There is nothing better then having perfect weather and being in a church building that is literally located on a bay. We see all kinds of boats coming in an out. HUGE ONES, (tour boats, car-transporting boats, cargo boats)... absolutely massive!!! It’s so cool!
This past week was VERY effective! Our district is awesome, we get our district goals every week, and because of it, we've got a lot of investigators brewin' in the baptismal pool. :)
We have three at the moment... one is the half crazy man, we're not sure what to do about him at the moment, sanity wise. He probably at least needs baptism in order to be saved, ha-ha, but it takes a lot of patience teaching him. Two times ago he got kind of frustrated because he knows the Restoration is important, and he believes in the Book of Mormon, but he doesn't understand why he has to come to Our church on Sundays rather than another church. Poor man, he is always happy though, so we can learn a lot from him. Now for the other two. One is a referral from a member, and he is really good, he wants to come to church really bad but he has work on Sunday. However, last time after teaching him to "pray with faith" he said he would make it to church on Sunday and only God knows how. Ha-ha, the other investigator set a goal for the same date. 12/5. He is searching for his answer, both are mid 20's and future priesthood holders!!! We've found A LOAD of people, and now we're picking out the weeds I guess you could say.
There are a couple members of the RLDS church here in Keelung; the sisters said it was weird! They had an investigator who is a member of that church and they read the Book of Mormon in Chinese and everything.
We have been visiting inactives in hopes to reactivate them. One is a family with a deaf father, so we are trying to learn some Chinese sign language so we can teach him!!!
Last week my son III, experienced his first spill...hahahaha. It was so funny and unexpected. We were riding down an alley, VERY slow, and then all of a sudden, I stop and I look behind me in time to watch my companion go through a 4-second falling process that took him to the ground over his bike. His initial reaction was priceless, (laying on the ground looking up and saying, "I have know idea what just happened,” ha-ha. Splitting a rib due to laughter, I went to help him off the ground.
A member expressed his love for the Book of Mormon to us the other day. He said it in English, “The Book of Mormon in my gas station and my pillow. I love to have it with me.” Ha-ha, good man!
I got a letter from Susan, Jeff, and William...they are all very active!
At tonight’s English class we will hold a Halloween activity. However, due to lack of pumpkins in Taiwan, we will use WATERMELONS to cut jack-o-lanterns. Ha, you do what you can, I guess.
Missionary work is a blast! I could do it forever. Elder Leavitt and I were talking about it...if we could have a wife and kids with us we could do it for the rest of our lives. Then we started thinking, why doesn't the church allow that? Oh yeah, men need occupations. (You forget about that stuff while you are serving a mission.)
My companion’s hair is very special. He got a flat top a couple weeks ago, and it’s been slowly shaping into the coolest looking hairdo of all time. Even 64-year -old men comment on it, hahahaha. I told him, “Son, next time let me cut your hair.” Yeah, so I like to tease him a little.
Well I gotta GO. LOVE YOU!!!! Elder Daniels
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
A Missionary Meets Many Kinds of People!
Life is "g"e"w"d" “GEEEWWWWWD!” (Good!)
Keelung City is awesome. Ever since I spent all that time complaining in my last email about the weather, it’s been beautiful! Nothing but blue skies and fresh Taiwan air, and at a perfect temperature, about 78 degrees! And now for the best news...I get to go to the Temple today! I've been Temple trunky for quite sometime now, ever since moving away from Tucheng. I’m pumped!
Update on the area:
We have a lot of potentials at the moment, but everyone is so busy except for the one man who is in our baptismal pool that we aren't completely sure whether or not he is sane. Seems there are a lot like that in Taiwan.
Story: The other Elders invited a lady to church (she's not sane). She comes to the church everyday now and we are too sorry to tell her to leave so we let her sit in the church for a couple hours and watch videos. Ha-ha. Taking the bus on the way to Stake Conference in Taipei, she said something classic, “Look, I got this card from the government that makes stuff really cheap. I only had to pay 24 kuai but you had to pay 45." We didn't dare explain to her why. (There are a lot of not completely sane people in Taiwan that follow the missionaries. I would say there is one in each area).
