October 26, 2015 - Zuha Zhou and a Miracle Investigator

Dear Family and Friends,

We were able to witness a Chinese tradition this week it was really cool it is called a zhua zhou. When a baby turns one they have a party and they have this event where they put out all of these toys and objects in front of the baby. They say it is a way to see into the babies future. Depending on the object they pick that will decide what they want to do when they get older. They all know that isn't true but it is fun anyway.

This week was interesting, we struggled to find new investigators and by the end of the week we just felt that this was going to be a bad period for us. We had one investigator who was supposed to come to church and that was about it. We waited for her in the lobby and she never came. However sometimes we really are not the ones who find our investigators, they find us! A women who lives next door to the church just came in while we were waiting for our investigator and told us she lived right next door and noticed how happy the people who were going to church were. She told us how she wanted to feel the same way and she stayed for all three hours of church! She is meeting with us tomorrow and is truly a miracle. It is so interesting and amazing to watch the Lord sometimes send people to you instead of you to them.

• Is there a third mission in Taiwan? I saw something that said "Taiwan, Kaohsiung Mission" 

There used to be a Kaohsiung taichung and Taipei but now Kaohsiung is just apart of our mission it is one of the furthest south cities and it is huge! Also extremely hot!

• What was your favorite conference talk? I liked Uchtdorf's talk about keeping the gospel simple

• What makes you laugh in your area? The old people doing their funny Asian dances for exercise out in the street:)

My mom wanted me to send her some photos of our apartment and I finally took some.

The toilet is finally somewhat operational but the water stains from the week that it would not stop leaking are still there and we can't get them to come out.

Here is a picture of the internet cafe where I use the computers to write emails.

October 18, 2015 - Kelly Chen's Baptism

This week has come and gone in the blink of an eye! This next week will mark 4 months on my mission! I feel like my family was just saying congrats for 3 months! I am finally starting to see how a mission can just start and end. Right now the idea of leaving Taiwan breaks my heart.  The most important thing that has happened this week is that Kelly Chen was Baptized! I am such a softy so I had some tears but mostly just smiles for this faithful lady. She has so much faith and shared an amazing testimony in her xili hui (baptismal service).

 

​Everything else that happened this week is not nearly as exciting but for P-day we went and visited a city by the sea called LuKang. It is a cool place that has a lot of old buildings. I didn't see the ocean though. I am living on an island that is quarter the size of Utah and have yet to see the ocean and I just want to see the coast so bad. 

We are all doing great here in ZhangHua, Elder Brady is getting ready to die as a missionary because he goes home in 5 weeks! We will miss him here! I think that is all for this week.

 

Here are the answers to the weekly questions.

 

• Are you wearing your bike helmet?

Of course!!! This is probably the most obedient mission in the world... Even if I wanted to not wear it no other missionary would let me;)

 

• What is it that you carry in your shirt pocket? We have seen that your pocket is full of things in all your pictures.

We have tracts and contact cards to give to people so they can find the church. 

 

• Last week you sent a picture of a boiled chicken head.  Where did you see it?

Was it in your food?

A recent convert of the other missionaries in our district cooked a whole chicken for us.... and I mean the only thing missing from the chicken was the feathers!

 

• Do you get to have American food?

The only American thing I have eaten is Domino pizza, because American food is too gui (expensive) 

 

• Did you ever get any rain pants? If not you should before the cold rain starts come winter. 

I have not but I will look for some, I am going to really need them, the rain gets cold and is constant.

 

• What is your favorite gospel principle to teach and why?

My favorite is the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism and endure to the end) because it is the easiest to use the scriptures.... Because that is all the scriptures are. 

 

• Have you been able to take any pictures of your apartment yet?

no......;P whoops 

 

I love you all! 

