Temple P day ( 2 letters in one)

6.25.19

Hey All!

Another good weekly report coming at you...

Monday we had a zone pday. Zone pdays are always just alright. For anyone out on a mission or planning on going I have one suggestion for p-days. Don't care about doing stuff with other missionaries, instead find something awesome, outdoorsy (if your weather permits), and something unique to the place you are serving, like a cool hike or a zoo or something like that. Go somewhere you can take pictures and remember. Staying inside and playing basketball or something with other missionaries has always felt like a waste of a pday to me. Go explore your area and do something different!

Wednesday was fun because we finally got to the movie watching day in English class. But because we had a Zone Conference all that morning we didn't have enough time to prepare everything before hand. So Elder Ransbottom and spend the first 50 minutes of engish class finishing putting music on one of the movies, downloading all the videos we needed for class on a flash drive, and cutting out the critique work sheet we made for the students. Halfway through we realized we forgot the flash drive at home and had to run back to get it! All the while, Elder Raymond and Anderson taught the class as we ran around getting stuff done in the background. But everything worked out in the end and it was a fun class. English class was Expecially successful this week because we found someone who was interesting in meeting outside of class

We had a pretty good lesson on Friday morning that we had to bike about 45 minutes to. We met with an old father and his son who were refered to us by a temple Square sister missionary who is the granddaughter of the father. It went pretty well and afterwards we went and got lunch at a really good Noodle shop with the son. 

Its honestly been a pretty standard week and then since we had temple P-day this week we had a weird extra Monday and Tuesday in the week. Adding days to a missionary week is always kind of rough so we decided to fill them with exchanges to mix it up. So I spent the last 24 hours with Elder Harmon from Zhudong. It seems I am on exchanges with zhudong or the Zone Leaders every single week! At least I feel like I write about it in these letters a lot. But such is the life of the district leader's companion. Or as we called it back in my Washington visa wait mission, the "District Leader Buddy." For some reason I haven't been able to get that particular phrase to stick in this mission. Unfortunate.

We had a good week this week teaching pool wise. We increased by 4 people up to 10! It's cool because for a long time in this area we only had 4 people to teach total!

Have a great week!

Elder Neilson

6.30.19

Well this should be a short one because we only have a few days to talk about but here we go:

Wednesday we were up in Taipei for temple p-day. Always a special experience for a missionary to get to go to the temple. We were lucky this time too because our bus was 45 minutes late due to traffic, but we planned our trip to get us there an hour early, so we had enouph time to just barely get in. My appreciation for Ordinances like those in the temple and the Sacrement has really grown on my mission which is a blessing I am grateful for.

Had a cool miracle on Friday where we went to dinner with a member and at the restaurant the workers said they have been trying to go to the church for 3 months or something! So the member and the workers talked a lot about them coming to church and so we might have 3 random restaurant women come to church this upcoming Sunday to hand off to the Sister missionaries!

Fast forward to Sunday and the oldest of the restaurant workers totaly came to church! The sisters were hyped about it. Cool miracle! 

Well that's pretty much the best stuff of the week! It's been a good five days.

Elder Neilson

cool shot from the train window

Zone Conference

a snail decided to take a ride on my bike all the way to the train station this morning

View from our roof

Elder Ransbottom with a dog

Update on the snail on the bike from Wednesday, he moved to a much more dangerous spot while we went to the temple. But we got him off. All good.

Jurassic park

Hey All,

This Monday we were going to go to a zoo in Zhudong but the weather wasn't working with us so we ended up just playing card games in the Zhudong apartment. It was a fun time. It was also funny to be there with Elder Raymond because Zhudong is where he was trained so everything was a major flash back for him. 

On Wednesday we did day two of our movie themed English class. This time we filmed our movies. We were hoping we could get them to choose a director out of themselves to take control of everything but that didn't really work out because the guy who was chosen as director was the only guy who didn't come last week where we gave all the context for today's activity so I basically just took over that role halfway through filming.  My group basically just made Jurassic Park where a little boy in the class, who's english name is Dinosaur, was the dinosaur that ate everyone. And then a couple escape in a helicopter. It's pretty hyped. hahaha

Thursday there was a really intense rain storm at night which was a fun thing to ride a bike through. My shoes literally had to be poured out after we got back. That's a first. Probably the worst rain storm I have had to bike through so far. I guess this is what that one member was talking about when he said the "East Asian Rainy Season" was coming! 

Sunday we had a man from the Philipines show up to church because he is going to live here while going to school for 6 months but he doesn't speak Chinese! I tried to translate for him some in Sunday School but it was really rough. My translating skills need some serious work. Chinese is ridiculus!

Another funny story from the week: an old potential from 4 months ago, back when I was in Zhong he with Elder Merrill, texted us back saying he will look at his schedule and try to find time to meet! I hope it works out because a 4 month delay has to be something of a record for late responses!

Wish you all a great week!

Elder Neilson

I gave away my physical Book B study cards that I never use (I use digital cards) to an American member in the xinzhu 3 ward because she needs to learn Chinese (more or less to marry the guy she is dating). hahaha

Two snails we found the other day by the church. The left one is huge!

