3-9-2015

3-9-2015

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2015 11:43:16 +0800
Subject: A week of power in the city!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello everyone!!

This week was actually really fun, a little bit stressful and just kind of crazy as I was trying to get used to my new area/companion, while working on what we call power week this week which is just a bunch of crazy goals that we wanted to try to accomplish like passing out 13 Book of Mormon's in one day while also trading contact info with them, adding 20 people in a day or other things.  It was pretty crazy but also really fun!

The week started off with me coming to the big city of Kaohsiung to meet with my new companion Elder Dayley, He is actually someone that was in the same MTC District as me and so we knew each other a little bit before now, however after the MTC I had not really had much contact with him due to the fact that most of my time on the mission I have been in the southern parts of the island where most of his mission has been spent in the northern parts of the island.  But now we get to work together woo!! I'll try to get a picture of me and him in dropbox this week, but if I forget or run out of time, sorry!

Other than that this week was power week, which also meant that study time was pretty much cut in half, there was 30 min's of personal study and 30 mins of companionship study, then we were out the door and just going to town trying to talk to everybody, its lots of fun, however I felt a little bad because I still had no idea where anything was because I was in a new area, and so the entire load of trying to do everything was on Elder Dayley's shoulders, but he did a good job and we were able to find quite a lot of awesome prepared people to talk to.

Another cool thing about the area is that when I got here they had 3 really prepared baptismal goals that we are working with, two of them are a couple of really awesome kids whose mother was less active for a while but is coming back to activity.  They are both really funny and they make me laugh every time that I see them.  They sometimes bicker a little bit but its always in kind of a funny way.  Then the other baptismal goal was part of a family that we are working with.  The mother is really interested in how the gospel can help her 3 daughters and has been studying the doctrine pretty in depth, then her oldest daughter is the one with the baptismal goal, she is a really prepared soul that enjoys being at church and just wants to improve her life.  then the other two are really hyper and like to cause a lot of mischief.  All it all its pretty fun working with them.

Finally I think that the biggest difference that has come from the transfer here is just the amount of people that you see.  Back in Dong gang you would be able to travel for a good 20 minutes without having much of a chance to talk to anyone, however here, the distance between our house and the chapel is about 20 minutes, but that can easily become 2 hours if you really try to talk to everyone that is on the road and everyone that you see.  Its really kind of crazy, but its something to get used to haha.

Well I hope that you all have a great week and that everything is going awesome!!!

Love you all!

3-2-2015

3-2-2015

Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 10:27:58 +0800
Subject: The end of the harbor
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family!

Well after a long time spent in the wonderful land of Dong gang I am moving out of here, I have to say I will be really sad to leave however I am also excited to get a little bit of a change of scenery.  With that note however lets talk about the rest of the week.

The week turned out pretty well and we were able to keep in contact with some of the new investigators that we were able to find some time ago but were starting to lose contact with.  One of them is a pretty silly kid, his biggest interest is just playing on the computer and watching random cartoons.  It was kind of funny because we were really trying to get him to look toward the future, have him set goals and make plans as well as to consider the after life, so one of the questions I asked him was first if he had the opportunity to meet with God, how would he react.  Now because he doesn't really have much of a belief in God he didn't really think much of the question and said something like this "I would probably be pretty relaxed, sit down with him, drink a cup of tea and ask him how the universe is going, as well as let him ask me anything" haha, I kind of wanted to laugh but it that was pretty much how the lesson went.

Later we were able to meet with a less actives father, he is a super nice guy and when we first met with him he expressed to us that he really wanted to be able to quit drinking and smoking.  So we set some goals with him and were in constant contact with him throughout the week and we were really just trying to encourage him, then the next time we met with him really made me realize what kind of a difference God can make in someones life.  He mentioned that he didn't really want to keep meeting with us because he felt it was a waste of our time to try to help him, he told us how he had been smoking and drinking since he was in middle school and that its not something that he can change, then he goes on to talk about how he has never really had any faith in any of the religions here in Taiwan Buddhist or Christian or anything like it, doe didn't really believe in any sort of God or after life and his only source of comfort was just money... we kept talking and he said that it was really just in his nature to be drinking and to smoke and that it was not something that he could quit... he had no hope and felt like he couldn't change.  However that is a knowledge that I have gained form coming to know God, that we can change, that "Though your sins be as scarlet, they can be white as wool" no matter the situation we can overcome them through the atonement of Jesus Christ, but you first need to have faith, you need to have a hope that these things are possible and because this man did not have it at that point in time he was not able to receive the blessings from it...