Sincerely,

Elder Erwin

October 12, 2015 - Taiwan Has Beautiful Sights to See

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been a whole lot of fun and full of adventures. We got a chance to go visit this place called Ba Gua Shan (Octagon Mountain.) It has one of the many giant Buddha statues on top of it and it is a really beautiful place.

I learned a lesson while we hiked up this mountain. There is a path you are supposed to walk up to get to the top of the mountain, it is covered in pointed rocks. The Chinese say if it doesn't hurt when you walk on it (without shoes) you are healthy. We decided we were going to walk it up to the top. The pain was only really bad when I focused on all the things troubling me under my feet. If we are willing to walk the hard path in life and focus on what is ahead instead of what pains us we will be able to receive so much. 

• Did you decide what you are going to dress up as for Halloween? 

I didn't get to dress up because they needed someone to be dressed as missionaries and we were so busy so we volunteered to do it:(

• Were you able to take any pix of you in your apartment? 

No but I have a lot of pictures this week.

• What is your favorite food there? 

Taiwan has three food groups 1. dumplings 2. rice 3. noodles. 

My favorite food is probably all the different types of dumplings.

• Where is the computer that you use for writing us? Are you at the church or somewhere like Starbucks Internet cafe and coffee bar ;-) 

The computer I am writing you from is in this NASTY internet cafe where everyone smells like drugs and worse;) they are all over Taiwan they are called Wangke

• Can you tell us something from each of your 5 senses?

- How does it smell there? 

It depends if you are on a road with stinky tofu that is what it smells like. If it rains it smells so good...like rain. most of the time it smells warm and green.

-What is a sound you hear there that we don't hear here? 

Garbage trucks!!! They all play the same two songs all day everyday and they blast them so that you know they are coming so you can throw your stuff on them as they slowly roll along. mostly they play Fur Elise and this random beep bop song ;)

-Tell us about something bad you've tasted. 

coagulated pigs blood and rice mixed into a bar that looks like a brownie:p

-Tell us about the things you see. It has to be so different from South Jordan. Almost everything is different here.

-Have you touched anything interesting? I walked on a painful pathway. Check out the pictures to see what I mean.

•Do they give you a lesson plan for your English classes or do you just wing it each week? 

We have a textbook and we also kind of just wing it. We try and make it fun and help them talk in English

• Since you're teaching the advanced English class, have you taught any of your students a tongue twister? Like, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?" 

I will definitely give it a shot! there are chinese tongue twisters that make english ones seem like child's play. I will show when we skype on christmas.

• Is there someone who is investigating the church that we can pray for? We are already praying for Peter and Kelly. 

Pray for Chris from mainland china I will also explain some more in my group email.

• Did you enjoy conference? 

Loved it. That talk on mothers by Jeffrey R. Holland was great. I cried :) 

• Can you please send us a new scripture to ponderize? 

2 nephi 4:28

• Do you need anything from us? 

No thank you though:)

I love you all,

Elder Erwin

October 5, 2015 - Fasting

Dear friends and family,

We survived the typhoon! Some missionaries actually did get hurt on their bikes but I am ok. The wind was like nothing I had ever experienced before I was on my bike and I literally got pushed into the oncoming traffic lane! Long story short we hid out for the rest of the typhoon day because it is way too dangerous to even be walking outside!

I went on exchanges this week with another Elder that is also in training. So we had to white guys who speak really not great Chinese wondering around Taiwan without any support. We managed better than I thought we would and survived a good solid two days without our trainers. We taught 3 investigators and found some people all by ourselves  

I got the chance to play my violin at a baptism this week for the Zhanghua 3rd ward. It was so nice to perform music again! 

I had a really great experience this week with the power of fasting. Last Sunday we decided to fast for our investigator Kelly. We prayed that the lord would help her be brave and overcome her fear of talking to her husband. We met with her on the next Thursday and she had done it. She told her husband that she was meeting with us, attending church, and was going to be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He wasn't to happy but he said ok! Kelly means the world to me she is just someone that we met on at a traffic light and now she is going to get baptized hopefully next week! I have a much stronger testimony of fasting and how influential it can be in our lives. 