Moving on, more about the area. We are finding through the ward members and also a lot through our own efforts. We're spending a lot of time strengthening the new and less active members. That’s been VERY successful. :)
The one man in our pool still is under the impression that all Christianity is the same, and yadda, yadda, yadda. We've explained to him so many times but it finally helped him understand as we outlined the Plan of Salvation for him. We’re going to share commandments now that should get him! In his mind this is what matters...
Jesus + free food = good. (His perception)
Jesus + faith, repentance, baptism, endure to end = truth (God's perception)
(His perception again) "Huh?? Baptism, then you’re saved, it’s all good." (Elder Daniels slaps his own forehead.)
Ha-ha, I love being a missionary. Teaching 2000 lessons in two years, you meet a lot of special people. So yeah, now for more stories:
The other day we took the elevator to our chapel on the fifth floor and as we exited through the door, I saw a homeless looking man crunched up in a ball (squatting) next to the coat rack where we hang our rain gear. I asked him, “Can I help you?" He said, "No, I'm leaving now." I asked, "What did you come here for?" and he replied "Stealing rain gear." I said, "Oh," and as he started walking toward the elevator where there was a 20ish year-old girl there holding the door, waiting for him. I saw at the spot where he had been squatting and there was a pile of human feces. I was shocked! I said to the man, “HEY, YOU FORGOT YOUR POOP!" He walked over, grabbed it up in his hand, and went down the elevator! The girl looked extremely confused, hahahahahahahahahaha. Oh man, it stunk so bad!!! We were stunned with what had just happened, so after I came to my senses, we went down the elevator and found the guard and the man. The guard told the man to go back upstairs and clean it up. It’s a week later and it still stinks a little.
Okay, next bit if info...
The Elders and Sisters in the area are “tearing it up,” meaning, doing a really good job. One of the Elders’ investigators is scheduled to be baptized on the 31st, but he needs to marry his live-in girlfriend before hand, so they are getting married tomorrow… and he doesn't know it yet! Ha-ha, pray for him AND HER.
Time’s up!
Keelung City is awesome. Ever since I spent all that time complaining in my last email about the weather, it’s been beautiful! Nothing but blue skies and fresh Taiwan air, and at a perfect temperature, about 78 degrees! And now for the best news...I get to go to the Temple today! I've been Temple trunky for quite sometime now, ever since moving away from Tucheng. I’m pumped!
Update on the area:
We have a lot of potentials at the moment, but everyone is so busy except for the one man who is in our baptismal pool that we aren't completely sure whether or not he is sane. Seems there are a lot like that in Taiwan.
Story: The other Elders invited a lady to church (she's not sane). She comes to the church everyday now and we are too sorry to tell her to leave so we let her sit in the church for a couple hours and watch videos. Ha-ha. Taking the bus on the way to Stake Conference in Taipei, she said something classic, “Look, I got this card from the government that makes stuff really cheap. I only had to pay 24 kuai but you had to pay 45." We didn't dare explain to her why. (There are a lot of not completely sane people in Taiwan that follow the missionaries. I would say there is one in each area).
Moving on, more about the area. We are finding through the ward members and also a lot through our own efforts. We're spending a lot of time strengthening the new and less active members. That’s been VERY successful. :)
The one man in our pool still is under the impression that all Christianity is the same, and yadda, yadda, yadda. We've explained to him so many times but it finally helped him understand as we outlined the Plan of Salvation for him. We’re going to share commandments now that should get him! In his mind this is what matters...
Jesus + free food = good. (His perception)
Jesus + faith, repentance, baptism, endure to end = truth (God's perception)
(His perception again) "Huh?? Baptism, then you’re saved, it’s all good." (Elder Daniels slaps his own forehead.)
