December 29, 2013

Happy Holidays from Taiwan! It's interesting because here in Taiwan, they think that Christmas is our New Year celebration... it's also pretty funny because they don't celebrate Christmas and they don't celebrate the new year on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1 either! Asia does things their own way! We had an incredible Christmas Holiday this year! The entire week was full of hilarious stories and many miracles! I'll go ahead and take you through the week day by day!

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! 

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

December 22, 2013

Merry Christmas...and Happy Birthday to the 2 most important girls in my life! Macy and Mom! Mom, I'm sorry I'm late to wish you a Happy Birthday, and Macy, I'm sorry I'm so early! This is the best time I figured to wish both of you a very Happy Birthday! 

It's been a SUPER busy week for us here in Nantou! We started out with some exchanges to start out the week, had some rockin' enlglish classes, had the Mission wide Christmas activity, did some traveling and hit up the baptism of one of my old investigators, and had the ward Christmas activity! Each day had something really important to grab our attention! Let's go day by day, shall we?

Tuesday:

     I went on exchanges to Zhanghua for the day! We ran into President and Sister Blickenstaff as we went to the Zhanghua District Training Meeting, so that was a fun little surprise! The rest of the day was incredibly fun... try riding your bike for a full 45 killometers... uphill... in the rain... with 20mph wind resistance. Suffice it to say, I slept like a baby that night! Also, I did it on a sisters bike.

Wednesday:

     I'm again in charge of the Advanced English class here in Nantou, and I'm loving it! I absolutely love teaching English here and interacting with all the students! I usually try to give them some kind of American music lesson by playing classic rock, or Jason Mraz, or Jack Johnson, or some other kind of American music. They usually get a kick out of it! Did I tell you guys that the Sister A in Freddy's ward is now in my District and she's the English Leader over here? Well, if not, now you know! Kind of funny how those kinds of things work out! 

Thursday:

     The Christmas Activity. I've been waiting for this since the 20th of December LAST year! It's so much fun to see all the missionaries together! We all went up to Sun Moon Lake this year (which just so happens to be in my Zone) and we ended up having a super fun time! It was so foggy and cold that we didn't really see the lake, but they had some super awesome taiwanese stores there and I bought some good Christmas stuff for all you guys... as well as some Aladin pants for me. Yes, they are awesome. I'll send pictures. We went to a big buffet Steak House in Taichung afterwards and Elder B, Elder R and I competed to see who could eat the most steaks. I gave up after 13 because I wanted to eat some other food other than just steak, so I hit up the Mongolian Grill for a while after that... but Elder B and Elder R had a grand total of 22 and a 1/2! Let me tell you, the bus ride home was the most uncomfortable 2 hours of my life... worse even than the time that I had 2 betos burritos between the morning and afternoon practice of hell week my Sophomore year. 

     It was so great to see all the missionary friends that I haven't seen for a while! I saw Elder G from the MTC, Sister W from the MTC, and saw Elders W (my old Zone Leader) and H (in my first District here if you remember) who are both the assistant to the President right now! I saw Elder C, Elder T, Elder B, Sisters B, P, and R, and a bunch of other awesome missionaries that I've served around! It made me feel pretty old to realize that I didn't recognize over 1/2 the missionaries there and to know that almost all my missionary buddies are home already! Super crazy!! 

Friday:

     That's right, I went back up to Daya for a Baptismal Service!! It was the young man who came into Church with his mom just over a month ago! I contacted him, helped him learn all the lessons, and missed his Baptism by just 2 weeks! I talked to President and he told me that it would be fine if Elder R and I went up to see the service. It was incredibly touching (and a little funny) to see the reactions of the members at the chapel when I walked through the door. I served there for so long that I pretty much knew EVERY single person in that building! Most of the time people wouldn't recognize me for 1/2 a second, and then a look of shock would come across their face as they asked me why in the world I was there! It was truly a touching night, and it just makes me excited for the time that I can come back in a few years and see all these members again! 

Saturday:

     The Ward Christmas Party was an epic fail. They had us (the 6 missionaries) along with some other ward members do a Choir and sing some songs to go along with a little skit that they were doing... they just never told us that there was a skit! They just gave us some music and told us to learn the songs... also, thanks to the lovely members of my district, they found out that I like to play guitar and so they asked me to do a solo in Silent Night. Silent Night! How are you supposed to solo to Silent Night??? I just came up with a nice picking pattern and played it in the backround along with a young man in the ward. Super funny. It was fun the play the guitar part for Feliz Navidad though. The 6 missionaries rocked out to it and got the whole chapel dancing along. 

