1-19-2015

1-19-2015

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:45:29 +0800
Subject: Blasting through the week
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello family!!!

Well this week was really good, we were able to meet with some really cool investigators, as well as to meet with more of the members, to really get to know them and to see why they joined the church.  Recently our mission president has been inviting us to get to know the full names of all of the members in the ward of branch where ever we are serving and to really get to know what they are doing, so that you will be able to greet most of the people as they come to church.  It's been a fun process and I have been lucky because the branch that I am serving in is pretty small

Other than that this week one of our investigators said that she wanted to be baptized and told us the date that it will happen, we had been working with her for a long time and we were super happy to hear it.  so now we have set our plans to make sure that she is able to get baptized on the date that she wants.

Finally I have to say one of my favorite things about Taiwanese Culture, it is something that I have really noticed recently and really makes itself manifest when you get into the more countryside of Taiwan.  So as me and my companion were traveling to one of our lessons, we decided to talk to one of the many fishermen that are usually fishing on one of the bridges in our area.  As we were talking he was being nice, however we could tell that he didn't really have that much interest.  we were about to leave when suddenly a man on his motor scooter yells hello to us, asks if we are from america, then gives us some fruit, and drives off... neither of us had ever met the man before and we were a little confused, but we just moved onto our next appointment.  Next we were just talking to people at a red light.  I turn around and there is only one person at the light, a nice old lady.  So I yell hello to her, and we figure out that she can't speak Chinese or English so there was no real way for us to talk to her, however she reaches into one of her bags and just hands us some bananas and insists that we take them.... yeah.  it really has shown me the true love that Taiwanese people have for eachother and for other people and I have been encouraged to bring more people unto Christ because of it.

Well thats pretty much it for this week.  I hope that you are all having a great time in all of your various circumstances and that you will be able to accomplish all of your goals.  The new year is started and it is a time to look onward and upward.

I know that this gospel is true and that it has been given to us by a loving heavenly father who just wants the best for us.  Hope that we can all feel that in our lives this week!!

1-12-2015

1-12-2015

Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 12:04:54 +0800
Subject: The week of miracles!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

This week has gone by really well, we were able to meet with a good amount of people this week and were able to really develop our relationship with our ward and were able to also go on some exchanges with our zone leaders, so all in all it was a pretty good week.

Well the week started off with the Zone leader exchanges, and I was able to go back to the big city of Kaohsiung (gaoxiong) to serve in the zone leaders area for a day.  It was pretty fun, I was starting to really forget what a big city feels like, and as I stepped out of the subway station the first sight I got to see was a 4 lane road totally packed to the brim with motor scooters, and people just going to their various places, with the roar of motors.  It totally threw me off, but made me laugh all at the same time.

After the exchange my and my companion were pumped and ready to get our area up and running, and so the next day we set some goals and made plans to really try to keep in contact with all of our investigators every day, so for the next day we had a fun time going to the nearby investigator houses and just leaving them a small note with a scripture on it and inviting them all to read and just to keep going.  After that we headed out to our beach area to meet with an investigator and had a great time teaching her.

Finally at the end of the week we were able to meet with a cool new family where the husband smokes and the wife doesn't really like it, so they wanted us to share a message about getting over that, so we are excited to be able to keep working on that!

Well that's pretty much it for this week.  Hope that you are all having a great time and a great week, know that I haven't even needed to put on a jacket so far this winter and I'm just loving it!!

Until next week

1-5-2015

1-5-2015

Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 11:54:24 +0800
Subject: The new year comes with a BANG!!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello Everybody!!

This week went really well, we were really enjoying ourselves and were able to have a great time.  On Tuesday we were thinking that we had a good plan set up to meet with one of our investigators that lived a little further away, however as it turns out she canceled which left us with a lot of spare time to use, and so we decided to go out and do a little bit of tracting to see what we could find.  As we were going around there was a man and his mother sitting on their porch just talking and we just started talking with them, the man invited us to sit down with him and we had a great conversation with him about a lot of things, which we eventually got turned to the gospel.  As we were asking him about his experience with Christians and churches he mentioned to us how he had heard of Christ... from Jail!  haha it really threw me off a bit but we kept talking with him and learned that he was still really into Christian churches and said that we could come back.  It was pretty fun.

The next day during our English class I was really curious about what people do for new years here, as, when your a missionary you don't really have a chance to really see what they do, so I asked everybody what their plans were, and I realized its pretty much the exact same thing as America. There's big parties everywhere and sometimes people go to hang out with their families, but a lot of people also don't really care about it, which I felt was a little sad... But it was OK

The last thing that happened this week was we had a member invite us to dinner on Saturday, so we get there, and one of the things that he was serving was a little red, rectangular box thing, which the member kept insisting that we eat. So I took one and it tasted like I was just eating a block of salt.  Not my favorite thing, but the member mentioned to me that it is one of his favorite foods, after asking what it was he told us that it was some sort of fish eggs made into a cake... so that was the interesting thing that I got to eat this week..

Well that's all that I really got for this week.  Hope that everyone is having a great time and is just loving life!!  Have a great New Year!!

12-29-2014

12-29-2014

Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 12:07:40 +0800
Subject: The crazy Christmas and going until next year!!!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the Family!!

Well this week went by really well, and we were able to accomplish a ton, I really enjoyed being able to see all of you on Skype this last Friday (Thursday for all of you) and just be able to have a ton of fun.  The Christmas season really pumped me up this week and we were able to have a ton of fun so lets get started!!

Well the week started really well, we decided that we wanted to share a ton of Christmas joy, and so what do we do?  We get a picture of my companion dressed in a Santa suit and start writing messages to all of the members as well as some of our investigators, it was a ton of fun and we were just having a blast sending those off.

Next on the awesome week happened right on Christmas day.  We wanted to have a good Christmas day, full of lessons, and so we made tons of plans, we were looking forward to it and we had a good afternoon and night planned, however we didn't really have anything planned for the morning.  We were sitting around in companion study and thinking how best to spend the morning when we have a random person call us, a member from another ward, saying that he has a referral for us, and that we should come right away.  So we hop onto our bikes and get out there for a good lesson in the morning, followed by the member that was going to help us skype call us up to be able to get that all ready.  After that we took the long bike ride out to one of our further away areas to meet with Sister Wang, an awesome investigator who we invited to be baptized, she accepted and is probably going to be baptized in January!! after that we headed home and were able to finish the day off with another lesson with a cool guy who wanted to hear a little bit about the Plan of Salvation.  Christmas was awesome!!

However as expected the best part of the week was being able to see the whole family and to be able to just chat with all of you!!  Your all looking really good!  I loved being able to just talk with all of you and to be able to just hear your voices,. just makes me think of how important families are and why I'm out here in the first place!!

Well to end the week we had a really great time at church.  I was able to get the Christmas package the day after I skyped everyone, and there was one thing that I was really looking forward to going.  In Taiwan they have one really weird thing about them, which is that they don't really eat really sweet things that often, they have sweets but nothing that really compares to American sweets.  So I decided that I wanted to share a little bit of the divinity with a couple of people just to see their reactions.  It was hilarious to just watch them kind of squirm around while eating it, they enjoyed it, but after they finished half a ball of divinity they just said it was too sweet then gave it to another person, who did the same thing!  Thanks family for the awesome treats!!

Well that's pretty much it for my week, the new year is coming along and I'm working on setting some goals for the new year, hope that you are all doing the same!!

Love you a ll!!

12-22-2014

12-22-2014

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:01:11 +0800
Subject: The winds of change.
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family!!

Well this week has gone by really well, super fast, but also pretty weird all at the same time.  But our spirits are high and we are happily doing the lords work here in Dong gang.

To start off the week we had a wonderful Monday, however this Monday was a little different from other Mondays because it wasn't really P-day, as they had changed it due to some visa problems with the new missionaries.  This Monday we were really able to get a little bit of good proselyting, and were able to have a good time teaching the gospel.

I think the biggest things that happened this week however happened on Wednesday night and throughout most of Sunday.  First off Wednesday night as you might know by now is our English class, and usually the week before transfers we would have an English Party, so that if you think you are going to leave you can take a picture with the people that you like, or just get a good last invitation out to them.  This month we decided that we (of course) wanted to have a Christmas party, and just celebrate Christmas because people here don't really do that, so we had a fun time having a paper snowball fight, we made paper snowflakes, had a gift exchange, sang some songs and finally had the nativity acted out.  It was lots of fun =)

Then on Sunday the other big thing happened, our branch also had an awesome Christmas party, the initial plan was that there would be a potluck, so everyone could come and just bring a dish, which should be enough for everyone and as missionaries we did our part in inviting everyone that we talked to to come to it as well.  It was lots of fun, with a lot of good Taiwanese food, then after that we were able to all go out and do some crazy Christmas caroling.  That was lots of fun, we were able to see a ton of people, and my companion dressed up as Santa Clause so everybody wanted to take a picture with him.  =)

Finally this week we were able to meet with a cool new person who runs a drink stand, we are looking forward to working more with her, but for now I still don't know much about her situation, all I really know is that she used to be part of the Presbyterian Church, but was starting to go a little less active there, so a member invited her to meet with us, and she accepted, so we will be meeting with her in the coming week.

Well I'm totally looking forward to skyping you all this Christmas (Friday for me) Hope that you all have a great week and some happy holidays.  Remember that Christ is the reason for the season and to just have a great time giving to all.

Love you all! 

-- 

Elder Heaton

何長老

P.S. Have you gotten my Christmas Package yet?  I sent it off 2 weeks ago so it should be arriving soon, keep an eye out for it.  I'm still waiting for my package, but there have been transfers and so they usually don't forward mail from the office during the week of transfers to prevent it from going to the wrong place.

Merry Christmas!!