7-28-2014

7-28-2014

Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:08:07 +0800
Subject: A Masterfully Musical Week
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and everyone else!

So this week has been a pretty good one, we had interviews, some activities, and other things to really keep the days moving along, we have been able to find more people to teach and so now we can spend more time teaching people rather than just solid finding and all in all things are going really well.

This week started off pretty well, on Tuesday we had a fireside that all of the surrounding wards were invited to.  There was family called the Morphious Family who had come to Taiwan for some reason, were not quite sure, but while they were here they came to various chapels and sang songs and delivered a message about how families can help people as well as how they are eternal, and so this last Tuesday they made it to our little corner of Tainan and had a little concert.  Us missionaries were pretty excited and as we were contacting people on the street we just started inviting everybody to the event, it was pretty cool even though I don't think very many of the people that we invited came.  The interesting thing was that the family had I think 8 or 9 kids and they all had a fairly large background in music, so it was fun listening to them.

Later in the week there was interviews, which was fun, but it turned out that the interviews were in another chapel, and seeing as me and my companion had no idea where that chapel might be, we just followed some elders over there.  It was a cool place that I had been to before when I was in the office, and so things were going well, but afterwards when we were heading back home, we didn't really have anyone to follow and we just kind of wandered around for a bit, trying to find our way back to our area, kind of silly but true. 

Finally the last real big thing that happened this week was that we went on exchanges, I ended up going to the East district and had some fun there.  It had been a while since I had been on exchanges and I enjoyed the chance to get to know another area again and just talk with some other missionaries. But I guess there's not really that much to the exchanges.

This week we were also working with one of our investigators by the name of Jessie.  She is super cool but kind of quiet, doesn't really do much but is willing to listen to our message.  She is slowly progressing, but I personally can't really tell how willing she is to go all the way to the water, so we will be praying for her this week.

Other than that though we have just been trying to keep finding new people who are ready and willing to listen to our awesome message.  But until then we will be working hard and just having fun!

Hope that you all have a great week

Love you all!

7-21-2014

7-21-2014

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 12:03:07 +0800
Subject: Week of Miracles
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello Family!

This week has gone by fairly quickly, we are still spending tons of time finding and trying to get people to set up more than the one time that we have to share a short message with them, and just to keep finding more people who are willing to hear the gospel.  It is an interesting task and hopefully we will be able to accomplish something great by the end of the transfer.

So this week started pretty good, we spend last weeks P-day out at the beach having fun and then went back to the church to play some majiang until P-day was over, it was pretty fun and I got to practice a little bit of piano, to try to accomplish my goal of being able to play it a little better by the time I get back home.  After that the week began, and we were invited to meet with one of the member families in the ward by the name of Yeh or 葉 who's cousin recently moved in with her and she wanted us to share the gospel with her.  She was super cool and works at a tea shop, so after we spent some time at Sister Yehs house we went home and tried to find where this tea shop was and spent a lot of the next morning trying to find it, so that was fun.

Later that week we were talking to our Zone Leaders who were following up with us on something and we were just chatting when he mentions that he had found a lot of success from tracting lately, and that night we had about 2 hours of time where we didn't really have anything to do and so we decided to go on a super power tracting time and just tract for two hours.  It started out pretty cool and we found a awesome guy who studied abroad in Portland for 5 years and after finishing his schooling came back to Taiwan.  He was super cool and got baptized to some random church ( I think it was the bread of Christ church or something like that) and was happy to be talking with us, so that was fun.  After teaching him a little bit we left him and started off to our next thing, when we met a nice lady who let us into her work to share a short message.  She owned a small hotel of sorts and was really super nice.  As it turned out she was christian as well and she shared some of her personal beliefs that she felt were "out of line" with a normal christian, but listening to her I felt that most of what she was saying was totally in line with what we taught, so it was a super cool lesson.

Finally to end our week we celebrated one of the Elders in our apartments birthdays, Elder xu or 許, it was lots of fun and there were a bunch of members who sang to him and gave him some gifts. So that was great!

Well thats just about it for this week.  The work is going well, we are still finding, and are hoping to find those who are ready to progress.

Love you all and talk to you all next week!

7-14-2014

7-14-2014

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 11:32:28 +0800
Subject: Talk and talk and talk to people!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello everybody!

This week was pretty good, we were doing our best to build up our investigator pool as well as just make sure that we has something to do during the week, but in the end most of our time turned into contacting people.  But I do have to say that even though that's how it turned out, it wasn't really that bad, we had a lot of chances to learn our area and we just had some fun meeting a lot of interesting people.

