October 27, 2013

Wow, I'm so tired today! We just spent all day at Mission HQ with some of my old RC's and friends from Gaoxiong, so I'm pooped! Sorry if this is a boring letter today!!  
I asked Elder Noll how his shoes were holding up:

Shoes?

     Haha, super good... and by "good" I mean "they are flatter than flat and the back is ripped... on both of them..." so they will definitely be my trophy shoes when I get home!! I love them! They even have a hole in the bottom already!! :D

Monday:

     Found a cool little hang-out! It's got a bowling alley, some pool tables, foosball tables, basketball games, and a bunch of other little stuff! You can pay 50$/ hour and just do whatever you want!! Super awesome! We're planning on hitting that up again next week! It was kinda fun to just "hang out" for a couple hours! Something I haven't done for a long time! haha!

Tuesday:

     We had a day full of visiting different members houses and trying to get some referrals from them... basically just doin' the work! We love the members here in Daya SO MUCH!! They're SO cool, and they're all so excited to do missionary work! We also met a cool guy who had met with missionaries before! He tried to avoid us at first, but I wasn't about to let him get away, so I contacted him. It broke my heart as he told me that he knew the church was true and that it could help his life, but he just didn't want it. It's gotta  be the hardest thing that I come across out here in the field. Those people that understand how important these things are, or can be, to their lives, but they still refuse to accept it. It just makes me want to drag them into the chapel and dunk them anyways!!

Wednesday:

     Super fun day. We had a follow up meeting for everyone being trained right now, and Sister Blickenstaff made some awesome American cinnamon rolls! Later that night, we also had the ENGLISH CLASS HALLOWEEN PARTY!!! We (the Elders) pulled off an awesome "room of horror" for all the students to try and walk through... Elder C has some pretty awesome, a little creepy, stuff in that mind of his,  because we ended up making a pretty sick spook alley! For example, Elder M's head on a table next to a bowl of candy... That's enough to give anyone nightmares. Let's just say it was the favorite event of ALL the students.

Thursday:

     Deep Cleaned the apartment after our Weekly Planning Session! Made me think of the little chore lists mom used to make for us every once and a while! We got a nice sweat worked up and made our house nice and sparkly! Then the rest of the day was spent contacting!!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday:

     Lots of finding and having super awesome lessons! Sorry, I don't have a whole lot of time to explain a lot about the rest of the week... but let it be known that it was legendary! I'm so incredibly grateful for each and everyday of my mission, and I find each new experience precious!!! I love Taiwan, and I love the Taiwanese people!

Love you guys so much!! Jiayou!

Elder Noll

October 20, 2013

Macy:

1.Does it get cold?

     I think so, but Elder C is still sweating like a dog... poor guy, I guess I"m just used to it by now!

2. How many baptisms?

     We just helped someone get baptized last week and that makes number 8!

3. Biggest religion in Taiwan?

     Buddhism, for sure.

4.What do they believe?

     They believe in many Gods, and they "worship" almost all of them for different occasions... they also will worship their ancestors and pay their respects through certain actions and such... super interesting! 

Well, we had one heck of a week!!... again... I think I must write that every week in my emails... whatever, every week is "one heck of a week" here in Taiwan!!! (in a good way) This week, we had a BAPTISM!! I'll talk about that a little more later though...

On Monday, we went to a "beach" ... NOT a beach. Someone told us that it was a beautiful place with waves and animals and lots of fun stuff... turns out, it was a dead, barren wasteland with crabs, mud, and overpriced shaved ice. Not going back. It really wasn't that bad, but it was nothing compared to some of the other places that I've been here! 

Wednesday, we had an awesome time teaching English class! Elder C and I are the intermediate class teachers, and our students absolutely love us!... it probably has something to do with how cute Elder C is, cause we've got a class full of girls about the same age as Macy! We're working with a couple of specific students right now, trying to get them to meet with us and start learning the gospel, and it's going super well! We've found two really awesome investigators out of our English class! LOVE IT!

