Taichung Time
Monday:
We hung out with a member from
Tanzi (one of Elder R's recent converts and one of my good friends
that I met while in Daya) and he drove us over to a place called
Lugang, where I did some Christmas shopping and started getting my
Christmas package for you guys ready to go. It was fun to hang out with
this member and with the other Elders in the District! Lugang was really
interesting too! They have a special dish that they are known for
called: "Oyster omelet." it's basically got a bunch of oyster meat
wrapped up in a funky, gooey, rice-like stuff... no eggs, so I"m not
really sure why they call it an omelet, but it's pretty good! I surprise
even myself with the things that I enjoy eating now!
We met a new family of investigators on Monday as well. They
are Christian and have met missionaries before, but don't really want
much to do with the LDS church. We had a great visit with him and
established a good friendship with them, but all the dad really wanted
to do was bible bash... we'll see what happens!
Tuesday:
Christmas eve!!! We had a
mini exchange this day with the other Elders in our District! One is
from Korea (born in america) and the other is Argentinian and spoke NO
English before the MTC... Elder Z is absolutely hilarious and his
English is actually pretty dang good now! Almost fluent! I had the
chance to lead him around my area on Tuesday and it was super fun! We
talked a lot and had the chance to teach quite a few lessons! One of the
lessons we taught was to a man with a broken legs and he was high on
his pain meds... not a whole lot accomplished there! But at night, we
had a lesson with our investigator who had a goal to be baptized on
Saturday. It went really well! We set everything up for the Baptism and
then had a great testimony session about what Baptism is and the
blessings it will bring.
Wednesday:
Let's see, what was the
highlight of Wednesday? Kind of a boring day... nothing big really
happened... WAIT! I saw my family today!!! Totally made my whole year to
see all of you guys! It's weird to see how much things are changing!
Everything looks so different from what I remember it being and the
people all look different! It's SUPER crazy!! (Sorry Grandma, I've been
trying to be good and not use that word, but it's just so great!) We
went over to the house of an incredible member in our ward to use his
SKYPE and stuff, and it went really good. No major technical problems or
anything! We're taking the member out to a buffet today to thank him!
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| Skype with the family :) |
Thursday:
This was a day full of
crazy stories! We went contacting right out the door and decided to go
up to the college in our area. As we were riding around, I saw a giant
yellow stuffed duck on the side of the road. You need a little
background to understand why this story is funny... Taiwan is obsessed
with ducks. I don't know why, but they love this Yellow Duck! They have
two GIANT ducks floating in Taipei and Gaoxiong, and now every one on
this island just loves ducks. While we were thinking of ideas for this
move calls English party, my companion suggested that we do a "yellow
duck party." So, we're doing a "yellow duck party." When I found this
duck, we decided we could use it for the party, so we went over to look
at it. It was NASTY. It smelled like someone had stuffed drugs inside of
it (I still haven't checked but I'll get back to you on that) and then
maybe used it to scrub a toilet, then thrown out side. The head was half
off and the stuffing was coming out. We didn't have anything to carry
it with, so we used a bike lock and our safety reflective harnesses to
strap this sucker to the back of my bike, then we rode around town with
it all day. We're probably gonna think of some awesome way to sacrifice
it or something.
We kept riding around and then found a tree with some funky
nuts on it. When we asked a kid what the nuts were, he said: "Bing
lang!" which is Betel Nut. When Betel Nut is just off a tree, it's a
harmless nut. But it's also the same nut that they take, give it a
chemical coating, wrap it in a sharp leaf, and then they chew on it to
get a high... it's NASTY my friends. It turns their teeth dark red and
makes it look like they are zombies. So of course Elder R and I
grabbed a nut and popped it into our mouths. Nothing special, but now I
can say that I've eaten Betel Nut! No worries, I'll never try the stuff
with the chemical... I'm not really into the whole blood mouth thing.
At the end of the night, we got stood up by multiple
people and ended up tracting for the rest of the night. I felt like
crap, it was freezing cold, we'd had NO success, we were in a really
creepy alleyway with creepy doorbells and big dogs barking at us, and
basically the night was not all that enjoyable... but we kept on going
and kept on working hard. We got to the VERY last door of the night and
ran into an AWESOME family of four. They were so nice and set up for
tonight at 6:00, so we'll see how things work out! All I know is that
God definitely led us to that family. It was such an amazing tender
mercy at that time to me and my companion.
Friday:
Went on exchanges with Elder
H... did I tell you that he's the new assistant to the president?
Yeah, the same Elder H that was in my District in Tainan! This
story is crazy. We went with him to find a former investigator on a road
that we didn't know very well. We started out at a little restaurant
where we ate lunch, then we started riding... and riding... and
riding... we rode our bikes for an hour and a half straight! That's a
LONG time guys. We FINALLY found the house and met with him. He
was a very old guy who had had a stroke several years ago, and he
didn't care about anything we had to say! It was so sad to see that he
had totally given up, but all we could do is invite him to come to
church. We left his house and tried to figure out where we were... I
looked over towards a round a bout down the road, and I recognized it!
We rode towards it, went around the corner and....... saw the restaurant
where we had eaten lunch. Not 2 minutes away from this guys house!!!!!
Can you believe it??? The three of us were totally speachless! Welp,
now we know! haha
Elder H is awesome. I really enjoyed talking with him
again, and discussing different ways we've grown on our missions. I
really had to evaluate myself and everything that I've done, am doing,
and would like to do! I've always wanted to be the most diligent, most
fun, most likable missionary that I could possibly be, and I kind of
reset those goals after exchanging with Elder H! It really
inspired me to stretch myself more and expect more out of myself and out
of my zone!
I've already talked way too much today, but I'll
leave you with one last experience. We baptized on Saturday. I love
being a missionary so much. I was thinking to myself: "why? why does
helping someone get baptized make me so happy? I get literally NOTHING
out of it. I don't even get recognized for it! Nobody will do anything
for me, the only thing that I might get is a blurry, tilted picture!
Yet, I've never been happier than when I'm baptizing on my mission." The
pure joy of watching someone meet God and knowing that I was allowed to
play a role in that experience brings the most perfect joy, it's
honestly indescribable.
I love you all. I know that Families are ordained of
God, and His plan is that we will all be able to live together as
Eternal Family units throughout all of Eternity! Shall we not go on in
so great a cause? How can we sit idly by while their are people out
there who don't know the joy that this Gospel can bring? There are
people EVERYWHERE who either don't know the blessings of an Eternal
Family, or don't understand it! Look around you, find those out there
whose lives you can touch. YOU CAN SAVE SOULS. There are people who have
not met the church, or who have left the church, and YOU can save them.
Let's Get R' Done fellas!
Elder Noll
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