November 27, 2016

Hello Family and Friends!

Another week in Taiwan and it was a crazy one!

Starting from Monday, after I emailed we had to go back to our house and pack up all of our belongings in preparation to move! It was a little hectic and a waste of a P-Day but we got the job done!

That night we started our exchanges with the zone leaders! I was with Elder Colletti. He is our new zone leader and he is awesome! This transfer is going to be so much fun! I love all the new comers and I have been so much happier!

Tuesday, we had district meeting and I finished my exchanges. I really enjoyed being able to go out and just have some fun for awhile rather than being too stressed!

Wednesday was one of the craziest days of my life. It was seriously just like one of those old jokes... "What do you get when you have 2 Taiwanese speaking moving people, 1 Chinese speaking missionary and 1 White Kid from Utah all trying to get an apartment packed up?"... It was crazy!!! We had to move everything! The fridge, couches, beds, dryer... EVERYTHING! And then we had to put that stuff in another apartment! That didn't know we were coming! HAHAHAHA!!! But after all that is said and done, I am so glad to move out. Our new apartment is awesome! I live with Elder Boyle and Elder Puzey now! We have so much fun now!

Thursday we went up to Taipei for our Trainee Trainer Follow-Up! So I got to see all my MTC friends! It was super fun and President gave us some very helpful advice. The most comforting part for me though was that I wasn't too sad when it was over. I looked forward to getting back to my area. (That is a huge improvement from last transfer!) Oh and thank you for the wonderful package! I loved it and can't wait to start that advent calendar! (The other calendar is way better though!)

Friday was missionary Thanksgiving! We don't have Turkey, so we did the next best thing. Another Kaorou Chidaobao!  The whole district totally broke the word of wisdom eating too much meat but it is so good! That night we had my first baptism! That's right! Little Peng Xiang Yi got baptized! He is still super crazy and had to have help with every part of his testimony share but I am excited for him!

Saturday and Sunday were pretty normal, the work has slowed down a little bit but we are still working just as hard! Winter is really coming now and we get lots of rain and cold. I am going to have to buy some new clothes. (Sorry!) My Chinese is really coming along and so is my mission! The time is starting to go by without me even realizing! Taiwan is great! The church is true! I love you all!

Elder Holderness

November 20, 2016

Dear Family and Friends! Another week has gone by here in Taiwan and I am happy to say that time is starting to go by really quickly!

This week ended my first transfer on the island! Looking back on it, even with it's hard times I really only have positive memories of it! What a blessing that is by itself! I came to really love our district and am going to miss the good friends that left us this week!

Sister Hickenlooper, Sister Wang, Elder Lin, Elder Liao, Elder Hammond, Me

This week, Elder Hammond and Sister Wang got transferred. They both are doing a white-wash training! I am going to miss them a lot! They both helped me and are my really good friends!

Besides that though, this week has been really great! On Monday, I got to go bowling with some of the other missionaries here and it made me miss my Life Activities Class with Coach Sheide! We had a lot of fun but I have lost too much of my practice so my score was sub-par.

At the conclusion of P-Day we had English Class Boarding. Which we just hand out a million flyers for our English Class. It was the first time that I could just walk around and talk to anyone without any fear! I felt amazing being capable to do that!  (And I'll talk about it in a little bit but our English Class this week was a real success!)

On Tuesday we had our final district meeting with last district and it was fun! We sang hymns at the top of our lungs and then talked about all the good and bad we have seen in the last 6 weeks. The work here in Tao Yuan is really booming! Our zone had a goal this year to get 100 baptisms. Right now we are at 87 so we are really starting to put in extra prayers and effort to reach it before the end of the year!

I have gotten to be pretty good friends with Elder Liao (Or as best as possible) and it has helped a lot! Our work is really moving along. This week we have a baptism on Friday, it's a 13 year old boy name Peng Xiang Yi. He's a little crazy but mostly awesome! (And still the only person that I really don't understand a word that comes out of his mouth. Hahahaha)

This Wednesday we had English Class and I decided to teach about maps and directions. What better way to do that then hand draw a map of beautiful Orem, Utah from memory!? It turned out to be a pretty fun class and we got 2 investigators from it! One of them is so awesome, his name is Kenny. He attended the US Air Force Academy and then served in Taiwan's Air Force. He is retired now at age 50 and has a family we haven't met yet but look forward to it. On Thursday we got to meet with him and teach him the Restoration. After the lesson we went outside of the church and his car had gotten towed! It was so crazy! I thought he would be a little annoyed but it was the opposite! He thought it was funny and told us he was thankful for letting him come! He came to Stake Conference on Saturday night too!

Stake Conference was yesterday and that was really awesome! We had some of the 70 here and our Mission President came too. They all speak Chinese from different areas of the world so their accents were all different, some of the members couldn't understand the one from Hong Kong!