That was basically the whole week! 

Love you guys!! hope you have a great... 2 days!

Elder Noll

December 15, 2013

George, George, George of the Jungle... Greetings from the jungle of Taiwan... yes, that theme song has been stuck in my head for a week straight and, again, yes, I break out in a George of the Jungle yell sometimes on my bike. Judged. 

Nantou is I N C R E D I B L E. I love it in this place. It's REALLY rural and the population isn't totally huge, but the people are so kind and just pure at heart. This first week, I've bought maybe 5 meals. The rest of the time we've been given meals by members, investigators, less active members and recent converts. The ward is really kind to us here and I'm so excited to be here serving them. 

It's super weird to be considered an older missionary now. I feel like time has gone by so fast! I find myself thinking a lot about where I was last year at this time, being trained by Elder S in Tainan. I never thought that the day would come that I would be the Zone Leader in charge of all those missionaries! I remember seeing the Zone Leaders call when I was just being trained and thinking to myself that I needed to be more mature when I answered and kind of show off a little... it's odd to be on the other end of the line! I try to show my Zone that I'm a fun dude, so usually when I answer the phone I yell in a super loud, high pitched voice: "WEEEEIIII!" (That's the way you say hello in Taiwan on the phone)... the reactions are pretty interesting. 

We've had a really good week with quite a bit of success! Elder R and I have been working super hard in all aspects of the work, and it's really showing! We set over 5 Baptismal dates this week and found 2 new investigators as well as worked with up to 10 different less active members! We're planning on baptizing at least 2 people next Saturday and we hope that more will be able to hit that date. It's interesting the miracles that prayer and hard work will bring!

I've got multiple people from my MTC zone (the guys that went in 6 weeks before me) in my zone right now and it's super fun! Elder K, Elder G, Elder C and a few others! We're all having a blast out here! Also, the Sister A that you said moved into Freddy's ward is now in my district. Kinda crazy, huh? 

We're really stoked for Christmas coming up! We're doing the mission-wide Christmas activity on Thursday, and we're going to Sun-Moon Lake! It's gonna be a BLAST!! I can't wait to talk to all of you guys in 10 days or so! 

My spiritual share from this week comes from a visit we made to a man yesterday. He is a VERY active member in the ward, and he invites us over for dinner every Sunday night. While we were there, we asked him about his conversion story and boy did he have a story! When we asked him, he got a little smile on his face, put down his spoon and leaned back in his chair. He looked at each of us and then he started into one of the most incredible stories I've ever heard. The experiences and the little bits and pieces of the story were honestly not all that incredible. It was the sincerity and the purity of heart in which he told the story that made it so awesome. I was so moved by the Spirit and so touched by his testimony that it almost brought tears to my eyes. 

I want to testify that selflessness and love for the Savior brings Spiritual Power. When we are accepting of other people and when we give of what we have, we will receive so much more. I know that this is true, for I see it every single day! I love this work, I love the Lord. I love all of you, and I'm happy to have met each of you and be able to learn from your examples! 

Have a great week!

Love, Elder Noll

December 8, 2013

Well, things have changed pretty drastically in just the past week! I'm sitting next to Elder R (my new companion) in an internet cafe in the mountains of Nantou! 

The week started out with yet another buffet visit for Elder M's very last P-day! I cant believe that hes going home!! It feels like it was just yesterday that I was with him in Gaoxiong! He was one of the first missionaries I interacted with when I first came on island. I met him my first night in Tainan, and he's been following me around ever since! It actually makes me a little sad to see him go! Hes a great guy, and definitely a friend that ill be hanging out with after this is all over! 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I had my last exchange with Elder M and we got a LOT done! The biggest miracle that we saw, was as we worked with one of my investigators over dinner. This kid has been meeting with us for a few weeks now and he hasn't made a whole lot of progression. He continues to pray and read, but he never felt anything that made him believe anything we were telling him. When we talked to him on Tuesday night, we asked him how things were going, and he said he was starting to feel something! We talked to him for another few minutes about it and then invited him to be baptized on the 20th of December... he looked at us and said: Can I be baptized this Saturday? We were shocked! I wish he could've been baptized on Saturday, but he hadn't learned about everything yet, so we want to help him prepare as well as possible and then baptize him on the 20th of December! Were so excited for him!! 