Ha-ha, I love being a missionary. Teaching 2000 lessons in two years, you meet a lot of special people. So yeah, now for more stories:
The other day we took the elevator to our chapel on the fifth floor and as we exited through the door, I saw a homeless looking man crunched up in a ball (squatting) next to the coat rack where we hang our rain gear. I asked him, “Can I help you?" He said, "No, I'm leaving now." I asked, "What did you come here for?" and he replied "Stealing rain gear." I said, "Oh," and as he started walking toward the elevator where there was a 20ish year-old girl there holding the door, waiting for him. I saw at the spot where he had been squatting and there was a pile of human feces. I was shocked! I said to the man, “HEY, YOU FORGOT YOUR POOP!" He walked over, grabbed it up in his hand, and went down the elevator! The girl looked extremely confused, hahahahahahahahahaha. Oh man, it stunk so bad!!! We were stunned with what had just happened, so after I came to my senses, we went down the elevator and found the guard and the man. The guard told the man to go back upstairs and clean it up. It’s a week later and it still stinks a little.
Okay, next bit if info...
The Elders and Sisters in the area are “tearing it up,” meaning, doing a really good job. One of the Elders’ investigators is scheduled to be baptized on the 31st, but he needs to marry his live-in girlfriend before hand, so they are getting married tomorrow… and he doesn't know it yet! Ha-ha, pray for him AND HER.
Time’s up!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
We got to watch General Conference!
Meetings, meetings, meetings, and more meetings, ha-ha, it’s awesome! Conference was nuts, Elder Holland is out of this world! Doesn't it make one curious to know why he gets so hyped up over that “one book” he was talking about? We also had zone conference which is a lot different then the ones from Hualien, ha-ha. They had me translate, oh man, and it was a blast! Rather difficult at some parts however. For example, when they start going off about the Lord’s vineyard and all the things He does to prune it, dung it, etc... Ha-ha, I love attending zone conference because it’s so spiritual! The topic was PMG (Preach My Gospel) chapter two, about studies. Sitting in that meeting for 5 hours made me so trunky to go and read my scriptures. Ha-ha. We've been spending a lot of time with member work, and finding through the members. We have Elder Perry’s vision from general conference, to help the members know how to teach discussions 1, 2, and 3, side by side with missionaries. It’s been rather affective. We usually do most of our teaching through method of pei ke. When the members attend our lessons, they learn how to teach, and after the lessons we spend time evaluating and preparing them to give us references to their friends. We ask straight forward questions…”Hey Brother Wang, have your neighbors joined the church yet? Okay we want to visit them, etc...” We’ve been seeing a lot of success!
We have 2 people in the baptismal pool for this transfer that are solid, one is the man from last week that I mentioned, however he is in mainland China on business at the moment, and the other one is man that we find on the street. He is...special. He has half a set of teeth, a bald head, crossed eyes and bad breath, but he is SO nice!!! He is a little slow. We had a member come to our lesson with him last night to help us figure out whether he is crazy or not. Apparently he seems okay, he is just really slow. We have taught him the Restoration about 25 times in two meetings ha-ha. He's the type of guy where you tell him that truth is back on the earth 50 times, and he says, "Every church is the same, they all teach the same thing. Do good and that’s enough, it doesn’t matter which one you join, all believe in Christ, I was baptized in once." “Really? So do you pray?" "No I've never prayed, I just went to a church once and they asked me if I wanted to be baptized or not and I responded, sure why not, but I’m willing to be baptized again if I have time."
Elder Daniels slaps forehead after explain for the 40th time, ha-ha. However in the end of last lesson he committed to say his own personal prayer. It was great!!!
I and Elder Leavitt have been seeing some TENDER MERCIES on the street!! Setting up families and what not, we'll be visiting them soon. One has a cute five month old MEI MEI!!
I really love Elder Leavitt, really! He is so COOL! He is so mature for a greenie, he knows how to study and he's already full of legitimate virtue traits such as temperance, humility, charity. He is awesome.
Keelung is really growing on me. Today is the first day it hasn't rained since I’ve been here, it’s amazing. Other than today, it’s been AT LEAST sprinkling ever hour of every day...for 3 weeks almost!!! Ha-ha. My rain gear smelled like barf until yesterday. Today we cleaned and mopped our apartment, we made an AWESOME breakfast. I love that feeling of freshness, cleanliness, remission of sins, and you receive the Spirit!