A park in my area that I thought was pretty

1 Year Anniversary

Hey Everyone,

So you might have noticed last week's email sounded a little different than normal. It's because I am trying a new emailing stratagy. Every night, after I type up my journal entry I write a paragraph or so in an email draft- that way when P-day comes around, I pretty much just attach pictures and press send! 

So here was how this week went...

Monday we had a pretty good preperation day, we went to the hospital yet again for Elder Ransbottom's toe, this time they put on some more acid, said it looked a lot better, and if it wasn't good by next week they are just going to cut it off completely- so next week things should be figured out more or less for sure.

We also went to Costco and to a game store where we played some "Betrayal at the House on the Hill" which is this random game that I had never heard about before my mission but basically every missionary knows about it and likes it because a few apartments have it or something. It's not even really a game, mostly just an interactive horror story. Random, but it can be pretty fun.

On Wednesday I was on exchanges with Elder Anderson, one of the Zone Leaders, and as part of that exchange we set up two people to meet with us the next day. We ended up meeting with both those people on Thursday! It was a little miracle. One of them is a cool dad who brought his young son and then the other was a kid we started teaching over Line, the messaging app they use in Taiwan. I have always wanted to have a texting lesson and I finally got one! It went pretty well too! It's cool how the technology we have can let us meet with people who would normally not have time, or the drive, to meet in person.

On Saturday we had a weird day because Elder Ransbottom and one of his old companions, Elder Zhang, had an old friend getting baptized in Taipei, so I went on exchanges with Elder Zhang's trainee, Elder Asuncion, for half the day. It was pretty interesting to be the one with the significant Chinese advantage. That usually doesn't happen. Unfortunately, their area doesn't have a lot of people walking around and Elder Asuncion broke his bike so we walked around for a long time talking to all the people we could about English class. 

By the time Elder Ransbottom and Zhang got back it was already 10pm and we didn't have time to bike home so we stayed the night sleeping on a couch and the floor! The next morning we woke up and immediately started biking home to get back in time to eat and shower before 9o'clock church. It was pretty killer!

This Thursday / Friday was the year anniversary of me entering the MTC which is a crazy milestone to hit. My time here on my mission is movie fast! I have learned a lot and I am excited for another year of learning, improvement, and increased consecration to, and love for, the Lord's work. 

Have an awesome week!

Elder Neilson 

The Hospital Again

Hey Everyone,

So on Monday we sat ourselves back in the hospital to have another appointment for Elder Ransbottom's foot. This time they put some acid on it to eat away his skin which turned all the acided skin black since it has silver in it. Aparently it hurts a lot so that's a bummer. They gave him some new meds that he can't lay down for 30 minutes after taking for some reason. Not sure why. But he has to drink a lot of water to avoid throat Inflammation and gets sunburns easily. So he is pretty wrecked right now!

Once a year, Taiwan has a lock down drill to practice in case we get attacked by China or something. We spent our 30 minutes of "illegal to be outside time" in a McDonald's eating some good old American food. Afterwards we saw a huge military prop plane fly over head so that must have been another part of the drill.

We had a really cool contact on Tuesday after we had a district dinner with all the Elders in our District (the Zhudong Elders were on exchanges with the Zone Leaders so they were in town). Two of the other elders said high to this guy outside the restaurant and then basically just said, "Hey these are my friends around here" and Elder Ransbottom and I started talking to him. We talked about English Class for a bit and then gave him a tract about the Book of Mormon and started pivoting to the Gospel and the second we brought that out he asked, "Do you guys teach about this too? I am interested in learning about this!" Probably one of the most interested people I have ever seen come off the streets. So that was awesome. Also we had the Zhudong Elders over at our apartment turning it into a 6-man which was a little crazy but a lot of fun.

Wednesday we picked up Elder Ransbottom's new bike. He has had many bikes stolen and his missionary bike he was using was starting to destroy itself so he finally caved and bought a new one. It's way nice! But now he can bike a lot faster than me which is a little rough. Hahaha

On Friday we woke up and left right away to help the housing couple, the Yens, close our old apartment. Sister Yen has a really strong Beijing China accent which is pretty funny because I don't understand half the stuff she says! But we got the old apartment closed up for good. Kind of sad to see it go but on to bigger and better things.

Saturday we had an awesome lesson with that potential from district dinner earlier in the week who seems super prepared. I honestly thought we taught the worst restoration lesson that Elder Ransbottom and I have ever given and he was still just drinking it in. After the lesson we asked him what his plans were for the day and he literaly said, "probably just go home and read this Book of Mormon!" 

On Sunday we had a cool meeting with a member who's conversion story teaches a good missionary lesson. Basically he stood up the missionaries for their first meeting because he was a little weirded out but that night the missionaries called him again and since they sounded really sincere he was willing to set up a second time and got baptized two months or so later. Lesson: always follow up with people who don't show up to lessons the first time.

Have a great week! 

Elder Neilson

waiting in the hospital

Elder Ransbottom with his new Bike

cleaning out the old apartment 

 We put lights on our bike wheels, I'm white and red (Mom is very happy about this new level of night visibility!)

bowling