We had an awesome English party on Wednesday night where Elder M and I did a super bad rendition of Tenacious D: Tribute. It actually turned out really funny and everyone got a huge kick out of it... especially the American missionaries! Later, the four of us (Elder T, Elder M, Elder C and I... AKA THE DUFFERS) did an acapella version of Stand By Me, and then switched to blowing on our name tags (they can turn into Kazoos!!!) and then killed the lights and had a glow stick dance off. It was definitely the hit of the entire night. Everyone L O V E D it and we had an absolute blast putting the whole thing together! And Yes, we did use the glow stick glasses that you gave me last month! 

The weekend was pretty uneventful... unless you count the fact that President Blickenstaff called me on Saturday night telling me that I'd be moving to Nantou to be the new Zone Leader... B L E W my mind. Honestly, I'm super sad to be leaving Daya and Elder C. I haven't been in one place for over 4 months in a LONG time. Daya really became my home, and those members really became my family. I will forever hold a special place in my heart for those memories and for all the wonderful things which we accomplished there. I had a chance to give a talk on Sunday and I almost lost it as I was thanking the ward for their service and love. What can I say, I'm a softy!~ I super excited to be in Nantou now though! Elder R is a super cool guy and I'm stoked to be working with him! I will admit, I'm a little nervous to be in charge of over 30 different missionaries, but I'm super grateful for the challenge and I'm ready to do my absolute best to fulfill my work!

I don't have any specific principle I'd like to focus on today, but I just want to share a short testimony of the Savior. I know He lives. Although I've said that same sentence COUNTLESS times in my life, I truly know that those words are true. Their value has not dimmed over time, and it never will! He lives and He will love us to the end. I know these things, and I know that we can lean on His loving arm whenever we don't have the strength to go on.

I love you guys! jiayou!

Elder Noll

 

Here are a few pictures of Nantou - (Ryan's new area) that I found online... 

 

December 1, 2013

Hola! Li ho! Ni hao! svotyka! anehaseyo! I can't think of any others at the moment...

Welp, it sounds like things are going pretty fun over in the land of Turkey and mashed potatoes! It's the first time I can honestly say I miss American food... we sort of celebrated Thanksgiving over here, but it's just not the same without those American specialties. Mom's mashed potatoes, Grandpa's pumpkin pie, Aunt Francie's chocolate and banana cream pies, the salads and endless delicacies at Aunt Sherrie's place, I suppose Grandpa Happymeal's banana bread is being incredibly missed at this time as well! We (the 4 daya elders, Elder M, Elder T, Elder C and I) went to KFC, the closest place we could find with somewhat americanized poultry, and totally pigged out. Then we headed over to McDonalds to pig out on apple pies and Ice cream. That was about as "Thanksgivingy" as it got over here! Pretty much a blast!!

We had an INCREDIBLE week full of A W E S O M E stuff! On Wednesday, we spent all day with Elder Randy Funk of the Seventy. He actually did a meeting with all of the District and Zone Leaders in the Northern part of the Mission and asked me for a lot of advice on training missionaries (seeing as I was the only District Leader who was training at the same time)! Talk about being put on the spot! He's a really awesome guy! His aura was pretty astounding. He was really kind and SUPER wise! Some of the points he brought up were just so inspired, I feel like I learned quite a bit from working with him all day. We (the Daya District) also had an opportunity to sing at the meeting! Kind of fun! Got us out of having to give any talks!

We spent the rest of the week looking for new investigators and prepping for a huge Thanksgiving party that we had on Saturday night. The party was HOPPIN. Tons of awesome games (I taught them how to play Football) and a lot of food! Granted, most of the food was super Taiwanese, they all tried their best to Americanize it! We found a lot of new investigators there and are so stoked to start working with them! Ward activities are so awesome!!!

Other highlights of the week?

-ran into some Scottish dudes who were in a piping band!

-went to a super awesome buffet on Monday with the family that has 9 kids

Super awesome week! just like every other!

Something I really liked this week, on a spiritual note, came from a Young Women as she shared her Testimony in Church yesterday. She said: "Crying doesn't solve anything. We must face our trials bravely." It made me think of the Book of Mormon, how Laman and Lemual are always 'crying' about what they have to do or how hard something is. If we will just man up, deal with our issues and go forth with Faith, God can work some SERIOUS miracles. We will also change for good. We will become stronger and gain experience. I testify that these principles are true! I've seen them so many times out here, and I've personally gone through many strengthening trials. I'm so grateful that I have a Father in Heaven who is able and willing to test me in order to help me grow. Don't worry. Be happy. (yes, just like the song.) Go forth, and be epic.

Love, Elder Noll