9-8-2014

9-8-2014

Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 13:41:34 +0800
Subject: The Mini movecall strikes!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello Family!!!

Well this week was really good, me and my companion had a goal that we wanted to really try to hit one of our mission standards which was to get 20 lessons in a week.  We have been able to usually hit some of the other mission standards that are just a number that our mission president whinkds that every companionship should be able to hit or at least shoot for.  But because of that we figured that we would need to get at least 3 lessons every day, and so that was our plan, to give our best effort to hitting that 3 lessons a day goal, as well as to keep our already progressing investigators progressing.

It was a really fun time this week as well because one of the holidays that came around during the first part of my mission is here again, it is the mid autumn festival or the Lunar festival.  I think its something like fir first full moon in the middle of fall or something like that but basically what everybody does is just start having some fun Taiwanese barbecues, shoot off some fireworks (that we are not allowed to touch) and just be with family and friends.  So being the missionaries that we are, of course the ward is super willing to invite us to come to their family barbecues and their get together's, it has been a really fun week and one where you never really go hungry.

Theres 2 BBQ stories that come with this though, first off is you have to understand that a lot of Taiwanese people just live in apartments that have upwards of 14 or more floors, and so they usually have a lot of neighbors that they haven't met, so during the festival one of the members invited us to her apartments BBQ with the thought that she personally could just meet her neighbors and that we could just proselyte to them =) however as it turned out when we got there, everybody was huddled pretty close to their families and there was just not a lot of socializing going on, so we weren't able to get the proselyting that we were after.  But the next day we had a BBQ that some member from the other ward invited us to, we weren't really sure who the member was but all of the other missionaries were going so we decided that we could go as well.  When we got there however there was a person that we recognized, a Ms. Huang who during my second week in Tainan we had tracted into her house, she had told us that her sister was a member of our church but she lived in Mainland China, but she comes back every year for this festival and always invites the missionaries over.  We had not really met anybody in the ward at that time but we remembered the experience and finally during the BBQ what she told us had come true! crazy!

Well now for what the subject is talking about, the Mini Move Call.  Because missionaries in the office have to have a 3 week training period to be able to effectively do the missionary work there, they will sometimes have a transfer 3 weeks into the transfer, which normally only moves a few people, however this time I got moved and and now living further south than I was before. I have been moved to the furthest county south called Ping Dong ( ) in a city called Dong Gang ( ) which is right next to the beach, with my new companion Elder Hansen, I was super sad to get the call that I was leaving Tainan, but I am also excited to be able to work here in Dong gang because its a lot like my first area, but a little more rural.

Well its a bit of a longer E-mail this week but I'm doing good and having a great time.  Hopefully you are all doing well.  Love you all

Have a great week!!!