Over 5000 Miles!

"Yellow Duck"-themed English class party

 Hello friends and family!

Today marks the first day of my 4th to last (number 12) 6-week transfer cycle. after 4 weeks together Elder Z is moving down south to GaoXiong. He and my new companion are basically just switching areas. My new companion is Elder S. He is  on his 4th transfer. I've only been with him for about 2 hours, but he is super awesome and I'm looking forward to serving with him.  I am also still the District Leader! Aside from the first 2 weeks of this transfer while still in TaiNan, I have been the DL for 4 movecalls straight. It's cool and I'm happy to serve! I learn a lot and get to be more "involved" in the life of the mission.

It's pretty good timing to get a new companion because Elder Z and I completely cleaned and bleached the apartment! It looks and smells pretty nice now. 

I have great news! A. got baptized on the 12th! He was the one from TaiNan that met with missionaries in TaiZhong for a bit before moving down to TaiNan. He started out being taught by Elder R (who is now my current Zone Leader) before starting college in my last area. He hit his baptismal goal and now is on the path to exhalation! Yay!

In other news, I was able to fix our water heater in the apartment. We now have hot water and insane water pressure. 

More exciting news! We have 2 new baptismal goals!

I have now officially ridden over 5000 miles on my bicycle. My goal is to ride 6888 miles on my mission. Why? That is the distance between Springville, Utah and TaiZhong, Taiwan. I only have about 1860 miles left and just under 6 months to do it. Easy. It's gonna happen. Only about 11 miles per day.

Well, I think that's about it for this week. New year, new transfer, new companion, new goals, and new investigators, among other new things. I guess it's a new time for me. I'm a missionary, so I guess new is good - it will help me become a new me. This Gospel is true! Don't forget it!

I love you all!     Shake my Vanilla!

Elder Wolf

 

Happy 2014!

Riding to "Secondary Area"

From Jan 5 email:

My companion and I decided to start a weekly movie night on Sundays for Recent Converts, Less-Active members and investigators. Last night was the first one and we (all the missionaries) had 2 LAs and 3 investigators! Not bad for starting to get the word out on Friday afternoon! It's a good start! 

We've had a lot of really powerful, spiritual lessons lately; this week we got 3 new investigators and went with one of our other investigators to buy church clothes and get a haircut. He's looking pretty good to be baptized. He's already passed the interview and everything!

On Friday we went to our secondary area for a lesson. It's pretty much an unpopulated mountain with big spiders, betel nut trees and bumpy roads and hills (we got to 30 mph from a dead stop going down a hill without pedaling) 

From Jan 12 email:

Well, this week was pretty darn fast! This is the last week of my 11th transfer!

We went to TaiZhong on Monday for Pday and went to the big mall and the mission home for a couple hours. It was about an hour bus ride there and a 35 minute taxi-bus thing back (they took the highway instead of the normal roads with bus stops).

On Tuesday we had Zone Training Meeting in a different area (YuanLin) so we took another bus (about 70 minutes) and had to wait until 5:10pm for the bus back. It was a good ZTM, but it took SO MUCH time out of our day, so it wasn't too effective for proselyting or lessons. 

We got 3 member referrals on Wednesday and also met with each of them too! So Wednesday made up for Tuesday I guess! :) At English class I taught about culinary arts and cooking terminology and one of the students gave me an herb to try to use in food. it's called 刺蔥 (it means 'Thorn Onion). I've never heard of it and the flavor is super weak. I'll figure something out!

We have a few great investigators that are pretty promising. One is named J. and the only reason he won't come to church or be baptized is because he wants his wife to join him, but she doesn't want to. Last time we met with both of them, she agreed to meet with us and the Sisters next time. next time is tonight! We'll see how it goes!

I've been really slow at writing stuff today and nothing much happened besides what I've already said so...yeah. I guess that's it! 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Wolf

Shake my vanilla!

sand sculpture

giant banana spider

blood rice

"Buddha Fruit"

View from apartment

courtyard of apartment building

missionary humor...