Thursday was Elder C's birthday and yes, I woke up early to make him some delicious AMERICAN style breakfast! We had a really fun day proselyting and celebrating his birthday... we ended the day by buying him a mango pie and hiding in the farthest corner of the chapel to sing and eat it! It was pretty fun! We were interrupted by a single adult in the ward asking me if I could give her a blessing. The four of us then helped her do a simple blessing and it was such a special experience as we did so! The power of the priesthood is so quietly powerful, and it's manifest through faith and hope. The next day she called us to tell us that the blessing had calmed her and given her the strength to pass her interview. 

Friday... Very long day. We went to Mission HQ to have a big specialized training meeting... All about dealing with stress. so fun! haha it was actually a great meeting! I love President and Sister Blickenstaff! They're actually hilarious and INCREDIBLY spiritual at the same time! I don't know how they do it! The meeting lasted for about 4 hours, and then we had to wait for 2 hours for a bus to take back to Daya! The Lord works in mysterious ways! We got on to an absolutely FULL bus. You don't know what PACKED means until you ride a bus at 6:30 at night in Taichung city. It cleared out little by little until we could breathe normally again, and then we just went to work! One by one, the four of us missionaries left to talk to someone. In less than 10 minutes, the four of us were each teaching lessons to different people throughout the bus. I was able to talk to 2 really great families on the bus and gave their information to the Sisters. 

Saturday, BAPTISM!! We've been working with a 21 year old kid for the past 3 weeks and he just got baptized on Saturday!!! He was sharing his testimony last night and honestly almost brought me to tears as he talked about his heart changing when he came up out of the water. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!! 

My spiritual message this week is a little shorter, and it's much more of an invitation. We watched a short broadcast for part of our Stake Conference yesterday, and it was specifically done for the Asia area. Elder Holland mentioned a point about missionary work. All of our teaching and thoughts should be about the Savior. He is the center of this Gospel and the key to our salvation! Take some time each day to really think about Him and what He has done for us!

Love you guys! Have a great week! 

Elder Noll

 

October 13, 2013

Hey fellas! How was the week? I feel like I just sat down in here yesterday! Seeing as we had General Conference this week, the week flew right by! Yet we still managed to do quite a bit of stuff this week! Always busy, busy, busy!! 

     A couple really awesome experiences of the week for ya!

Our GOLDEN investigator. He was a referral from the Taipei missionaries that we met a little over 2 weeks ago. We invited him to be baptized after only 20 minutes of meeting him, and he enthusiastically accepted our invitation! He's been to church with us now, and he attended SIX hours of General Conference with us! Even I still have a hard time watching that much General Conference! We had some really great lessons with him this week which were absolutely guided by the Spirit as we worked over a few problems he had, and now he's moved his Baptismal Date to this next Saturday, the 19th of October! We're SO excited for him. He's one of my favorite investigators I've ever had on a mission! 

 

On Wednesday this week, I had a little surprise! We had just started English Proselyting when I got a phone call from a missionary phone number that I didn't recognize. The Elder asked me where we were at and then hung up immediately... weird? Yeah, weird. I didn't really care at that point, we just started doing our English Proselyting. About ten minutes later I looked over to my right to see Elder L (yes, my x-companion) coming to do proselyting with us! Super crazy! Apparently he moved back up to the office to work on a special project because he knee has been giving him a lot of pain lately, so he'll be in there for a while now. Talk about a shocker!

On Thursday morning, we went to the family's house that has 9 children for a super delicious breakfast! Apparently Thursday was the "birthday" for Taiwan! Super fun!! We had a great day contacting some really awesome new investigators and just loving Taiwan! 

General Conference was incredible. I can honestly say that I enjoyed EVERY talk! I think my favorites were the two talks by President Uchtdorf. The Sunday am and the talk he gave in Priesthood. I feel as though I was able to receive personal revelation and change my life accordingly! I hope you will all go back through any personal notes, re-read the talks and look for areas in your life where you can improve personally! Let's take Conference home with us!! 