Obedience brings a soft heart, which invites the spirit which we receive through our covenants we make every Sunday! I love my mission, the best two years ever.
I part my hair on the right now. I don’t have any tan, my muscles are gone from the waist up, I didn't even break 100 bowling last week…ultimate travesty!! I lost face. I’m just kidding. I am going to by a rice cooker for college.
My companion is hilarious. He took Elder Nelson’s invite to the test one night. He doesn't recall doing it, but he recorded thoughts and deep inspiration that came to him in his dreams. These were some of the notes he made:
"Depart out of darkness"
"Everyone needs a five minute break"
"Modesty = happiness"
"Pure building faith what is it?"
"hame gandi"
"Work ederlder work,” and my favorite is,
"Paul gave bread to the woman and sunshine." Hahahahahahahahahaha. I split a rib as I read that stuff.
Well family, I love you to death, Elder Jonathan Scashby Daniels
We have 2 people in the baptismal pool for this transfer that are solid, one is the man from last week that I mentioned, however he is in mainland China on business at the moment, and the other one is man that we find on the street. He is...special. He has half a set of teeth, a bald head, crossed eyes and bad breath, but he is SO nice!!! He is a little slow. We had a member come to our lesson with him last night to help us figure out whether he is crazy or not. Apparently he seems okay, he is just really slow. We have taught him the Restoration about 25 times in two meetings ha-ha. He's the type of guy where you tell him that truth is back on the earth 50 times, and he says, "Every church is the same, they all teach the same thing. Do good and that’s enough, it doesn’t matter which one you join, all believe in Christ, I was baptized in once." “Really? So do you pray?" "No I've never prayed, I just went to a church once and they asked me if I wanted to be baptized or not and I responded, sure why not, but I’m willing to be baptized again if I have time."
Elder Daniels slaps forehead after explain for the 40th time, ha-ha. However in the end of last lesson he committed to say his own personal prayer. It was great!!!
I and Elder Leavitt have been seeing some TENDER MERCIES on the street!! Setting up families and what not, we'll be visiting them soon. One has a cute five month old MEI MEI!!
I really love Elder Leavitt, really! He is so COOL! He is so mature for a greenie, he knows how to study and he's already full of legitimate virtue traits such as temperance, humility, charity. He is awesome.
Keelung is really growing on me. Today is the first day it hasn't rained since I’ve been here, it’s amazing. Other than today, it’s been AT LEAST sprinkling ever hour of every day...for 3 weeks almost!!! Ha-ha. My rain gear smelled like barf until yesterday. Today we cleaned and mopped our apartment, we made an AWESOME breakfast. I love that feeling of freshness, cleanliness, remission of sins, and you receive the Spirit!
Obedience brings a soft heart, which invites the spirit which we receive through our covenants we make every Sunday! I love my mission, the best two years ever.
I part my hair on the right now. I don’t have any tan, my muscles are gone from the waist up, I didn't even break 100 bowling last week…ultimate travesty!! I lost face. I’m just kidding. I am going to by a rice cooker for college.
My companion is hilarious. He took Elder Nelson’s invite to the test one night. He doesn't recall doing it, but he recorded thoughts and deep inspiration that came to him in his dreams. These were some of the notes he made:
"Depart out of darkness"
"Everyone needs a five minute break"
"Modesty = happiness"
"Pure building faith what is it?"
"hame gandi"
"Work ederlder work,” and my favorite is,
"Paul gave bread to the woman and sunshine." Hahahahahahahahahaha. I split a rib as I read that stuff.
