Elder Fleming - Taichung Taiwan

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Emails 11/14/16

Good week. Not much time.

Monday was pday. Ate at a buffet. It was pretty good. :)

Tuesday we had a couple lessons. Not a whole lot else until Tuesday night when I wasn't feeling well. Then we had a lesson then went home then I found out why I wasn't feeling well. I got food poisoning. So I was throwing up all night. That was fun. Then that morning, it died down, but then Elder Chen got it, so we spent all day in on Wednesday. Thursday, I had to get out of the apartment. Also we had DTM, so we did that. Then did weekly planning. Then this potential investigator took us out to eat, which probably was pretty risky for my stomach... :) It was pretty good and SUPER nice!!! :o There was a coy pond... on the second floor of the building!! :o It was incredible! So that was pretty cool. Also apparently, the building was one of, or was the most expensive building in Jia Yi. :o That was pretty cool. :)

Friday we went to GaoXiong to do the trainer follow up meeting. That was pretty cool. I saw Elder Anderson again, and Elder Grisenti, and others, so that was pretty awesome! :) Saturday was good.

Sunday went well, also. Found some pretty cool potential people last night, so that was nice. :)

That's about it. Love you all!

Elder Fleming

We went out to a secondary area, Fan Lu on Saturday to visit an LA (less active). It was super beautiful!! :D

SUPER NICE RESTARAUNT with our potential investigator. Also us in front of the coy pond. :) Also, the hot pot buffet we went to on Monday. :)

Elder Anderson and I at trainer follow up meeting! He's awesome!! :D

And almost as tall as me! ;)

Hehe, just kidding. :)

I'm waaay taller than him. ;)

Monday, November 7, 2016

Emails 11/7/16

Good week this week. Honestly, it seems like a bit of a blur. Monday was a pretty relaxed day. Today we will probably do all those mundane things we need to do on p-day every once in a while. Also go to a buffet. :D

But last Monday, after Pday we met with a new investigator, Ms. Wu. The lesson went really well and she seemed to enjoy it. She had her son with her and we testified how the Gospel can bless families. It was great to start off the week with a lesson!

Tuesday we didn't have our weekly meeting, because we had a bigger meeting, ztm, on Thursday. So Tuesday was pretty wide open. We had ward correlation meeting in the afternoon, so it was nice to break up the day with that. Then we contacted the rest of the day. A potential investigator didn't show up to his lesson we had scheduled him for, so that was a bummer. So we contacted the rest of the night.

Wednesday went pretty well. We met with Brother Wu on Wednesday. He's pretty good. Hopefully we can help him be ready for baptism by November 26th! We contacted in the afternoon, then at night met with Brother Chen (not my companion, there are a lot of people with that last name here. ;) ), and it went well. Then we had English class that night. That went pretty well, too!

Thursday went really well! Elder Chen's parents were coming to Ali Shan kind of by Jia Yi and happened to come across us before ztm! It was amazing! It was an incredible miracle, because it really wasn't planned at all! We were heading to ztm, and saw them! We stopped for about 10 minutes and they talked and stuff. It was cool to see them and who they were as well as to get a preview of what it would look like when I get back. Now I know what to expect when I first get back. ;)

Then we had ztm. It went well. :) We had meetings all afternoon, then a lesson at night. That was about all for Thursday.

On Friday, we had weekly planning then met with a cool, elderly less active member. He's great. We met at a nearby stadium which was cool and I had never thought of doing before. The weather was perfect and it was calm. We sung hymns with him and he said he'd come to church. Cool. :) We also met another less active family on Friday or Wednesday I think, in the afternoon. Well, we met the wife. She was super cool and we set up to meet with the family tonight! :D

Friday night was contacting.

Saturday we met with a family who had come to English class, but they weren't interested. I noticed they weren't interested when we knocked on their door and the husband answered it while the wife started worshiping their idol in the far end of the room for the first 3 minutes we were there... They just wanted us there to teach their daughter English and stuff. Bummer. So we tried to leave as early as possible.

The rest of the day was alright, and at night we met with Brother Wu again.

Sunday went pretty well. We had confirmed some investigators for church, but they didn't come. :/ That wasn't fun. Oh well. Hopefully this coming Sunday they'll come. We also need to find some new investigators. I feel like we always need to find new investigators. You've never found enough new investigators on the mission.

