Elder Fleming - Taichung Taiwan

Monday, May 25, 2015

5/25/15

Hello everyone! I am glad to hear that you're doing well and that school is pretty much over for you guys! :)

A couple crazy things that happened this week was that I got to baptize someone for my first time! :D It was super cool and pretty scary, because I didn't have the baptismal prayer memorized. :0 It was really cool, and it's cool to be able to say that I baptized someone while I was still in training. :) The other Elders in our district baptized 3 kids this week and they asked me if I'd baptize the 3rd kid. :o

Hmm, we also taught people the gospel, and last P-day, Elder Bak bought a new suit! I think I'll probably do that before I go home. :) It was 9000NTD, which is under $300USD. Not bad for a super sweet suit!! ;) Anyway, I don't have to think about that for a while. ;)

Hmm, also, it rained like crazy this week! It's been pretty much non-stop for the past 4 days or so. :/ I thought the heat was bad... ;) Hopefully it will stop raining and be sunny again. :) I guess that's about it for today. :) I love you all a lot and miss you guys!!

Woo go Cavs! :D Also, I'm glad RSL won! It was weird to see Wingert in a different jersey! :)

Elder Fleming

Monday, May 18, 2015

5/18/15

Hey everyone! It felt weird without skyping you again on Sunday! ;) It was super good to hear from you this past week and I am so glad that you email me!! :D I love hearing from you and Dad to answer your question, the more you write and stuff the better! :D I loved the pictures you sent! I'm glad Powder's doing well and it looks like she's eating well. ;) I'm excited for you for school to be over and that you can enjoy your summer! I started enjoying the summer here with my first mango smoothie. 8) Woa, the mangoes here are good!! They remind me of peaches, and the flavor is enhanced with something else, but I can't quite tell what it is, but it's super good! :) I'm sorry to hear about that loss by RSL! That's a huge bummer! :(

This week was pretty good, but finding new investigators was slow this week... we had 0 new investigators. :/ That was a bummer. But we did get a baptism!! :D Our investigator, J got baptized!!! :D That was pretty cool and a huge highlight of my mission so far. :) My companion got to baptize him; it was super cool! I gained more of a testimony of testimonies as we were finding people this week. :) I realized that when I bore my testimony to others, even a simple, short one, the chances of them listening and their interest goes way up! It was really cool to see, so this week I have been practicing different and simple ways to bear my testimony to others. :)

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now, so here are some pictures!! :D

These are pictures of J at his baptism!!

Elder Fleming

Some members and Elder Bak and I :)

Me outside of a cool Thai food restaurant

Elder Bak last P-day almost bought this outfit!

I met up with Elder Ludwig and Elder Chen at zone conference on Wednesday!

Elder Bak's arm before he waxed it. :) I'll have to get an after picture, it looks way different!

The other one is another Elder falling asleep with a member. Haha. :)

A couple weeks ago we got to hike up to this temple that had a MASSIVE Buddha with some of Elder Bak's RC friends.

Massive Buddha and friends on the hike

Inside the big Buddha

a super cool view!

More pictures from the hike to the big Buddha.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Excerpts from Letter 5/14/15

4/27/15
Dear Fam,
Hey, happy Mother's Day!! :D I hope this doesn't arrive too late, but I wanted to write you all a letter and let you all know that i love you lots and that I've been thinking about you! :) I'm sorry it's been so long since I wrote you all letters.

It's been crazy busy here-even busier than the MTC!! We've been working hard and a lot, which is good. My body seems to be adjusting to the food ok. :) We have a scale in the apartment, and I am about 143 pounds now! I think I've put on 13 pounds since I left. I just hope that it's muscle weight and not fat weight. :)

I think I've been out a little over 100 days now which is really weird, because when I look back, it doesn't seem that long. In the moment, it seemed longer. The time has seemed like it's starting to speed up, which is both good and bad.

So they have garbage trucks here that will come by, but usually people will have to stand outside their houses to give the garbage to the person in the back of the truck. To let people know they're coming, they play this tune that makes them sound like ice cream trucks. :) At first I thought that it was kind of funny, because I kept thinking of ice cream trucks, but it's been a month now, and they just play that same tune over and over and you hear it every day. :O I definitely won't forget that tune ever. :)

Mom, happy Mother's Day!!:D I'm sorry I won't be with you during church, but at least I have a decent excuse :). I am so excited to Skype you in a few days!!

Dad, happy early Father's Day!! :) You are a really good example for me, and I'm glad and grateful for your example for serving a mission. It's really cool when I bear my testimony and tell people that my dad was a convert at 17 and then served a mission two years later. :) Your example then, when you were 19 is now helping me, at 19 about 25 years later. I'll tell younger members or converts that a lot to help inspire them to serve missions. You serving your mission is still helping others out today. :)

I love you all, and you are all such great examples for me. You are always in my prayers!