Well family, I love you to death, Elder Jonathan Scashby Daniels
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Biking up hill
Keelung is awesome. We don't get lost anymore, but that just about wraps up last week’s experiences. Ha-ha, Keelung is famous for its hills and its winding roads and especially its rain!!! The map is only helpful when you can look at it in a dry environment, but then again it gets really confusing because of all the different winding roads! Ha-ha. Our house is located in a community on a hill, and our building is on the highest hill in that community, where we live on the thirteenth floor. Coming home at nights is always an adventure! It takes 10 minutes to get to the church from our house, but 25 minutes to our house from the church. I love it!!! Ha-ha, my bike begs to differ. Good old Kathi, (he named his bike after Aunt Kathi because she gave him money before his mission.) she is on her last threads, life is almost stripped from her, but she'll make it. Originally, my bike had 24 gears, now that she's so old. only gears 10-17 are accessible. Ha-ha, that’s why going up and down all them hills makes for such an adventure.
Our church is located right in the middle of the city, right along the edge of the bay/port, where there are a couple MASSIVE tour boats always docked. It’s on the 5th and 6th floor of a building right above a hospital. I think our ward at home could adopt this idea.
We have found a lot of investigators...we've been setting them with baptismal dates on the street! Most people reject, but we've found 2 already that have accepted. One on the street and the other afterwards. When we ran into him and invited him on the street he said he needed a little bit more time to think about it. Then he set a date on Monday! Surprisingly, all of our investigators are Christian. Usually they are harder to teach than Buddhists. Regardless, there are currently four in our pool and 2 set for this transfer!!! One is named Brother Wang...we might just quit meeting with him because he doesn't seem like he is going to progress. He's met with missionaries on and off for seven years!!!! He has a light of false concepts and doctrine instilled in his brain. Basically, he meets with us to try and prove our church wrong, and it makes him angry that it never works...so we always tell him to humble himself before God and simply ask which church to join. However he's not willing to pray, so were “killing” him. The next is Brother Yu....he is our miracle!!!! He is married, but when we met with him, only he came. We found him on the street, (because I'm used to Hualien and never seeing anyone on the streets) one day we were flying down a hill and I saw a man getting on his motorcycle, so I slammed my brakes on. We talked for 15 minutes, invited to be baptized, he said he needed time and he was willing to reset up. The next time we met with him he was hooked, even though he is "new life church" he knows the need for a Restoration, so we asked him if he had desire to know if it was true and he responded, “How do I read the Book of Mormon so I can know that its true?” (AWESOME QUESTION) 3 Nephi 13:7.... BAM!!!!!! He set a date for 11/7 and committed to all the other commitments. This is may just be the guy we came for! We’ll meet with him on Friday!
We've also been visiting A LOT of inactives!!!! There are a billion! We've been focusing on a Zhang family. The dad is AWESOME!!! And so are the kids, they love us! They want us to come back all the time and they even committed to come to church this week because they want to eat the fruit that grows on the tree of life!!!!! Ha-ha
Last week was the autumn moon festival. We were on exchanges and we went to two consecutive BBQ’s, eating a total of 4 steaks, 2 squid, 2 fish, 7 moon pies, and more!!! Best day of my life and yes, squid is delicious!!
In my English class we've got a student who will be baptized fairly soon! I named him.... J-money. Ha-ha, he is awesome!
I love my companion; he is so similar to Elder Larson its ridiculous!!! He is VERY advanced for a greenie. Chinese, testimony, everything is way LEHI…amazing. He is very funny, patient, calm, everything. He knows how to study. I've learned a lot from him. He speaks fluent French and some Spanish. !
He’s very impressed with how many scooters there are and all the simple things. It’s helping me to enjoy my experience here in Taiwan to the fullest!
Being district leader is different. I get to teach district meeting for 1 1/2 hours each week. It’s a good experience and I've been learning a lot from it. The zone leaders mentioned something to me. They said that the last district meeting I taught was perfectly in line with what they learned at Jedi council for this transfer. Ha-ha, it was really cool. I guess the Lord even inspired me to share the same references and everything while teaching the same principles that were taught at a meeting I didn't even go to, ha-ha.
A lot of missionaries are still really timid about inviting people to be baptized while out on the street. It’s kind of a new focus in the mission but after some of the blessing the Lord has allowed us to see ever since me and Elder Leavitt moved to Keelung, the excitement and Spirit towards this invite have increased and the whole Keelung district is now focusing on the invite for baptism! Prayers have changed. Prayers of faith are being said, pretty soon the whole mission will figure out the kinks and learn how to invite boldly!!!!!
