Animals, Zhone Conference, and Calls

Hey All,

This week started off with a fun pday to the zoo! It was a great time spent with some old mission buddies and companions. We saw some cool animals, later played some frisbee at a feild across from the zoo, and then Elder Meredith and I felt really ambitious and went to Costco. Unfortunately, we forgot about how difficult it would be to carry around our large amount of costco groceries home by bus in a bag. After a difficult and strenuous journey we made it home with enough food to last us quite a while. 

This week we had a zone conference where President talked about obedience, and using pamphlets to teach people. It was a great meeting. I really felt like president's teachings were what the Lord wanted me to hear at that time and I felt truly inspired and motivated to change and improve. I think that is when we really know our leaders in the church are called of God, when we receive direct instruction in answer to our prayers or to the unspoken desires of our hearts. What a great blessing to have priesthood leaders who receive revelation and guidence for us. 

Due to the Corona virus we have been spending a lot of time calling lists of names and phone numbers, trying to get in contact with people who have previously shown interets in learning about the gospel or calling members trying to find times to meet and strengthen them. It's very different from the normal on the street missionary work we strive for in our mission. I think everyone in Taiwan is hoping the virus is controlled quickly so we can all get back to our normal lives! Hahaha.

Deadly virus aside, things have been going well for us this week. We found three new people to start teaching, including two brothers. It is always fun to start teaching new people and getting to introduce people to the most basic principles of spirituality, such as their identity as a child of God and how they can communicate with Him through prayer.

It's a good time to be a missionary! 

Have a great week!

Elder Neilson

A pretty cool shot of the above ground railway, a raised highway, and a ground level road all on top of each other! Good transportation is a must! 

our costco food on an excalator

Eating a traditional breakfast dish on a cold rainy night.

P-day zoo trip

 Our zone at zone conference

Sorry it's a short one again

Hey All, 

Busy pday. Got a lot done but we are cutting it close! 

Anyways, it has been a fun week. Pday we went to a lantern festival exhibit and explored Taipei with some friends. It was a lot of fun. Found some interesting lanterns made by elementary school kids like the half iron man half Spiderman mouse! 

It was Elder Meredith's year mark this week and the weird tradition is to burn a shirt. I didn't do that when I was out a year but Elder Meredith really wanted to so we packed up our eagle scout badges and burned a shirt in a controlled manner. 

Biked up a lot of mountains to visit members this week. It was wild. So tired! 

Hope you all have a good week! 

Elder Neilson 

Misty Mountains

Hey All,

It was a fun week here in Taiwan! We started out with a good pday hiking with some mission buddies, including my old companion Elder Ransbottom from my time in XinZhu. The mountains we were on had a ton of mist on them so it was impossible to see any good views but it made for some cool atmosphere effects. Hiking and exploring Taiwan is just one of my favorite ways to start a week! 

This week we have been trying to emphasize visiting with members and helping them to either become more active in the church or do more missionary work. It's been a lot of fun to finally meet with some of the active families in the ward and start to get to know them! We have been trying to find good ways to build up their ability to do missionary work and so far our best stratagy is to send the members a conference talk on missionary work before hand, then simply have  a discussion about what successes or challenges they are facing right now in doing missionary work and how we missionaries can help them or giving any advice we have. Its been super cool to see how some of our members are trying to do missionary work in their daily lives. Anything form simply bringing up the fact that they are a member of the church in a natural way with coworkers or sharing how the gospel is impacting their lives on facebook. Every little opportunity counts! I love Elder Uchtdorf's last talk on missionary work titled, "Missionary Work: Sharing what is in your heart." He says:

"In whatever ways seem natural and normal to you, share with people why Jesus Christ and His Church are important to you. Invite them to “come and see.” Then encourage them to come and help. There are numerous opportunities for people to help in our Church.

"Pray not only for the missionaries to find the elect. Pray daily with all your heart that you will find those who will come and see, come and help, and come and stay."

That's powerful stuff right there!

We have been focusing a lot on helping some of our current new friends to read the Book of Mormon. I might have said this before but I have learned as a missionary that it is prettymuch useless to start teaching people the commandments and asking them to live them if they are not already praying, reading the Scriptures (specifically the Book of Mormon), or coming to church. Coming to church can be hard for people if their schedule doest allow it but every one can find time to read and pray. However if they don't, they never develop the faith to move forwards with their testimony or repentance. So I don't really like moving past the first couple missionary lessons (the restoration of the gospel, the plan of Salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ [think the doctrine of Christ: faith, repentance, baptism....etc.]) if people are not reading and praying. So that's what we are doing with some of our friends when we meet, reading and praying with them! I have been enjoying it a lot. I think it is really important to read the Scriptures with people and show how we can liken it to ourselves and think deeper about the Scriptures that just what is happening. I had parents, and teachers and friends in the church to show me how that is done but new people learning about the church have no such resources at first. So it's fun to be their guide through a spiritual journey. 

Well I could go on about more stuff but this is already a pretty long letter! Hope you all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Neilson

Misty Bridge from pday

Elder Ransbottom, Me, and Elder Engel (another elder that went in the The MTC the same time as me) on the pday hike.

We saw a tiny tiny motorcycle outside a family mart this week.

Eating awesome noodles on exchanges with Elder Zhang

Sometimes you run into a small enclosure of turtles. This happens more often then you would expect

Food and Viruses

Hey Everyone! 

So this week marked the end of the Chinese new year season. Always a unique time in the life of a missionary. With all the member meals I think my stomach is stretched to twice its normal size! I'm always hungry! Hahaha. 😅

With the coronavirus going around I'm sure you are all wondering what the mission is doing to help us stay safe. Basically we all are encouraged to wear face masks in crowded public areas, wash our hands or use hand sanatizer often, and not to shake hands or hug anyone. President even told us not to plan strict street finding activities but only to work with members and find along the way in order to reduce risk of running into random people who might be infected. So far so good.

People in Taiwan are very preoccupied with health and so everyone is taking this very serously. You often see lines around the block to get into stores that have face masks in stock. At church the missionaries were assigned to take everyone's temperature as they walked in to the building, spray their hands with hand sanatizer and give them a face mask if they didn't have one. We really didn't have to supply many masks though since everyone was already wearing one!

Its the start of a new transfer which is always a good time to set new goals and plans. I have set some personal goals to achieve some things I have always wanted to do on my mission, such as read the Book of Mormon in Characters. I have gospel library helping me out with a daily study goal and its been going well so far. It's fun to read the stories and teachings of the Book of Mormon in a new language. It makes things fresh and new again. Never quite sure how something will be phrased in Chinese as compared to English. It's like a new twist on a familiar tale! Same teachings and same testimony of Christ though. Got to love the power of the Book of Mormon. I have found that when I dive into the teachings of the Book of Mormon my days go better. If you haven't already I recommend you get yourself a copy of the Come Follow Me for this year and get started. I always find my studies go a little better when I have that structure to help me stay focused. I also love the page titled Prophetic Promises in the introduction pages. It's simply a few promises from our latter day prophets on how the Book of Mormon will change our lives. I love sharing those promises with members. I know they are true! 

Have a great week everyone. Go forth and achieve!

Elder Neilson 

- The Elders in front of Ikea (this week's pday adventure)

 Ikea Going hard with the Chinese new year colored stuff

- A picture we took with the district where every chair represents one transfer on your mission

- A cool picture of Elder Meredith on some stairs

- helping give out masks, hand sanatizer and take the temperature of members at church,

A member let me sit in their fancy lazy boy chair after a meal. Man I need to get myself one of these!