A real letter 7/30/15

The letter was dated 6/27/15, but arrived Wednesday, July 30, 2015. Here are some excerpts:

Dear Fam,
     Hey, I thought I'd write you a letter and say Happy Father's Day!! :D. I hope you all are doing well and had an amazing Father's Day!! Sorry this will get to you so late. :/ I wanted to write you all and tell you how much I love you guys! I really miss you all and I always love reading your emails.:) I'm really glad to hear that you've all been doing well lately. :D That means my prayers are being answered. :) When I come back from Taiwan, I'll have to bring 2 years' worth of birthday, Christmas, Father's and Mother's Day presents with me! :)
     Summer is starting here and I can feel it! It's super hot!! I got a little sunburned today and you should see my watch tan! I'll try to get a picture of it and send it to you.:)
     The mangoes here are amazing!:D When we come to Taiwan together, we'll have to go when it's mango season.:) They're super good! :)
     I'm really happy to hear you've been doing well and it sounds like you'be been having an awesome summer!
     Well, that's about all for now. I love you all so much! I miss you and pray for you every day.I love you all so much!!

Love,
Elder Fleming :)

07/27/15 No subject....whatsoever :)

Hello all! 

     My week was good. We had a short-term missionary, which was cool but he was in my personal space a lot. It reminded me of Dad's stories about his close-talker friend from work. :)  I'm glad that we had a short term missionary because it was a good learning experience and stuff, but I'm glad it was short term. :) It's nice to speak English again in the apartment. :) It's also nice to not have my personal bubble popped all the time. :) 

     So the happenings and the highlights of the week were that we got our new missionary and companion on Sunday and Monday. I am finally getting to know my companion, Elder Davis, because we actually had to spend a lot of effort on our short term missionary. It almost felt like parenting. 

     Monday was pretty uneventful. My new companion is Elder Davis, which is the same name as the Elder Davis who just left and their Chinese names are both the same, too. :) So people refer to the old Elder Davis as "the fat one." They're pretty blunt here. Elder Davis is from Logan. :) (Not the fat one). ;)  Elder Davis seems super cool.  I'm excited to work with him. He seems like a hard worker. I like that. I like it when my companions will work really hard and as hard or even harder than me. :) I'm still alive and still pretty good. :)

     I can't believe next week is August!! :o I'll be starting my 8th month! :o I feel like my Chinese needs to be better. :/ I really need to work a lot harder on it! I'm glad to hear RSL won again!! :D  

    As for other funny stories, we contacted this really old guys who said that we were spies. :) Our miracle for the week is that we were able to find members to help out in two of our lessons at the last minute on the same day and the other miracle is that the ward, after about 20 minutes of arguing came to a conclusion about how our AC should be used. They decided to continue using it the same as before. So we spent 20 minutes talking about that instead of how we could help the ward and stuff. :/ sorry I have to go, I'll email you again next week! Love you all so much!!!!!
--

Elder Fleming

07/20/15--This week

Transfers were this week, I think I forgot to tell you last week, sorry. :/ Move call came, and Elder Sales left and I have a new companion, who is Elder Davis. His last area was in Gao Xiong. He seems cool, and he is our district leader. Oh, also he's from Logan. :) He's been out a little over a year, I think. I hope his Chinese is good ;).  I should know more next week. ;) This past week was pretty good. I got the package you sent today!!! :D I haven't opened it yet, but thank you so much!! :) gan xie!! ;) (I'm grateful) :) 

My week was good, we had a lot of fun, and Elder Sales and I played a lot of chess. :) Elder Davis said he likes chess too, so we might become fast friends... unless he beats me a lot. ;) We went to Tai Zhong last Monday, which was fun, we were going to see an opera hall, but it was closed, so we went to the mission office and picked up some stuff we needed and went back. 

I'm good, still alive and happy. :) Working with the ward has been getting better, and hopefully we can meet with the Bishop a little earlier this time. ;) As for Spiritual Stories, we will have some really cool tender mercies of the Lord, whether it's contacting and someone is really cool or we are able to help an investigator feel the Spirit. Contacts and miracles kind of go together this week. I was praying to find new investigators lately, and we were able to find 5 new investigators at English class last Wednesday and another one who had come to church last week. That was super awesome! My prayers were definitely answered! :)  

As for funny stories, one I can remember is that the Bishop asked me to share my testimony in Sacrament meeting. (When missionaries come or go, they will share their testimony during Sacrament, but otherwise, they don't as much). I figured, ok, and then wondered when Elder Sales was going to share his testimony. The Bishop called me to give my testimony and as I got to the podium, he asked me if I was moving. I said I wasn't and that Elder Sales was. He looked really surprised and then said I could sit down and asked Elder Sales to come up and share his testimony. :) I thought that was kind of funny. :) 