Monday, May 11, 2015

Email 5/11/15

I am so glad that RSL started doing better! I hope that they can keep it up!

I liked the scripture you sent me! I just read it about a week ago. :) It's a great story! (Alma 8:14-15+)

Yeah, Taiwan has some really good food! I'd love to come back here and take you guys after my mission! :)

I haven't had them (allergies) so far, and hopefully I won't while I'm here! It's been really nice not having allergies! :D

It was so good to see and talk with you yesterday, and pushing the "end call" button was the hardest things I've had to since leaving to the MTC! I'll get to see you again in just a few more short months, though! :D I love you and you're also always in my prayers. :) I can't figure out how to get pictures today, so I'll have to send them to you next week. :/ Love you!!

--
Elder Fleming

Mother's Day Skype 2015

Zack's companion, Elder Bak, is in the background.

Elder Fleming was able to Skype with the family on Saturday at about 5:45 p.m. We talked for about an hour. He was able to tell us many stories about his mission. He is happy, healthy, and doing well. It was amazing to see it in his expressions, mannerisms, and hear it in his voice. If you want to read more about the call, you can on the Fleming Family blog Click here

Monday, May 4, 2015

Da jia hao!

Hello everyone, I love you all so much!! :D I hope you all had a great week! I loved hearing from all of you!! :D

I love email time! :D

I like English class, and it's a really good way to find people and do service. :)

So on Friday, I had my first bike accident. :0 I'll have to tell you more about it next week. :) I braked really hard, flew off my bike and face-planted on the ground! It's a good story and you'll have to remind me to tell it over Skype. :)

I'm super excited that I can Skype you all for Mother's Day! Ok, we are going to be Skyping at 7am on Sunday here, so I think that it would be around 5pm on Saturday there. :) I'm super excited to be able to see and talk with you! :D I miss you lots!

These pictures are of the view from our apartment balcony. :)

Elder Fleming

View from our apartment balcony.

Me and our awesome investigator, J.

Monday, April 27, 2015

This Week in Yuan Lin 4/27/15

Hello everyone!! It sounds like you are all doing well, I am super glad you are!! :D

I am super excited to get my first package in Taiwan! :D I am also super grateful for the pictures you sent this past week! :) It was really cool to see some of my friends from the MTC, even if it was only through pictures! :) I have only seen my MTC companion, Elder Ludwig, when we were doing mission-wide interviews, because they group multiple zones together, but not the entire mission all at once. I kind of hope that I get to see some of them soon! I am kind of relieved that I am not the freshest thing on the island anymore. :) It is kind of hard living with a companion who is about to go home. It's hard because he is at the end of his mission and he wants to get going and do as much as he can now, which is hard, because I'm still new and figuring things out, and he keeps talking about going home soon at the same time, which is also kind of hard, because I'm on the opposite end; I don't go home for another 2 years almost. Other than that though, he's an amazing companion though, and I really hope that I can learn all I need to before he goes home. :)

I am also really excited for Mother's Day and that I will get to talk with you! :D It will be Skype I've been told and they said that we could either do it on May 10th or May 11th I think. I will just be following what Elder Bak is doing. ;)

This was a good week, but one with a couple of character building moments. One of which was when I had to eat shrimp! :0 My companion forced me to eat it, knowing I don't like seafood. Traitor! :) I had to break its shell and its head and tail off, which was difficult, and then I had to eat it. It was actually ok, but I won't tell my companion that! ;) I also had to eat some cooked oysters, which weren't as good as the shrimp. I survived, though. :) I also had stinky tofu, which was better than I thought it was going to be. :) It really smelled, though! :)

This week was my first transfer out in the mission, which was kind of exciting and weird. I don't like change. :) One of the Elders got assigned to go to a different area and we are getting 2 new companion ships in Yuan Lin!! There used to be 3, but we are getting more missionaries here! :D I'm really hoping one of the people coming here are one of the people in training so I won't feel so young anymore. :) I am pretty excited for this transfer, because we are getting more missionaries. :)

I also attended my first baptism on my mission yesterday!! :D ...I should have taken pictures of that. :/ It was really cool and we were able to get some of our investigators there! :D

We had some good character-building moments this week too, like on Saturday we went contacting all day because we didn't have any appointments set up and I wasn't feeling well and we went out to Tian Zhong, which is about an hour bike ride away. I was able to make it and everything and I learned that if I forget myself and try to serve God, He will watch out for me and help me out, too. :) Saturday was a long day, but we were able to get some good contacts and we have a couple more potentials now. :) No one lit themselves on fire this week, so I count it as a success! ;)

I don't really know what else to say right now, but I really love you all! :D I am really glad that you are doing well! I miss you a lot and think and worry about you, but I know that God is watching over you and is there to help you. :)

Elder Fleming