet with us until the end of August. So lots of stuff happened haha. Honestly it was a hard week for us but it was still good.
The cool thing about being with Elder Fernandes though is that we never get discouraged. Sometimes we get sad about what people choose to do, but we know that God has a plan. If we live according to God's plan for us we will be happier and recieve his blessings. I know its true cause I've seen it in my personal life as well as people I teach.
-Love Elder Grayson Thayne
My mailing address:
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Da-an, Taipei 106
Taiwan
