So last P-day we moved into into the Zone Leaders apartment but the very next morning I went to Zhudong again for another exchange. It was a fun time. I exchanged with Elder Duncan this time who is right out of training but he is already a really great missionary and it was a lot of fun to serve with him. We taught some lessons and we had this funny one where we spent the whole time teaching why baptism is important and essentially drawing the covenant path with the gate of baptism on a white board, probably explaining the purpose of baptism the best I have ever explained it, Then right after we asked him, "so do you understand the importance of baptism" he said "no" and both of us were really confused and didn't really know what to do. Later we realized the person didn't know what baptism was (like how we do it or anything) so I thought back to the District 3 videos where one sister missionary thinks of showing the video of the baptism of Christ and because of technology is able to do it on the fly. So I thought, well if it worked for her it can work for us and pulled up the video. The awkward thing is that neither of us had ever watched that video and so it took a quick second to find and then little did we know, but the video shows 5 or so other people getting baptized before Jesus! It was super awkward because we kept saying stuff like, "okay that's not Jesus but he is coming up." I understand one or even maybe 2 examples before hand to show that Jesus was baptized like other people was and that John baptized lots of people but seriously- let's cut to the chase! It all worked out though. He said he understands baptism more now.
The day after that we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders again, which is a lot easier now that we live in the same apartment. But it made for a lot of time without my companion which makes a week feel really bizzare.
The next day there was a massive thunder storm all night and into the morning. It was a pretty legit thunderstorm. Elder Raymond is convinced he saw a bolt of lightning land between the apartment buildings in our complex. I'm not sure that's true but there was a big flash and then immediate crazy thunder. So... Maybe. But, miracles, it stopped raining right when we finished studies and went out for the day! Pretty sweet.
This whole week Elder Ransbottom has had an increasingly worsening ingrown toenail and so on Saturday we finally decided we should get it checked out. So we headed to the nearest hospital to see if a doctor was in. Taiwan has socialized Healthcare which is a positive and a negative. Positive, once you live here for 6 months you get taken into the national Healthcare system and you get a Taiwan insurance health card that makes medical care way cheep. The bad thing is its pretty slow. We walked into the hospital and it felt like a DMV. We took a number and waited to be called up to a registration desk. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long to get called up to a desk but unfortunately no dermotoligists work on weekends so we had to set an appointment for Monday. We desicided to check one other hospital too incase it was just the one hospital but no, seems like no dermotoligists work on weekends. Oh well.
So that's what we did pday morning untill about 12:30: waiting for Elder Ransbottom appointment number to be called. He was the last number, number 39, so it took a while. No worries! We got him all checked up. The doctor wanted to take some tests to see if it's an infection or actually an ingrown toenail. They gave him some pain medication and antibiotics and we will come back in a week!
We had one lesson this week where a friend was basically just being really passive with the commitments we were giving him saying he is just trying to know if the Gospel will really help him before going all out. And we just sat down and had to tell it to him straight that the only way to know if the Gospel is true is to really try to live it and use that as an experiment (see John 7:17 and Alma 32). Only through our experiences can we come to know the truth about the Gospel. We had a good talk and I hope he will really be able to devote himself to learning if this is true. It's really the only thing we ever need to know!
Wishing you all a great week!
Elder Neilson
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Eating mango shaved ice for the first time. Mangos are finally back in season.
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Kind of hard to see but the trees in this picture are some banana trees right by the church
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District pday dinner at a all you can eat shabu shabu
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