So that was the week. It went by really fast! The time is going by pretty quick, which is both good and bad....

Email to President:

President Teh,

Another good week in Jia Yi. It's been wonderful working with Elder Chen. He's great! He shared his testimony yesterday for fast Sunday, and I thought of the first Saturday when you were here for zone conference and all the new missionaries had to share their testimonies. He's made incredible and huge improvements. It's been amazing to see and be a part of that! I really hope that he will become a better missionary than I am. I also hope he doesn't make the same mistakes I've made. 12 weeks is such a short time to try to share everything I know and give him all the advice I want to give him.

The district is doing well. We are all trying to continue to work towards finding 7 new investigators a week. Many missionaries here seem to have the faith and the drive to go out and make it happen, but aren't hitting 7. Others are a little daunted by the number. I think it's a possible number to hit, but we haven't hit that goal yet.

I'm doing alright. I'm trying to stay all in to the end. Elder Ward and my trainer, Elder Bak were great examples for me for staying all in and giving their all to the end. I hope I can do that too. I feel like there are a lot of increasing temptations and distractions coming up lately, so I'm trying to stay as immersed in the work as possible.

Elder Fleming

Oh yeah, the Blickenstaffs came to visit Taiwan a little while ago. It was great to see them! :D It's pretty cool I'm back on their blog. :)

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Emails 10/31/16

Halloween came fast! :o I'm excited I'll be there for it next year! :D

Alright, it was a pretty good week here in Jia Yi. The last week of the transfer.

Monday was a pretty boring and relaxing Pday, which was fine. :) We bought stuff, did our cleaning for the apartment for the next transfer (even though it doesn't look like we did it at all anymore, thanks small apartment and 4 missionaries living in it) :) We spent the night contacting.

Tuesday went well, we went out to eat with some members and one of our investigators. We had DTM, and found a place that sells snake meat, so I think I'm going to try that sometime... :D We contacted, had a lesson set up at night, but he never came.

Wednesday was crazy! We studied, but left early for a lesson. We taught Brother Wu, our investigator with a goal for 11/26, who's doing pretty well, then had to go back to the apartment super quick so we could change because we helped a member paint his house! Woohoo!!! :D Service!! I was so excited!

We got to spend some time painting his house on the inside, then he took us to a nice burger place. In some places here, they'll put peanut butter on the burger. The first time I tried it when I first got here, I thought it was kind of gross that they would do that, but when I ate it, it changed my life. It's soooo good!! Try putting peanut butter on your burgers, it's amazing!! :D That's all I'm going to eat when I go home! ;)Anyway, right afterwards, we had two back-to-back lessons, one at 6 and one at 6:30, then English class at 7. :o That was pretty nuts. They went well, though so that was good. :)

Thursday, we met with another investigator and ate lunch with him. We talked about and introduced the Book of Mormon and he was really interested in it! He said he'd read it and we set up to meet again on Saturday to share more. Then we contacted the rest of the day. Oh also a member took us out to eat... at a buffet! That was awesome! :D

Friday we had weekly planning, then contacting, then another member fed us, which is great too, because Elder Chen and I are out of money for the month! :) So that was super lucky that they fed us or we might not have made it. :)

Saturday went well. Lots of contacting in the morning, then met with our investigator from Thursday, Peter, and from Wednesday, Brother Wu. Both lessons went well. The other missionaries happened to be having a baptism at the time, so we met with Peter and then he wanted to attend the baptismal service, so he did that and we met with Brother Wu. So that was pretty cool!

Sunday went well. We had church, which is great! I think I realized that we try to put so much stuff in a week between contacting and teaching lessons and other stuff, that a week seems like forever, because before in a week I wouldn't do a whole lot, but as a missionary, we try to utilize every minute, so in a week, SO much can happen!! It's amazing! So the weeks feel like they go by fast in a sense that we're usually busy doing stuff and don't have time to sit around and stuff or think about it, but at the same time, it feels like a really long time, because of all the stuff that will happen in a week! :) That's my theory, anyway. :)

Oh, also happy Halloween!!!! :D I'm super pumped that it's Pday on one of my favorite holidays so I can celebrate!! :D Woohoo! :)

I love you all and I'm praying for you!

Elder Fleming