My spiritual message of the week has to do with callings. When I left the MTC, I was seriously homesick. I wanted to go out and share the gospel, but I was nervous, scared and I missed my MTC District, my family at home, and everything comfortable about the place I grew up in. When I left Tainan, I felt a repeat of the same feelings, but this time, for the wonderful investigators, ward members and my trainer. Both times, I was able to get over it, get to work, and eventually I grew to love those places like they were my own home! When I came to Daya, I was crushed. I can honestly say that I didn't want to come here, and I was even a little angry that God would force me out of the place I loved to go to a place that I didn't want to go. While I was on the train up here, I had the distinct feeling that I was coming here for a very important reason. I couldn't understand it back then, but I feel that I understand more now. When we have this baptism next week, he will be the 4th person I've helped enter the Church up here in Daya. That's a startling number to me. D&C 18: 15-16 tells us: "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!" I'm so grateful that I've had the opportunity to come to Daya. It brings me to tears to know that God has suffered me to come to this section of His Holy vineyard. I'm sorry that I wasn't humble enough to see it at first, but I know that god has specific works for us to do, and only He knows who should do it. LOVE your callings. LOVE it all, and don't waste a moment of time complaining or pitying yourself because of how hard it might be, or how much you might miss your past callings. Be grateful for the chance that the Lord has given you to Grow. 

Love you guys! You all rock! 

Elder Noll

October 6, 2013

Hey guys!! So... sounds like this week was pretty awesome!! I'm SO stoked for Conference this week!!! Super jealous that you guys got the seats you did!! SOOO awesome! I want to go super bad! It's kinda scary to know that I've only got one conference left as a missionary after this... I never thought the day would come when I could say that! And dad pointed out that Jessi only has one conference left as a normal kid! After that he'll be coming to join me for my last couple months in Taiwan! ;) 

     Well, it's been a super great week, just like every week has been since last September! Being on a mission is super crazy guys! I haven't had one week where I can look back and say: "that was a bad week." Isn't that incredible?? There will be days when I'll be DEAD exhausted, when things didn't go my way, when I have to say some extra long prayers because of investigators or homesickness or whatever, but I can honestly say I've LOVED every week of my mission. I've started doing a "on this day of last year, what was I doing?" kind of tradition each day by reading my journal entries from the MTC... W O W. I've changed quite a bit! It really surprises me at how little I recognize the person in my journals! It seems so weird to me! It just continues to help me understand that when we do what God requires of us, He will shape us into the person He knows we must become. 

     We've had another good week with investigators and tons of exchanges!! I had a chance to host Elder Limbaloobadop (that's not his name, but I can't spell his real name...) who I went to high school with! He's super awesome and such a studly missionary! We had some super awesome lessons and continue to work with our SUPER GOLDEN investigator! He came to 3 hours of church yesterday and then another 30 minute lesson, and then 1 and 1/2 hours of FHE last night! He loves us! haha, we're super stoked for him to come and watch conference with us!! 

     I've been so excited reading the Book of Mormon this week! I started a brand new copy with a new marking system that is BLOWING MY MIND! I haven't even read through the 4th chapter of 1st Nephi, and yet my book is bulging with the new pieces of personal revelation I'm receiving! It's so much fun to start the Book of Mormon! It's like switching out the batteries in our Spiritual System (yes, that's a new section in our Human Anatomy textbook)!! I've been studying the principles of Repentance and how it leads to True Conversion because that's something our Mission President has really been focusing on lately, and I've learned a LOT! It's incredible how much you can learn from just 531 pages of pure revelation! I love the Book of Mormon! 

     Sorry my e-mail is a little lacking in details today... although the week was full of incredible spiritual enlightenments, it was a little lacking in worldly excitement!

Love ya guys! have a great week!!

Elder Noll