So yeah, this week started with us just kind of figuring out where everything was, on Monday night the other Elders that are in the apartment with us took us to a dinner with one of the active members who turned out to be really cool, they love missionaries and before would usually have missionaries over like once a week or so just because they are nice.  But after that the new day started and as we sat down for the plan, there was nothing really in any books or anything so we decided the best way to spend our week would just be contact, contact, contact.  I was kind of expecting it to be a really slow day, but form the get go it seemed like just about everybody that we were talking to was at least willing to talk if not interested in the church.  It was really cool and we managed to set up with two people for the next day.  It was a really cool day that I definitely wasn't expecting, and by the end of it we were happy with the work that we did. However most of the week kind of turned into that, that we just spent most of the day contacting, and if we got lucky we would have a chance to sit down with someone and share a message with them.

But the week eventually came to an end and Sunday arrived, and there's something that I really have discovered about myself that I don't really know how to improve, which is just that I have absolutely no memory for names or people, it was kind of funny because we spent most of our time between the meetings just trying to talk to people, get to know them and their names, introduce ourselves as well as find the people who would be willing and have time to help us out during our various lessons.  However I realized after the church meeting was over and I was watching the people go by that I still had no idea who most of the people were, and the ones that I did recognize I still had no idea what their names were... oops, but I'm trying hard and hopefully I will get a little better at remembering all of these peoples names.

Well I know its not really the most exciting of e-mails but there's not really much that went on this week.  So yeah!

Oh yeah and some info on my new companion.  His name is Elder Crook, or 柯長老, he hails from the great city of Portland Oregon, so that's cool.  He is a great missionary who likes keep cracking jokes or just kind of act really silly.  He has been on his mission for just a little less amount of time than I have and he has really great Chinese.  I find it super fun to talk with him, hear him talking with the people here and I think it will be a great transfer with him.

So yeah thats my week.  Its kind of sad to hear about dad and to see those pictures of him, I hope that by the time class starts that he is feeling well enough to be able to perform effectively in class and that he is just able to recover without any complications.  Is there any plans to try to get the Buick fixed or are you just going to dump it in exchange for a newer car?

Well have a great week, I love you all!

7-7-2014

7-7-2014

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2014 17:20:06 +0800
Subject: The Grand Return to the flourishing city of Tainan
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello Family and Friends

Well the time has finally arrived for me to come back to the mission field and once again spend all my time serving the lord and following the mission rules.  Time has sure flown by and I have loved being back home and just hanging out with my family, but now that I am back out I have enjoyed brushing up on my Chinese, trying to talk with a lot of people and just stay generally happy!

So this week started when I got on the plain and ran into all of the new missionaries that were also going to be going to the Taizhong mission with me, it was really an interesting flash back to remember what I was doing at their time, seeing how curious they were and being able to just talk with them about how amazing Taiwan really is.  Afterwards when we landed President decided that it was probably a waste of my time to go through all of the orientation again and so he sent me out with the zone leaders to proselyte, we had a good time being in 3some for a little bit however the next day we got a call from the office telling us that we were going to become a foursome till the new transfer started.  It was super crazy and we ended up just splitting up in the same area doing twice as much work, it was soo fun.

But finally the new transfers came and I learned that I will be going to Tainan, the county right above Kaohsiung opening up a new area with my new companion Elder Crook, Hes a really cool guy but because I got into Tainan a little late I still haven't had much of a chance to talk to him, so I will tell you more about him next week.  So president finally decided that I was ready to go senior companion, sending me to a new area with a companion who also has never been here before, we will be having a fresh start here and are planning on having a GREAT call figuring out the area and just working hard!

Well family I hope that you are doing well, its so good to get all of your E-mails and I hope that the next time that I come home will be after the full service and will be for keeps.  I love you all and I will talk to you all next week!

Have a great week and a great summer!

NOTE:

On Sunday May 11, 2014, Elder Eric Heaton did Skype with his family and informed us that his mission president was considering sending him home to heal from his injuries.  On Thursday May 15, Elder Heaton arrived at the SLC airport where we picked him up.  He stayed at home and after a few Dr. appointments and some physical therapy he was given medical clearance to return to Taiwan.  On Tuesday July 1, 2014, we took Eric to the SLC airport to watch him leave on a 17 hour trip consisting 3 flights to return to Taiwan.
While recovering from his injuries (broken arm and compression fracture of L1), Elder Eric Heaton provided many services to the ward coordinated by both the ward clerk and the ward mission leader.  He maintained missionary hours (10:30pm to 6:30 am) and the morning missionary routine including 2 hours of study.  President Warner only released him from having a companion and wearing a name tag and asked him to maintain missionary hours and attire, which he did.

Elder Heaton is now in Taiwan to complete his mission.