It's still super hot here and it's amazing that July is already almost over! :o It went by so fast!! It's humid and I am still a little sweaty and wet, even though I am sitting in AC right now. :) I think that the winter will be a little better. :)

Anyway, I love you so much!!! I pray for you every day! :) 

--

Elder Fleming

Massive watermelon we cut up after English class :)

Elder Sales' and my stalemate the other day. It was a good game and he got my queen while he still had his and I was able to bring him down to a stalemate. Hehe. :) 

Cooked s'mores over the stove this morning for our last comp. study session. :)

Last pics with Elder Sales

The other one is us outside of the concert hall in TaiZhong. :)

07/13/15

Emailing from the bat-cave :) Pot stickers are really good. :) We usually eat them about once a week or so. I had a 1,000 year old egg one of my first weeks here. :) It was pretty good. I had another one the other day, but the next time I eat one, I'll have to take a picture. :) They're not bad, but they look a little.... interesting. They're brown and the yolk looks a little strange, but it tastes ok. :)

That's a bummer about RSL. Hopefully they'll get it together soon, next year, or at least before I come back. :)

As for miracles, a member asked us to help her out in her business to film a short presentational video to show the company. We met the CEO and founder of the company and his wife. They were pretty cool and his wife had interest in English class. We were able to get to know them a bit and then they took us out to dinner at a super cool restaurant. We gave them a stack of English class tracts to give to their company and exchanged information. It would be pretty cool to baptize a CEO. ;) Another miracle was that another member asked us to do some service for them and help clean a house they were moving into. Hopefully this is a sign that the ward is starting to develop trust and relationships with missionaries and hopefully we can get them more excited about missionary work! :D 

-- 

Elder Fleming

Remember these? ;) We found it while helping clean the member's house. It was actually their bathroom. I wish I took a picture of it. They were moving into the house and the bathroom was pretty bad. We made it look ok, though. :) 

The other one is the view off the member's roof

Decorating a helmet

Elder Sales, a member, and me eating pie

Me hanging out on the member's roof after helping them clean. (They gave us some ice cream to eat) :) 

More roof pictures

Saying goodbye to a super awesome member who is going to the army (they have to here for a short time) for the next 4 months. 

07/06/15 The Weekly Still-Alive Notice

     Hello everyone, I'm still alive! I love you all lots and it was super great hearing from you! :) That's awesome that the US team won!!!! USA USA USA! :) Yeah, I have a calendar and I've written out that Tuesday was the start of my 7th month in the mission and that I've been out for 6 full months now. It's super weird. I feel like I've been out for quite a while now, but the mission is still only 1/4 over. It has been going by pretty fast, though.  Also Elder Sales is from San Francisco of the Bay Area. :) Contacting is ok, but I need to find ways to get better. Also it's annoying when people reject their own salvation. :) Elder Sales and I are doing pretty well and still alive. :) We are getting along and stuff, so that's really good. :) 

    They changed the interview times (with President Blickenstaff) to tomorrow, so I'll let you know how it went next week. ;) Also, I don't get the chance to meet with President Blickenstaff very often, which is a bummer, but he's really awesome! He replies personally to our emails, but it's usually pretty short. Also, the interview is more how he can help us or if we are having problems in the mission and stuff like that. I feel like it's less of an interview and more him seeing how he can help us. :) I'm doing well and am feeling pretty well adjusted to Taiwan. :) I realized I missed sour stuff yesterday when I ate a lemon. :) It was super good! The food here is really good, though! 

    Fireworks sound like fun! The Daoists here will sometimes light off random fireworks and they're super loud and it's kind of annoying. The new ward is busier than the old ward, so it's usually harder to get them to help us to teach lessons and stuff, which is a bummer. :/ The people here are really nice, and even when they don't want to hear the gospel and stuff, they're usually pretty nice about it for the most part, which is super cool. :) The language is coming along ok, but still slower than I want it to come. As for favorite food, I'm not sure right now. They've got some really good stuff here! I am mostly liking the food here so far. I'll try to think of good foods and send them to you. :) Taiwan has amazing mangoes, though! :D Also, lychees (a type of fruit) are in season and are super good! :D The apartment is fine, and we finally got hot water the other day!!!! XD I had completely given up hope of having a hot or warm shower again these next couple years. I had my first warm shower in about 3 months (since I got to Yuan Lin) about 2 days ago! :D I'll try to send some more pictures, haha. :)

     For the 4th of July, we actually helped a member move. It was awesome and took from lunch until about 7. We put together a desk for them as well. It was pretty awesome! :D It kind of reminded me of back home, especially putting together the desk (even though we didn't have any cool tools to use) ;) It was pretty fun, though! Alright, that was my longer email, but I'll probably send you some more. :)  

--

Elder Fleming

Me in the family history center in the church where we do emails. :) I call it the bat-cave, because it's in the center of the church and there are 2 outer doors that you can lock before you get in here. :)