台灣歡迎我

Well everyone, I made it to Taiwan!

It's been a wild ride these last few days, starting with a lot of time in an airplane. I ended up flying from Portland to San Fransisco and then from San Fransisco to Taoyuan, Taiwan. It was around a 14 hour flight but we ended up arriving an hour early so it probably wasn't even 13 hours. Not too bad of a flight. Hehehe. Yeah it was pretty bad! 

Anyways, On to Taiwan! 

Our first real day in Taiwan we all woke up to go visit the Grand Hotel, which is where Taiwan was dedicated for missionary work, which was an awesome way to start the mission. The grand hotel was also very impressive. I think there are pictures of us visiting on the mission blog. https://www.taiwantaipeimission.com

So my new trainer is Elder Bunn. He is from southern Utah near St. George and has been in Taiwan for about a year. My Area is ZhongHe, which is a part of New Taipei City. (sorry this is really choppy, by the way. I have like no time to write). 

Biking in the city is pretty insane. There are tons of scooters and everything is really hectic as we weave through all the cars and stuff. It's pretty fun once you get used to it but the first time I had to ride was at night and on an old Elders bike because we hadn't gotten mine yet, and his bike had basically no brakes so it was a little sketchy. I have my own brand new bike now so it's all good. 

The missionary work in this  mission is so different from Oregon, it's a lot more busy and tiring which is good because it keeps you on your toes. Long story short this place is all hustle and bustle and I love it. 

Oh, and the food is awesome! 

Elder Neilson

Below are some pictures. The first of which are on the top of a mountain hike we did at 4am- ish this morning. We had to wake up at 3:07 to meet with our group on time. My companion like's to go hard on pday it seems. Although the view of the Taipei basin was worth it. Also there were tons of banana spiders  in the webs all along the trail which was kind of crazy. Look those up if you want to see a real spider!

To Taiwan!

Letter from Tustin written early 9.18.2018. After this letter we waited with no word until late Thursday, the 20th, when we received an email from his new mission president informing us of his arrival. Can't wait for his next letter to hear how his first week are going...

Well as my title probably implies, I have received my Visa and am off to Taiwan tomorrow morning. I don't actually know any details about my travel plans except that my flight is scheduled for 9:46 Wednesday morning. It's pretty exciting though!

This last week in the Washington Vancouver Mission has been an awesome one. Tonni got baptized last Saturday and Confirmed the following Sunday! It's so cool to the see the positive influence her baptism has had in her life. One member came up at one point on Sunday and told us he has never seen Tonni smile so much as this weekend, and it's true that she does seem a lot happier. But the most impressive impact has been on her husband John. We have been teaching them for about the same amount of time and all that, and we were hoping John would be ready to accept Baptism at the same time as Tonni but that didn't end up happening because he has various questions and concerns we still need to address. However he reads like crazy and has a really good undertaking of scripture and stuff because he studied as a rabbi for years, so he loves the Book of Mormon and other church literature like various "Teachings of the Prophet ______" books and even Jesus the Christ. He even requested we get him a copy of the Missionary Handbook! So anyways he is an interesting person to teach becuase he talks a ton and is really hard to keep on task. Especially when he drinks, and he has a little bit of a drinking problem. But this last weekend with Tonni's baptism and everything that has been going on, he is getting worked on hard by the Spirit. 

Just yesterday, Elder St. Clair and I were stopping by the church real quick and saw a ton of cars which is unusual for a Monday night. We also saw Tonni and John's car which got us further confused until we realized tonight was the monthly empty nester's dinner that Tonni and John have been going to. So we run in to say hi and get talking to John. First of all, for the last 5 days or so, as far as we can tell, he has been sober and we were hyped to see that track record was holding as of last night. Then John goes on to basically self commit himself to everything we had wanted to get him to do this week during our weekly planning, including committing himself to prepare for baptism. He tried to put him on date, but he wanted to get baptised that day which wouldn't have worked. But hey, at least he is getting committed! He even asked for home teachers to be sent to Tonni and himself, and perhaps best of all has been actively trying to get Tonni (our recent convert) to read the Book of Mormon more often, even reading it to her in the morning to wake her up! He basically bore his testimony to her telling her she needs to get all the way through it and ponder on it to let the truths work into her heart. Then he bore his testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith to us, telling us he would stand up and defend that truth to anyone. It was a crazy experience and I'm 90% sure John is going to be baptized in the next transfer. 

