Ohhh so I'm that kinda missionary?

This week has been insane everyone! 

I was doing well at the beginning of the week. Had a fun P day, went and bought a bunch of groceries with my newly purchased Costco membership! It is worth it in Taiwan cause you can actually save a lot of money as a missionary by buying stuff from there. Everything was nice and good as transfers were coming up. As a district we kind of guessed who was going to be leaving and we knew lots of people were. The ones that had been there for three or four transfers were for sure leaving. Elder Fredenberg was a bit nervous that he would be leaving cause this was only his second transfer in Taoyuan and he's only gone two transfers in every area up to now. On Monday as we were in Taipei with Elder Fredenberg's friend I got a call from another Elder in my district saying he was training! Another Elder in my district also got a training call... I was waiting for mine that day but it never came! I was glad cause that meant Elder Fredenberg wouldn't be leaving and we would probably stay together.

 

 

The day of transfers came and we got all of our information on what would be happening. As I was scrolling down to my name I didn't think anything would change for me, I actually felt pretty safe this transfer, oh I was in for a treat. I open up my file and....IM MOVING AGAIN. And not to just any normal place, but I'm moving to Yuli. It was such a crazy call change that I wasn't even surprised. I only have six transfers left of my mission so I was thinking it was gonna go a certain way, but this is something I didn't expect at all. I've only been here in Taoyuan for 6 weeks. I loved the ward I was in, we were just starting to get the area moving pretty well and then I get cast out of the Peach Garden 🤤. When I saw this I was actually kind of mad. I had just gotten there six weeks earlier and tried my best to help the area and now it's like my work goes unfinished. Kind of a waste of six weeks. I had bought lots of new Good good from Costco cause I was 100% sure I was staying, and we had a really great district with lots of missionaries I loved. I was also close to other missionaries so I could see them on P day. It took a lot of humility to accept that I was being moved and to start packing from a place I had just moved to. Elder Fredenberg got kind of serious with me and told me to stop thinking negatively about this. I've tried to take that advice and do the best I can. 

 

 

Yuli is a place in the Hualien zone on the east side if Taiwan. It's pretty far away from other missionaries. The closest missionaries to Yuli are an hour ride away on the fastest train. Two hours if you take the normal one. It's pretty far in the middle of nowhere. It has people in it still but not very many. It's kind of a harder area to do missionary work because there aren't many young people in Yuli and most everyone has talked to the missionaries before. Missionaries can take two days and knock on every door in the town. The cool thing is that the area is really big so you can go to other small towns and teach those people. Also can find different villages just looking for who will listen. 

Getting there was probably the biggest nightmare this week. I packed all of my stuff and took a taxi to the train station. I first took a train to Taipei and then from there took the subway to the area of the mission home so I could pick up my train ticket. The problem was that the first train I was on was running slow. When I was finally getting out of the subway I didn't have much time. I asked the people at the subway if I could leave my luggage in there and come back five minutes later with my ticket. They said no haha so I had to drag my luggage out of the subway and all the way to the mission home, I was running and a missionary there handed me the ticket as I was leaving. All the new 19 missionaries were coming in about to get picked up by their trainers and the AP's yelled and told me good luck in Yuli! President was right there and grabbed one of my suitcases and ran with me to the subway. I said goodbye and took it to the train station. I was running the whole time and I barely was able to get on the train before the doors closed. I went through the eleven cars to the very back and sat there. It was pretty insane but I made it!

This week has just been a lot of change and adjusting so I can give more details next week. It was a big surprise and I didn't know it was gonna turn out like this, but I trust the Lord and know that this is where he needs me. I'll work my hardest here and I know God will support those he calls. I'd love to get more emails from you guys, especially where I'm at now I can answer!! More time haha. Love you!

-Elder Grayson Thayne