So that's about my whole week! Things are looking up here and the work is really moving! We haven't moved out of our house yet, we will on Wednesday! I am pretty excited! It should be fun and helpful for me!

Last little bits for fun! 1) Here in Taiwan, they play American Music all the time and the other day I heard Country Road. But in my head, all I could hear was Mark Gowans, Dan Finch and all the other Young Men's leaders singing Canyon Road (Orem Utah, Mountain Mama)! 2) This week I ate both 1000 year old egg and pig stomach soup!

Well I love you all and thank you for the support! Talk to you again next week! Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Holderness

November 13, 2016

Hello Family!

Well, this week was pretty usual missionary work, we didn't have too many crazy stories or adventures and I'm still just trying to keep going!
Monday, Elder Liao and I went on a hike with a recent convert and an investigator in Taibei. The view was amazing but made me miss the mountains back home! Haha! Those ones are way better! I also got a haircut so my hair was pretty Taiwanese for a couple of days! Haha!

The rest of the week kind of just settled back into normal mission life. Winter is starting to come and we have gotten a couple of really windy and rainy days. I got more name tags this week too.

This week we had some real progression with Peng Didi, the 13 year old that struggles with staying focused. He had his baptismal interview last week and his baptism service is scheduled for the 25th!

Other than him though, we have been doing a lot of finding. Most of our investigators right now say they are too busy to meet with us so we are on the streets a lot! Things have been getting better though and we are starting to have more success finding. We got a couple new investigators and a lot of potentials. My street contact is still pretty poor but I am slowly getting better! I can pretty much understand all of our lessons and contacts now though so I am seeing the progression already!

Some days are definitely really hard on me emotionally. I always thought that I had a lot of patience but now I am getting pushed to the limits. I work really hard on being patient and humble with my companion. But it's hard.

Sorry for the kind of boring email! The work is going! I am getting better all the time, even if sometimes I don't even notice it! This week should be pretty interesting! We have my first transfers and we just got word we are moving apartments. We are going to be in an apartment with 4 people now! Yay! Another thing to adjust to! Hahaha!

Love you all so much! Thanks for the support!

Elder Holderness

November 6, 2016

Hey Family and Friends! It's that time of the week again when you get to hear from your favorite person!

Alright, first things first! Last Monday, after I got off emailing, we went on a road trip to a nearby amusement park! It was really really weird! It was about the size of Lagoon, but there were only like 300 people there so the question wasn't "How long is the wait time?" it was "How many times do we want to ride this before we want to switch?" It was really strange. But I had a lot of fun!

This was there "Grand Entrance"

After we got back we had dinner at the Bishop's house. I am really starting to love all the members and the Taiwanese!

Tuesday we had my first Zone Meeting. I was really glad to have a meeting in English for the first time in a month since my District is half native so district meetings are in Chinese. Afterward we did something amazing. Of course being in Taiwan I am going to have some weird foods and some good ones. But the surprising thing is I haven't turned down a food in three weeks! (If you're reading this and knew me before my mission at all you know I am not very adventurous with my foods.) I am actually adjusting really well to the food here! Anyway, after zone meeting, we went to something called a Kaurou Chidaobao. It is amazing!!! You just sit there and order meat and then they bring it to you uncooked so you cook it yourself on the grills in the middle of the table. All you can eat. Oh and there's all you can eat Hagen Daaz Ice Cream and Soda and pretty much anything. It was awesome!!

Besides that amazing place I have also had some pretty bad things. This week I ate Stinky Tofu. (It wasn't too bad but I don't really like any tofu) and duck blood cubes! Hahaha

The work is actually pretty slow in our area right now. We are doing finding all the time and I have a pretty hard time with it. I am really working though and getting better. Also, we have an investigator who is pretty close to baptism. His name is Peng Didi. He is 13 though and a little crazy. He has a really hard time sitting still so it's hard to keep him reverent. He attended a baptismal service this week though and things are looking hopeful. Actually, I almost forgot, after the baptism. His bike tire popped so I had to run his bike to his house about 2 to 3 miles away and then run back. In my mission clothes. And let me tell you, Ecco's are probably the worst running shoes ever. Hahahaha!

Also, I am a little surprised that I don't have my own show on HGTV yet! This week I finished cleaning my apartment and it is so great! Right in time for our inspection! Hahaha! It only took 5 weeks! (And then you find out two days later you probably are going to have to move...)

Things are still pretty hard sometimes but for the most part I am really getting the hang of missionary work and Chinese! My Chinese just keeps getting better and better! I am really starting to just love it! And there aren't a lot of feelings better than walking away from a conversation and realizing you just did it in Chinese without thinking an harder than English. (I've only had that like twice though.)

I love you all so much and will write again next week! I know the church is true and that it brings happiness!

Elder Holderness