Each week my mom sends me a list of questions to answer. Here is this week's list. 

• How is the language coming? Do you understand people?

Chinese is one of the hardest languages and it causes a lot of stress but I love learning it and speaking. I went on exchanges for 2 days this week with another Elder in training and so his Chinese is not any better than mine. I had to order all my own food, and had to talk to people by myself and I was able to do it!! One of the places where we got food the lady knows me but has never heard me speak because elder Brady would just order for me... and then she told me my Chinese was super bioajun (standard) which is actually one of the highest compliments it means that you speak without mistakes. I still struggle so much but I manage:)

• How is your companion? Some missionaries have real trouble with their trainers. 

Elder Brady is great! This mission is probably one of the most obedient in the world. We have the highest percent of return missionaries that attend BYU. I haven't really met a disobedient missionary yet.

• Have you decided what you are going to be for the Halloween party you're throwing at your English class? 

I have no idea... I will probably figure that out today;)

• Do you do any service projects? 

NO! The people of Taiwan would kill over before they let a white missionary help them! They are very proud that way but we always ask no matter what.

• Could you please take pictures of you in your apartment and send them to us? We want to see how you live.

I am so bad about pics but my apartment is pretty nice except today our water filter went out so we have no drinkable water... and our toilet is leaking like crazy so we don't know what we are going to do about that. 

• It is hard for us to not know what you're doing, seeing and experiencing each day. Could you give a brief breakdown of a typical day? 

6:20 we get up and get ready

8:00 is personal study

9:00-11:00 is companion study

11:00-12:00 is language study. we have an extra 1 1/2 hours inside because I am in training and we study so much

12:00 we go eat on "food road" by our house, it is a road just full of things to eat. We never cook food because it costs about $1.50-2.00 for a meal which is so much cheaper than making our own food. 

• Transfers are coming up. Do you want to be transferred or do you want to stay put? 

I will not be transferred because I am in training which takes two transfers to complete. At the end of next transfer Elder Brady will go home so I most likely will stay so that someone still knows the area. The point is I will most likely be in ZhangHua until January:) I like it here so I honestly would be ok if I stay or go:)

I love you all sorry I don't have any pictures!! 

Sincerely,

Elder Erwin

September 27, 2015 - My Favorite Street Corner in Taiwan

Dear Family and Friends

As I write this email a typhoon is building outside... Storms in Taiwan shut down everything so today might be an interesting day. All of our appointments have been canceled at the potential of this storm. I don't really know what will happen because I am not allowed to look at the weather. So I think I told you all that my first week here was Mid Autumn festival... I was wrong. I translated incorrectly but yesterday actually was! The goal of the Taiwanese people I am now sure is to kill me with food. Last night they kept trying to shove pigs blood and squid down my throat. I ate so much and we had to bike across town to a late night appointment, you could say I didn't feel good last night. 

We had an adventure last p-day with this old Ah-gong (grandpa aged man) in a back alley. The elders in third ward found him and we decided to go pay him a visit. He is a custom, hand-made suit guy. My companion decided to get a maroon colored suit which I am very excited to see. He got it for like hundred dollars! If it looks good I might have to make a long term investment in a suit. Most likely I won't though...

One last story then I want to talk about some of our investigators. We were sitting in this store making some phone calls setting up appointments and we met some new friends. 

This is Nicole and her two little siblings. They were playing in the street, they saw us and freaked out because white people here are a rare sight! We started making faces at them and after some time they started to press their faces up on the glass and we wrote each other notes on the glass! They were the most amazing little kids, my heart was so sad when their mom called them back home. I hope that they will just remember the fun that they had with the missionaries and maybe one day be receptive to our message. 

