We had a cool experience on Wednesday this week. We were sitting in a 7-11 (because they are everywhere), making calls to our investigators and an 18 year old walked up to us and just started talking. She told us about how she has been a foreign exchange student in Italy for the last year and had a Mormon friend there. She said that she went to church once with them and felt something that she had never felt before. She spoke perfect English, so it was really the first time I've testified and shared about the church in English! We told her we could meet up with and teach her more about our church. It was soo cool. She ended up living in a different area so we won't teach her. But it came at a time this week where I was feeling really down. We hadn't had too much success this week and this language is so hard. I know God gave this to boost my confidence, and it definitely did. She was such a cool girl, and I hope she can learn more about the church.
Teaching definitely slowed down this week but we have two investigators with baptismal dates right now that should be getting baptized this transfer so we are pumped about that and then a couple we are trying to set baptismal goals with this week. Right now we have like 6 progressing investigators; a couple are a little strange haha but some really cool people too. Teaching is hard cause I don't speak well but I try to testify and it feels soo good to do that. It's awesome. Lessons have been some of my favorite things here so far.
Like I said, this week I came to the reality of how hard Chinese really is. Haha it's definitely getting better but the mixture of tones, sentence structure, and how fast these people talk is crazy! But it's all part of the experience and I love it!
We have a program for learning the language that is split into three phases. Right now I'm on phase 1. There are like 1,000 flash cards all about the gospel and I have to pass off each of the 5 lessons to the zone leader. Phase 2 is all day to day words and there are like 1,500, and then phase 3 is all characters. After the phases I should be able to read the Book of Mormon in characters and most everything. It's a pretty cool program. It takes between 3-5 months.
Elder Neuhaus is soo cool and is good at keeping my spirits high with the language. Every other missionary says he is one of the hardest working and has some of the best Chinese in the whole mission. He helps me to have some good study habits. Missionaries say it's easy to have bad Chinese if you don't have good study habits, so I'm trying to have real good study habits!
Our ward has 300 members. 60 active. 240 less actives it is pretty crazy!! So on a normal Sunday we have between 50 and 60 people. Most other wards have a set of sisters but we're the only missionaries in our ward.
The people here are soo nice and absolutely crazy haha most old ladies walk down the street hitting themselves for exercise or ride scooters with like 50 bags full of trash on them, and old men do tai kwan doe in the park. It is sooo funny to just ride down the street and look at everybody.
I really feel like I'm starting to get adjusted to Taiwan but still can't speak haha. This week for Thanksgiving we are going to an American couple's house for dinner so I'm pretty pumped about that!! Hope everyone has a good week, thanks for all the love and support! Congrats to my bro and friends on the Bingham football team for winning state! And happy birthday this week to my sister Ashton and her husband Bubba! I love you all!!! And I heard Charlie did a great job with his farewell talk!!
Love,
Elder Henderson
No comments:
Post a Comment