ANYWAY! Life is terrific! My shoes are dry finally, they've been wet for a week. Now we're going bowling. LOVE YOU, ELDER DANIELS!!!
Our church is located right in the middle of the city, right along the edge of the bay/port, where there are a couple MASSIVE tour boats always docked. It’s on the 5th and 6th floor of a building right above a hospital. I think our ward at home could adopt this idea.
We have found a lot of investigators...we've been setting them with baptismal dates on the street! Most people reject, but we've found 2 already that have accepted. One on the street and the other afterwards. When we ran into him and invited him on the street he said he needed a little bit more time to think about it. Then he set a date on Monday! Surprisingly, all of our investigators are Christian. Usually they are harder to teach than Buddhists. Regardless, there are currently four in our pool and 2 set for this transfer!!! One is named Brother Wang...we might just quit meeting with him because he doesn't seem like he is going to progress. He's met with missionaries on and off for seven years!!!! He has a light of false concepts and doctrine instilled in his brain. Basically, he meets with us to try and prove our church wrong, and it makes him angry that it never works...so we always tell him to humble himself before God and simply ask which church to join. However he's not willing to pray, so were “killing” him. The next is Brother Yu....he is our miracle!!!! He is married, but when we met with him, only he came. We found him on the street, (because I'm used to Hualien and never seeing anyone on the streets) one day we were flying down a hill and I saw a man getting on his motorcycle, so I slammed my brakes on. We talked for 15 minutes, invited to be baptized, he said he needed time and he was willing to reset up. The next time we met with him he was hooked, even though he is "new life church" he knows the need for a Restoration, so we asked him if he had desire to know if it was true and he responded, “How do I read the Book of Mormon so I can know that its true?” (AWESOME QUESTION) 3 Nephi 13:7.... BAM!!!!!! He set a date for 11/7 and committed to all the other commitments. This is may just be the guy we came for! We’ll meet with him on Friday!
We've also been visiting A LOT of inactives!!!! There are a billion! We've been focusing on a Zhang family. The dad is AWESOME!!! And so are the kids, they love us! They want us to come back all the time and they even committed to come to church this week because they want to eat the fruit that grows on the tree of life!!!!! Ha-ha
Last week was the autumn moon festival. We were on exchanges and we went to two consecutive BBQ’s, eating a total of 4 steaks, 2 squid, 2 fish, 7 moon pies, and more!!! Best day of my life and yes, squid is delicious!!
In my English class we've got a student who will be baptized fairly soon! I named him.... J-money. Ha-ha, he is awesome!
I love my companion; he is so similar to Elder Larson its ridiculous!!! He is VERY advanced for a greenie. Chinese, testimony, everything is way LEHI…amazing. He is very funny, patient, calm, everything. He knows how to study. I've learned a lot from him. He speaks fluent French and some Spanish. !
He’s very impressed with how many scooters there are and all the simple things. It’s helping me to enjoy my experience here in Taiwan to the fullest!
Being district leader is different. I get to teach district meeting for 1 1/2 hours each week. It’s a good experience and I've been learning a lot from it. The zone leaders mentioned something to me. They said that the last district meeting I taught was perfectly in line with what they learned at Jedi council for this transfer. Ha-ha, it was really cool. I guess the Lord even inspired me to share the same references and everything while teaching the same principles that were taught at a meeting I didn't even go to, ha-ha.
A lot of missionaries are still really timid about inviting people to be baptized while out on the street. It’s kind of a new focus in the mission but after some of the blessing the Lord has allowed us to see ever since me and Elder Leavitt moved to Keelung, the excitement and Spirit towards this invite have increased and the whole Keelung district is now focusing on the invite for baptism! Prayers have changed. Prayers of faith are being said, pretty soon the whole mission will figure out the kinks and learn how to invite boldly!!!!!
ANYWAY! Life is terrific! My shoes are dry finally, they've been wet for a week. Now we're going bowling. LOVE YOU, ELDER DANIELS!!!
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