All in all, getting ready to leave to Taiwan is a very bittersweet experince. I hate saying goodbye to all the awesome members and people we are teaching. I do kind of wish I could get some more time but all good things must come to an end. On to the future!

Elder Neilson

Last week?

Hey Everyone,

So I haven't really gotten much info on the Visa but my Zone Leader said I was getting it and, if I do get it for this transfer, I will probably get a notice Wednesday and possibly leave Monday. At least that's how it has worked in the past so...

It's sad to think about leaving. I have really come to love this mission and the people here. We were just at an elderly couple’s home(the Summers) from our ward yesterday and I was reflecting on how sad I will be to leave all these awesome people I have met and come to love. I think that's one of the major purposes of the mission, to teach missionaries that everyone everywhere is a child of God and are just as awesome as the people you know back home. I am also so glad I knew before hand I was going to be reassigned out of the MTC, because it allowed me to come out to this mission with no reservations or bitterness because I wasn't going straight to Taiwan. I got to come out with an open heart which was a true blessing. 

In other news, Elder St. Clair and I have someone getting baptized this Saturday! Her name is Tonni and missionaries have been working with her since before I got here. So I didn't do a ton of the teaching but It's still super cool to be part of a baptism before leaving the mission (fingers crossed!)

Hope you all have an awesome Week!

Elder Neilson

Don't have many pictures from the week but I do have this one of me holding a snake we caught at a service project. There is one elder in our district who is really into snakes and so he was sure to catch one just a few minutes into the service! (And  a video of me filling my water bottle from a spring.)

Oregon Has Nice Water Falls

Hello World,

I kind of left this letter to the last minute and now only have 20 minutes to write it. Our emailing time limit recently got changed to a shorter amount of time and I'm still trying to get used to it. Prepare yourself for spelling and Grammer errors!

The best experience from the week was Sunday night when we got this really long and really urgent text from the Lai-ei Temple visitors center about a referral they sent us. A guy named Jake had requested a Bible and he needed it that night because it was his only day off this week. Elder St. Clair and I had no copies of the Bible so we called up the district leader and he had a few. So we met him and his companion at a Walmart to get a few bibles, and then ran over at 7pm-ish to go talk to Jake.

So were talking to Jake and it is immediately apparent why the visitors center sisters were so excited and urgent about this guy. Jake is Golden! Long story short, about a week ago he prays and asks God to show him some sort of sign or something. Then as he is doing his mail routs (he is a mail man), Jake sees some missionaries. he sees missionaries all the time so he just gives a head nod. but then he runs into them again and is prompted to ask for a pamphlet. Ever since then he has been more or less obsessed with learning about the Church and trying to find the truth about the Gospel. Jake is serious searching for the truth! at one point we are kind of ending our visit and out of know where Jake asks if we will share our testimonies. We were a little taken aback and both shared our testimonies of the Gospel, the Book of Mormon and the Atonment of Jesus Christ. When we actually did end our meeting, and exchanged phone numbers, Jake says something along the lines of, "Now I am not going to be one of those people who ignores your texts or calls because I am honestly seeking for the truth. I need to know."

As Elder St. Clair and I walked back to our car we were just over come with how awesome this contacting experience was, and we got back to the car and just offered a prayer of graditude for such a great opportunity to teach.

We also had one of our other persons being taught basically commit to read the Book of Mormon all on their own this week so Elder St. Clair and I are pretty optomistic about this week!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Neilson

Pictures of Multnomah falls which we visited this morning: