2-24-2014

2-24-2014

The bottom salutation translates to:

He Elder 

Kaohsiung missionaries 

Taichung missionary 

Very happy man!

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Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 11:34:49 +0800
Subject: Power Week and mission conference
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family! and everybody else

Its been another exciting week here in the 台中mission as the mission president decided that it would be a good time to have a power week to see how well the mission does.  Aside from that we have been working with some less actives, trying new food and we had a great mission conference, so lets jump in.

As far as food goes this week we became really familiar with the bakeries around here as well as all of the convenience stores that they have.  Due to it being power week (more on that below) they wanted us to have as much time proselyting as possible so they said that they wanted us to have all of our meals on the go, so try to eat it on your bike or while contacting people, a little difficult but as we found random rolls and stuff like that we made it through the week.  the funny thing about Taiwanese bread though is I feel like its all a huge trap.  You sometimes would see a nice looking roll that has a little slice in it with some sort of cream coming out of it and you think "Oh that must be filled with cream, that sounds good" so you buy it, now after you have left the store and take a bite you realize that there is just that little bit of cream that you can see on the top of the bread... kinda funny =)

So Power week has come and gone.  What we did for it is for each day the president gave us a goal, either to have two on the spot sit downs from tracting to finding 20 people in a day that set up a time to meet with us later in the week.  It was kind of fun having the goals but as I mentioned above he cut down our eating time as well as had our personal study and companion study down to 30 minutes a day, and said no language study for the week.  It was a change, but fun all the same. I was happy that I was able to see a lot of miracles from it and this week will be a lot busier because of it.

Finally just this last Sunday we had our Mission Conference with the great guest speaker Bishop Stevenson, the presiding Bishop of the Church.  He was super cool and served somewhere in Japan on his mission as well as a mission president later in his life.  he gave us a great talk about extending invitations, helping people through the atonement and following the spirit.  It was so much fun to be there and to see all of the missionaries there listening and taking notes.

Well that's about it for this week.  the work is moving along and we have some great people that we are working with.  Hopefully there's more news on them next week, but until then remember to keep smiling!

何長老

高雄的傳教士

台中的傳教士

很快樂的人！

Elder Heaton

2-17-2014

2-17-2014

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 11:41:40 +0800
Subject: 
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello everybody!

Things have been going well this week.  Meeting with people that we have been finding.  Making sure that we are always finding so that we will always have people to teach and trying to have fun while doing it.

I feel like there hasn't been anything really special this week just missionary work as usual.  We have been working with two specific people who really seem to be prepared and ready to learn more about the message, and have had a couple of other people who seem to just appear out of nowhere and want to meet with us its kinda interesting.

So the first person that we are meeting with is a man by the name of Raymond.  He is currently working on finding a job and while doing so is trying to learn new things and meet new people.  We met him through the English class that we hold and talking to him after class we were able to set him up for the missionary discussions.  He has pretty good English and a lot of the time we teach in English and translate when we need to, but he seems to be accepting the message and has been to church two times.

The other big investigator that we are working with is actually a handicapped man by the name of 黃弟兄 or Brother Huang, or Brother Yellow if you want.  He has no strength in either of his legs, and no strength in his right arm.  He has been meeting with missionaries since before I got here, and has really accepted the things that we are teaching him.  He has already read through the book of Mormon is starting it for the second time right now.  Lately the only problem that he has is getting to church, as he lives on the 4th floor of a building with no elevator.  So we have been spending a lot of time trying to find a way that we can get to church and this week he was able to attend.  We found him a wheel chair, a member gave him a ride and helped us carry him down the 4 flights of stairs, it was a really fun and great experience.

Also at church this week it was stake conference, so 黃弟兄 was able to meet a lot of new people including our mission president, his wife and Elder Randy Funk of the 70.  It was awesome to see the reception of the ward in talking to him and just being his friend.  People were all willing to talk to him and gave him a spot right at the front of the chapel to sit and attend church.

Well that is about it for things that has happened this week.  Things are going well and we are having fun spreading the gospel.  Hope that you all have a great week.

Love you all!

Don't forget to keep smiling!

Elder Heaton

何長老

2-10-2014

2-10-2014

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 12:34:16 +0800
Subject: The waters of baptism.
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and Friends!!

This week has been going good, spending time to explore some of the further points of our area, as well as setting up things for next week. so far it has been a good week. so lets dive right in.

This week we were able to have a baptism with a really cool guy named Anderson Chen or as he is now known 陳弟兄who is just really cool.  He moved down here to 高雄 for work and to make money but his wife and two kids live back up in 台中 which is a little sad.  He also works really crazy hours, doing 14 hour shifts through the night, with a day off every 3 days.  Its really crazy and also really hard to set up with him and confirm him for church.  But this guy was so cool that after he worked a crazy 14 hour shift, through the night, he was still willing to come to church for the full 3 hours and stay awake for them as well... thats better than I can say for myself... cough cough

Well outside of that big news, the work here is going pretty much the same, we have been going around, trying to work with less actives, find some Melchizedek priesthood holders and bring them back to church... thinking of which I don't think I have told you all, but here in Taiwan they have some pretty cool things, one of them being right across the street from the chapel that I am currently meeting at, which is a big, empty lot, that happens to be owned by the church.  Right now there is nothing there but a fence around it and some signs that say that it is owned by the church, however at our last Zone Conference, they were emphasizing working with, and rescuing less active Melchizedek priesthood holders to try and establish more stakes here in Taiwan because if we manage to the number of stakes here in Taiwan up to about 5 more, then that would be enough to apply for another Temple here in Taiwan, to be established on that big empty lot that is right across the street from the stake center.  Cool right?

Well that got a little off topic, but I guess last of all I will share a little bit of a funny story. So me and my companion were going out to one of the further points in our area to meet with a less active there that we had set up with, and on our way there was this dog that kind of jumped out at me and just kind of lazily started barking at me.  So I stopped and said hi to the dog, and eventually the owner came out and we started talking.  So eventually she told us that she was just about to give the dog and 4 others (she owned 5 dogs) a bath, and jokingly said "do you want to help?" and we just jumped on it, and before she had time to tell us no, we took off our ties, our shoes and socks and were ready to give those dogs a bath.  They thought it was so funny and we had a fun time, it was really fun. So you can know that I'm doing good our here, one dog at a time.

Well that's just about it for this week, I hope everyone had a good week and that this one will be even better. 我知道這個教會是真實的，也有幫助我很多！我希望你們都也會知道。這是我的見證奉耶穌基督的命阿門！

加油

下個禮拜見！

Elder Heaton

何長老

2-3-2014

2-3-2014

Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 11:59:24 +0800
Subject: 新年快樂。恭喜發財。紅包拿來
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family!

Things are going good here in the 東高雄圓山支會 doing the work and trying to work around peoples schedule here, which gets kind of interesting.  So lets dive right in.

So this week was the start of Chinese New Year or 過年 (Guo Nian), which if any of you care is the year of the horse, and so because of that a TON of the members here, as well as investigators and just people in general are all out visiting family in other parts of Taiwan leaving the ward actually fairly empty.  And also because of that this last Sunday meeting they cut down to only have sacrament meeting and they had our ward mix with 2 other wards to make sure we had enough people so spend our time.  It was kind of an interesting experience.

Also if any of you are wondering about the subject line, it says "xin nian kuai le" which is happy new year! "Gong xi fa cai" congratulations and prosperity "hong bao na lai" may I have a red envelope. This is kind of a traditional new year saying, which I think kids would want to say to their elders which afterwards they elder person would usually give them a little red envelope with a little money in it.  Kind of a cool tradition. 

Also as part of Chinese New Year it seems like almost a tradition for the members to treat or just invite the Missionaries over to their house for a BIG meal, which is super nice of them, and they usually have some really good food there, as well as some extended family that are non members that we would do a small spiritual share with them.  Really fun.  Also an interesting thing about the culture here, if you are invited over to eat at someones house, its usually polite to bring a small gift or a card to show your appreciation, and one of the most common gifts to bring is actually a pineapple, and here's why.  So in Chinese pineapple is "Feng Li" I think, which when you say it in Taiwanese sounds different, but in Taiwanese it also sounds like a word that means good luck and prosperity, so by giving people a pineapple its kind of like wishing them luck and prosperity, cool little fact.

Well other than that, there hasn't really been much that has happened, lessons are a little harder to set up because of 過年 so we have just been trying to make due with what we have.  Another tradition people have is during 過年 they actually do a deep cleaning of the whole house similar to spring cleaning back at home, and so sometimes we offer to help them do the cleaning, and sometime people accept our help, so I have had the chance to help clean some peoples houses for them, its been pretty cool.

Well thats about it for this week, its been a rather slow one, but good things have happened and we are working to build a good amount of lesson after all of this new year stuff blows over.

Hope you all are having a good 過年 and that this year goes good for you all!

Until next week

Elder Heaton

何長老

1-27-2014

1-27-2014

Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:52:08 +0800
Subject: Life in Gaoxiong
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the Family and the Friends and the other, whoever that might be =)

This week has been exciting, getting to know the new area, finding out who all the people are, what the different culture here is and all the phases of missionary work, so lets begin.

First off I would like to introduce my new companion, as I said last week, his name is Elder Wootan, he is from Utah but also lived in China for about 5 years going to an international school, but while he was there he didn't really learn a ton of Chinese.  He has be out on his mission for 8 months now, which is about 2 move calls longer than I have and he just barely went senior companion.  The most interesting thing is though, he actually arrived in this area about 3 weeks ago on whats called a "mini move call" which just means either someone from the MTC was on the fast track and came here early, somebody who got an extension went home in the middle of the move call or something like that, but either way, we are both working together to try to figure out the area.  It has been really interesting working with him and seeing his teaching style.  and its been fun learning about the new culture here.

Now a little bit about Gaoxiong.  So in Taiwan I feel like theres 3-4 really BIG name citys here, the most commonly known one is Taipei or 台北 if your speaking Chinese, the second biggest one is Kaohsiung or 高雄 in Chinese. Which I think are the two biggest city's in 台灣.  then after that theres Taichung 台中 which is my mission's name and where the mission office and mission headquarters is then maybe 台南 or Tainan which is a little smaller than all the rest.  But 高雄 is super different compared to Huwei 虎尾 because Huwei was just a little city that nobody had ever really heard about, with very few people there, and so if you were waiting at a red light, a lot of the time there would be no body to talk to.  But here in 高雄 there are SOOO many people here, usually at every light theres a good line of cars as well as a good 10 or 20 motorcycles or scooters just waiting, so you can just go up to any one of them and just start the contact.

So that's just the biggest differences that I have noticed while working here. so you can take it as you will.  but now I will move onto food as this week I went to another buffet, the same kind, a hotpot buffet where you just put the meat in the pot and boil it until it is good.  The interesting thing is the one that we went to this time, (by we I mean me, my companion, two other elders that share the same area as us, and a member named Brother Chen) one of the broths that you could choose from was a Milk broth.  I though it sounded really good and so did another person and Brother Chen.  But then the funny thing happened while we were eating, somebody though... "you know its kinda ironic boiling beef in milk" and we all had a good laugh out of it. so that was fun

Well thats just about it, I'm still working on figuring out who our investigators are right now, as well as what the best way to do the work here is.  hopefully I will have more for you all next week.  But until then know that I love you all and to have a good week!

From Elder Heaton

何長老

1-20-2014

1-20-2014

Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 17:22:38 +0800
Subject: Off to Gaoxiong!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and friends

So I don't really have much time to write a big e-mail let alone everyone individually but I just want to send a quick one off and just let you all know that I'm still alive and kicking.

So yesterday was movecall for me and I have moved on from the humble beginnings of Huwei to the big busy city of Gaoxiong.  I haven't really had a chance to explore here yet as I didn't really see my new home till about 4:30 and we had to go out and buy some food to last the week but it seems good.  I'm super sad to be leaving Huwei, its weird to think that I was there for a whole 6 months before moving out, but now I am here and ready to start the next phase of my mission.

So Most important, my new area is called Yuan Shan, which is in the west part of Kaohsiung, or with more proper spelling, Gaoxiong.  It is a lot smaller then my last area but still a good size, the streets here are a lot bigger and I don't really have much more to say about it.

Last week went well, I spent the last part of the week especially Sunday saying goodbye to all the new friends I have made and exchanging information with them, so I hope that a certain somebody (cough cough emma cough) is still doing a good job managing the people who decide to add me on facebook =)

Other than that though things are looking good, life is doing well, I was pretty sad to leave my last companion Elder Stratford as we were just having a blast last movecall, but my new companion, Elder Wootan, is a good replacement for him, so things should be going well.  I'm happy, excited to be here in Kaohsiung and excited to see what its like in a more developed area.

Love you all, see you next week, with hopefully a longer e-mail!

Elder Heaton

 何長老

No longer the Hope of Huwei, new nickname soon to come =)

Bye!!

1-13-2014

1-13-2014

Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:12:54 +0800
Subject: Time Flies on the Wings of Lightening
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

HELLO Family and friends!!

This week has been a fun on full of lots of adventures as well as meeting lots of fun people.  But before all of that I think I just need to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!!! another year of things learned, another year of having fun and another year to just be cool =) Hope that you have a happy one!

So this week here has been good, although I had a real shocker occur to me this week, so when I first got here to Huwei I was contacting with Elder Raley and we were noticing a lot of people on the streets, and we asked some people about it and they said that the semester has just started or was going to start so all the students were moving back to start school, and now everyone is preparing for their finals and winter vacation, which lasts for a month here, and they wont be back till march, and then I realized that I have been here in Huwei for an entire school semester, I have been here proselyting from the time that most of these students came here until the time that they are leaving to go back to their home town... kinda weird.  However I feel as if my time here in Huwei is just about up as the next move call is next week and I might be in a new area at that time... weird.

So theres a little bit of a funny story on the food this week.  As we were with one of the members here, a really cool guy who goes by the name of Tobias, he was telling us about a huge activity that would have over 200 people attending, and that he as well as "The Missionaries" would all have a part in it, and he was asking us if we knew anything about it, well we had no idea and started to make some calls about it, and as it turns out they were having a planning meeting this Sunday about what they were doing and what they wanted us to do.  So we went to that and had some fun talking about things to do with all the people that would be there, and afterwards they fed us dinner.  So they bring up some food and lay it out, then ask some people to go down to the kitchen and help out with the last bit of it, so some people go down and the ones who stayed up ate, and the food was REALLY REALLY SPICY!!  It was rice, tofu and blood rice, with some really spicy sauce and it tasted pretty good but it was just so hot, but there were a bunch of hungry people and even though most people complained about it, they ate it all.  and afterwards the people who came up were all talking about how they wanted to eat the spicy food and they were bringing up the mild stuff.  but there was no spicy food left... Kinda funny

Outside of that though most of our efforts have really been trying to work with the less actives here in the ward, theres a lot of really cool people who have a lot of potential to come back and I would love to see them coming to church, but it is a slow process as most of them work on Sundays or just don't think of coming to church when Sunday rolls around.  Kind of sad, but we are trying our best and hopefully they will be willing to do the rest.

Well that's about it, things are going well, Huwei is still awesome and the people are still fun, if I move next week I'll let you all know!

Love you!

Elder Heaton

何長老

1-6-2014

Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 11:58:35 +0800
Subject: I'm out of random subject lines... ><> normal fish }{} fancy fish
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and friends!

This week has been a really good one.  We have had the chance to visit more of our secondary areas and to learn more about our ward, our investigators, the less actives and just have fun.

So this week I think an interesting thing that I have eaten I actually ate this morning, which was just Red Bean Soup.  Now I think I mentioned this already but in the Asia countries people think of beans as a really sweet food, and people will commonly put beans on ice cream, on shaved ice, and just on other things that are normally thought of as being sweet.  Also another big thing is that the moment things start getting cold outside, everywhere starts taking the things that were normally put in the fridge, like a can of chocolate milk, or maybe winter melon tea, and instead they will put it in a little heater box, so you can buy warm versions of the drinks that you like whenever you want.  Now one think that I like it eat here is actually their shaved ice, because they don't do it like a snow cone, but rather they will add some random, usually chewy stuff, maybe some pudding like stuff, maybe beans, put shaved ice on top of it and serve it to you, its delicious, but now that its pretty much winter, they have changed the thing that they serve here to a soup, which they will add all the same stuff, but its more like a hot, sweet, soup rather than a bowl of shaved ice.  Also really good, but we decided that we wanted to make it rather than just buy it from the store, so we went out and bought a bag full of red beans, and after we got home it turns out that it takes about 3 hours to make them... so we made them this morning, and their really good, but you have to add a TON of sugar and maybe a little bit of honey to make it sweet, otherwise its just beans.  =)

Last week our mission presidents counselor, a president Chen visited with the Douliu and Huwei area's and the first thing that he told us was that we should spend more time visiting our secondary areas and work with more people out there, so we did, and I think this week alone we have easily clocked over 100 miles on our little bikes =O really crazy, but it was fun, we were able to meet with a couple of really cool people including a Brother Dai who has been less active for awhile, his wife is a non member, but she and their son likes America and also speak good English so they sat in on the lesson, it was actually really cool.

Well that's just about all that has happened this week, it has really been a rather slow week, but things are picking up and hopefully we will be able to have a lot to report next week.  But until then know that I know what I'm doing is good, its helping those people who are willing to listen and it has really been a great experience in general to come here and see what these people are like.

Love you all, and see you next week!

Keep Smiling!

Elder Heaton

何長老