So this week we tried a new method of proselyting. I went on to the same street corner that is in this picture and played my violin in the street while other people in our district passed out flyers for our English Class. People responded well to it. It got them to stop for a moment and think about what we were doing. I just played hymns and then me and Elder Thomas (third ward elder) played the violin and guitar together. It really tested my listening skills because he would just play songs from the radio and I would play along even though I have never played them. I found out that I am not a half bad at making things up on the spot :) It was worth doing because almost all of our baptisms here in Zhanghua are from English class. 

My companion met this girl from Da lu which translates as the Mainland. Her name is Chris and she came to our English class this week. She told us that she has been in Taiwan for two weeks and has been looking for a church and has been to several but didn't really enjoy them. She then proceeded to ask us what that feeling was that she got in our church building! I couldn't have asked for a more perfect question! We are meeting with her this Wednesday and I am so excited!

We have three other progressing investigators I will try and tell you a little about all three

1. Sister Hong- She is a middle aged woman whose son is one of our recent converts, she is a devoted Buddhist, however she still wants to meet with us. She told us last week that she believes in Heavenly Father and that he answered her prayers. You can imagine our excitement at this but then she proceeded to tell us how she believes that Heavenly Father and Buddha are both gods and believes in both. Oh sister Hong.... But we had a really great lesson with last night and I think that her faith will continue to grow if she keeps our commitments. Last night we committed her to read the chapter that talks about no man can serve two masters... I thought that was pretty funny myself:)

2. Peter- His Chinese name is Lin Zi Yuan but peter is his English name and it is much easier in my opinion. Peter is 15 and is great, he has so much faith and wants to be baptized but his dad is still saying no! We tried to visit his dad yesterday but he took one look at us and hid out in his room until we left. So we will continue to pray that his dad will open his heart.

3. Kelly- This woman is so special. Her faith is massive. She lives a pretty difficult life. Her husband doesn't work and she pays for her two daughters to go to school by working in a factory all day. I led my first lesson with her because my companion was on exchanges up in Nantou, so I taught her tithing! How is that for your first solo lesson! Kelly didn't even blink she told me that she would live it after her baptism! The hardest part of Kelly's situation is she hasn't told anyone in her family that she is meeting with us. She is terrified of her husband and what he might say. But it is a rule that your spouse has to know and so that is the only reason she isn't being baptized right now. We fasted for Kelly yesterday and are praying for a miracle. 

This brings me to my email title. Gratitude, I have all these people that I am teaching that want to accept the gospel but can't. I have had the gospel my whole life and never really thought of how blessed I really am. My heart aches all day because I want Kelly and Peter to both enjoy the same blessings, but they are being held back by someone else's agency! So my message this, never forget to show gratitude to Heavenly Father for giving us his gospel and always strive to be worthy of its blessings! 

I love you all,

 Elder Erwin

  

September 20, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

This weeks email will be a little shorter. So start off the week, me and my companion and two other Elders from our district were able to travel to Xitou, it is a mountain range with all of these amazing things to see. There were bridges built up in the trees so that you can see what the mountain range would like if you were a bird. It was overall a very neat experience and I was happy to get out of the city. 

The most important thing that happened this week is that the sisters in our area got shut down... One got transferred to the Taipei temple mission because she couldn't ride her bike anymore and the other got moved to Tainan. Up until this point the sisters have met with women and the Elders have met with men. Now my companion and I are taking over all of their investigators and have a lot more to do because women here are so much more willing to change and hear the gospel. I was praying for more people to teach and now we have so much more. I was really sad to see the sisters go, but I am excited to have the group that I can meet with double! 

I hope that we can take good care of their people and help them all turn unto Christ. 

Love you all , 

Elder Erwin

September 13, 2015 - Temples and Forever Families

Dear Family and Friends,

This week I was lucky enough to travel to Taipei for a temple trip. The temple is beautiful! It is very small, it kind of felt more like a home. We were able to attend a session there and it was a spiritually uplifting experience. 

