August 27, 2017

Hey Everyone! Well this week was great on this little island of Taiwan! Right now Taiwan is hosting some big world wide college Olympics thing so we went and watched some of the basketball games there. Hong Kong versus Japan was a pretty good game but the game that I never thought I would ever see in my entire life was Ukraine versus Mozambique! The game was a little boring but it was really fun to see those two teams against each other!

This week was a little bit harder on us. We have some awesome people who are doing really well progressing towards baptism! We are just trying to make sure we are always finding new people to teach! We have a new investigator from last week named 黃士哲 Huang Shi Zhe he met the church while he was working/traveling outside of Taiwan and now is looking for a church here. He came to church this week and last week and is really a miracle investigator. He should be getting baptized soon.

This week we also worked with 洪肇駿 Hong Zhao Jun with his smoking problems. His baptismal date is next Saturday and he should be completely down with smoking this week and I think he will be able to pass his interview and be baptized!

We are still working with 曾姐妹 Zeng JieMei and her super cute daughter 可甯 Ke Ning. Her date is set for October and she is still coming to church and doing great! She just wants to wait till then to get baptized to make sure! I'm not worried about her though!

This Friday and Saturday the air quality was amazing in Taiwan! It made our area look like a completely different place and the view of Taibei was amazing! But the best part was Saturday night! BYU's soccer team is the soccer team from America for the Olympics! So they did a Face To Face activity for the single adults here in Taibei! We got to take our 18 year old basketball player investigator! It went really well and was a really fun, relaxed activity!

Yesterday's church meetings went really well! We had six investigators attend! But that also means that we have to go to both ward meetings so we sat in the chapel for about 8 hours total yesterday! It was a little long...

That's about it for here! Love you all!

Elder Holderness

Also, the problem of this week... My wallet is doomed because I found out this is in our area...

August 20, 2017

Hey Everyone!

Well this week was super awesome! Elder Huang and I are loving it here in TianMu! This week was super good for our area! Hong Zhao Jun, was able to fast for about 16 hours yesterday, he didn't make it to 24 but this was the longest he has gone without cigarettes for a long time. Other than that though we had quite a few new investigators and I am not quite sure who to talk about really. Most of them are pretty new so I'm not sure how they are doing really. We had some really cool miracles happen which brought us new investigators this week!

Our mission baptism goal for the year is 600. At the last Mission Leadership Conference they told us that we are a little behind on our goal and in order to hit it every companionship needs to get four more baptisms this year. I know that Elder Huang and I can do it! We have some awesome investigators here! We pray for it every day and the lord has let us see so many cool miracles. I really know he is helping the work here. Sometimes I feel like I'm not actually doing anything but sitting back and watching God do miracles.

Last week Elder Huang and I went on a hike last week with some of the missionaries from YongHe! It was pretty fun and I got to wear some normal clothes so I was happy!

We went on a exchanges with the zone leaders last week too so we got to go up to DanShui and spend the night which is always fun! The stake here is doing a big Christmas play this year and they have already started making the set for it so we got to go and do some service which was pretty fun!

I got into the dentist today and got my tooth all taken care of! Which pretty much means most of it is fake now... hmmmmm... still kind of suspicious of the dentistry that happened but whatever! Hahahaha

Love you all! Elder Holderness

This email was a little scattered sorry!

August 13, 2017

Hey everyone!

Well this week was just a normal one here in TianMu! I love it here! It is a really expensive area and the people are hard to get talking but it is great! Elder Huang and I are pretty much the best friends in the whole mission. Probably. Hahaha! I have been trying to help him pronounce Ward, Word and World lately and it makes me laugh everyday! He wasn't feeling too good on Saturday so he laid down for a second... sadly he heard the camera turning on...

This week was good! The progress is just coming along pretty well and a little slowly! We are still trying to help 洪肇駿 (Hong Zhao Jun) quit smoking! He should still be able to hit his baptismal date of September 9th though!

Monday my companion wanted to go tour some not very convenient place for missionaries so we walked a very long way... It was hot but we made it fun!

On Wednesday night we have English class and because finding on the streets hasn't been going super well for us, I decided that it would be good for me to really take the time to plan a good English class and spiritual message at the end. I decided to use an analogy with a bowl of water and some clear little balls used as air freshener. When you put the clear balls in the water. You can't see them at all. People have to feel the water to know they are there. I used it to teach them about faith and understanding god. They can't just see god, they have to take action so they can feel god. It worked great! I got three new people to set up with me and two of them are a family with a 6 year old son! It was an incredible miracle for us!

On Friday we had our zone conference and we talked about the Book of Mormon the whole time. Right now we are trying to figure out all the different ways we can get people to read the Book of Mormon so that it can do the missionary work for us! It was training Elder Christopherson gave to new mission presidents this summer. It has been working pretty well these last couple days and I am excited to see how it can affect our investigators!

Having two areas means two wards and having two wards means 6 hours of church! So that was pretty much our entire day yesterday! I also had to give a talk about missionary work so that's three weeks in a row that I have been on the program here! Hahaha

Love you all and I love the Lord,

Elder Holderness

August 6, 2017

Hey everyone!

Well this week was great! I am loving it here in TianMu! I love my companion Elder Huang! And our district!

This week's highlight was the baptism of one of the investigators they were teaching last transfer before I got here! His name is Patrick! He is going to need a lot of help and support from the ward so I am glad that I get the chance to know him and help teach him the Recent Convert lessons!

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful! We just have been trying to find new investigators but haven't had too much success! It is a lot harder to find new investigators in Taibei than it was in LinKou because people won't stop to talk even 15 seconds here! Hahaha it doesn't help that missionaries have been here forever and the American school is here too so they are super used to both Americans and Missionaries.

Yesterday we got to go to the New Member Fireside in Taibei with our investigator 曾姊妹 (Zeng Jiemei) and her 7 year old daughter (費可甯)! It was great and they should be baptized in October! We also have an investigator named Enix who is just working on his word of wisdom problems but he should be baptized in September!

I also got an update on LinKou yesterday and found out that a lot of the investigators we were teaching are starting to really do well now! Abbie and her mom went to church yesterday which is incredible! I didn't expect that kind of news! Also 張庭瑜 should be baptized on Saturday! 

I am doing well and loving the mission, Taiwan and Chinese.

Elder Holderness