We went to try and find a former this week who lives on top of a mountain in ZhangHua. It was a crazy bike ride, it was so steep at some points we just had to push our bikes up the hill. We made it to the top but the former was not home or would not answer the door. I did find a picture of our Prophet, President Monson, in a flower pot during this little adventure so I knew missionaries had been up this way before. It was a beautiful view so the bike ride was worth it even though we didn't find anyone. 

My spiritual share for this week starts back last week at English class when this member asked me what my favorite temple was. I told him the San Diego temple... that was all. Then he came back next week with a gift for me and my companion. It was a fan hand painted with the San Diego temple by him with the characters (Jiating shi yongheng de) this ruffly translates to (families are eternal), It is so beautiful. It caused me to reflect a lot on what this gospel offers people. The chance to be with your family forever is the most amazing blessing that no one else in the world offers. I love telling people all about it because families are meant to be forever! 

Here are the answers to mom's questions.

•What is your companions full name? 
Elias Jens Brady

•Where is he from? 
Centerville, Utah 

•Is he a good trainer? Do you get along? 
He is a very good trainer! He is understanding and kind, he helps me find new ways to serve others all the time. Also his Chinese is excellent so that helps a lot!

•How many minutes did you have to speak in church? That's crazy! You're in Taiwan a couple of days and speaking in church. 
I did not have to speak in Church long I just had to introduce myself, give my testimony and that is all so It wasn't to bad. 

•How many people are in your ward/branch? 
There are a lot but a good portion of them are inactive so the meetings are really small. Elder Brady and I have made a goal to visit a less active member everyday of the week and try and get some of them back to Church

•When did you get the keys to your apartment? 
If you have gotten them. I think I answered this in the group email...:)

•Do you need anything from us? 
Right now nothing, but I love you guys I hope you are all doing well and everything is okay. I promise I will use the bug spray.... I really do want to be sick here. The doctors are not what they are in America. Also our apartment does not have a toilet that really works... So we just make sure to always use the Church's restroom. It is a very humbling experience because so many people live much worse than I am. Once again I love you all!

I love you all and I am so grateful to be a missionary in this Church. 

Love Elder Erwin

September 6, 2015 - Home Sweet Home...In Taiwan

Dear Friends and Family,

The second week of Taiwan has been just as good. It stopped raining and has just been really hot all week until today when it started to rain harder than ever! 

This week we finally got into our apartment. We found out that no one on this planet had a key so we had to go find a locksmith to break in for us. He also told us that he could not make a new key so we just had to buy a new door handle and lock. So three hours later with the help of some power tools and creativity we were able to replace or locks. 

Here in Taiwan we teach a free English class every Wednesday and I was assigned to teach the advanced class... Not because I am really good at English but because my Mandarin is the worst and this is the class where they do not speak any Mandarin. It is a really cool experience we have a chance to help them with English and the gospel. 

Here in Taiwan they don't really believe in obeying traffic laws... So my biggest fear isn't speaking in Chinese anymore, It is getting hit by a car or one of these scooters that everyone drives. 

We also had a bat in the church this week... My companion and were able to trap it and let is back outside so that was fun!

Finally I had more spiritual experience and lesson that I have learned from the people of Taiwan and one member in particular. Her name is Sister Huang. She taught me about a Christ like attribute that I want to develop in myself. The people here are so humble and they notice others. It somehow came up that I liked American pudding and they don't really have it here. And my companion said something about cake and how he likes cake. The next day she comes up to us and in hand she has home made cake and american pudding. I was absolutely astonished. We had not asked or even really said anything about it but she just saw something she could do to be kind and did it. I was so impressed and I have been watching her do this with just about everyone she comes into contact with. I want to develop that attribute as a missionary for members and investigators so I can be a better servant. Here is a picture of her and my companion and some other missionaries and members. Sadly she just left for Australia  for school so I do not know when or if we will meet again.

I love you all. sincerely,

Elder Erwin