Moving on to the end of the week, once again the members were pretty sure at lest one of us was going to move, and so they threw a small dinner for us to eat, it was pretty good, they made fried noodles (chao mian) and put a lot of clams in there, then cooked it up with onions and a bunch of other vegetables, it was actually super good, I loved it, but then they brought out the fateful dish, the 1000 year egg, it looks like a normal hard boiled egg, however the shell has a bunch of small spots all over it, then you take it out of the shell and the egg white is actually a dark brown color, as you cut the egg in half the Yolk is a dark green color, and they serve it with a lot of sauce and a block of tofu.  The result, well I thought it was pretty good haha.

Well that is pretty much it for the week, my new area is a place called Ling ya (苓雅) which is in Kaohsiung or Gaoxiong (高雄) right in the heart of the city, so it will be in total contrast to what I have gotten used to here. oh well, I'll send you some pictures of the big city next week!

Well that's about it, have a great week!!

2-23-2015

2-23-2015

Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 12:34:28 +0800
Subject: The Chinese New Year
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello Family!!

Well this week went by really quickly, but it was super tiring all at the same time so let me explain a little bit about what we did!

It really felt like the holiday started on Sunday as they passed around a small sheet for anyone that wanted to treat the missionaries to a New Years meal.  Naturally we were pleased that they were doing it and excited to be able to talk with a lot of members during the week.  After the list was passed around we take a look at it and... there was only one name on it.  Haha, but it was ok.

We then start the week on Tuesday where we decided that we wanted to head over to one of our secondary areas and do a little more missionary work there.  But as we walked out the door, we could just feel that there was something different about the whole city, the roads were a little more crowded and we could just tell that is was definitely a holiday season and what was usually a empty street quickly became a busy road and we had to work a little harder to be able to dodge all of the traffic that was going around.  But it was good fun because we realized that in Chinese new year people are constantly traveling to visit their grandparents and all of their relatives and its a big chance to be able to see your whole family!

Then on the following Wednesday the weirdest thing happened and they canceled the English class that we hold every Wednesday night because of the holiday, but that was OK with us because one of our investigators invited us to eat a dinner with her family, so we were able to introduce ourselves to them and it was a lot of fun.

The next day was when one of the members invited us to eat a lunch with them.  It was at a nice little seafood restaurant and we were able to eat the lunch with the members whole family on the fathers side, it was cool to be able to meet them, however I didn't really get to talk to them too much because anytime that we weren't saying anything they would switch to the other common language here called Taiwanese and I would get nothing out of it haha.  But the food was really good and I was able to stuff myself, afterwards we did a cool little spiritual share where you put a candle and water in a plate or bowl, light the candle then put a cup on top of it and watch as the water all gets sucked into the cup, but little example of faith and the power of God. haha

Then the next day we had another member treat us to another lunch, this time it was at the beach.  As we got there they already had a nice big fire burning on the sand and were starting to wrap up some sweet potatoes in newspaper, after the fire burned nice and big, they let it go out on its own, then threw the potatoes into the coals and buried the whole thing and waited for a little bit. During which we wasted no time is contacting anyone there that was not a member and were able to actually bring out a good message about Joseph Smith and receiving answers to prayers.  Then the potatoes were done and we had a nice little meal!

Finally the last big event of the week was another meal appointment with a less active's father.  As we got there the less active was there, with another less active, her mother, and her father.  We started talking and having a good time while eating some foods, when the father brought up that he had a desire to quit drinking and smoking.  So we shared a message about how through Christ we can be cleaned from addictions and made plans to help him quit it.  It was a pretty spiritual lesson and at the end of the week he was able to make it to church which as awesome!!

Well that's pretty much all for what we did this week, it was lots of fun and I'm pretty sure that I gained a few pounds from it, but thats just the life of a missionary I guess haha

Until next week!!

Love you all

Elder Heaton

2-16-2015

2-16-2015

Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2015 11:42:19 +0800
Subject: Rushing through the week
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello family!

Well this week went by really well.  We were able to see quite a few miracles this week as we were working on seeing different parts of our area and we had a great time.

The week started off with some exchanges and I got to head out to Kaohsiung and once again experience the big city.  It was pretty fun up there as I got to go with an Elder Bak who came on island with me so we had a lot of fun talking about the MTC and about just mission life in general.

After that on Wednesday my companion and I decided that we wanted to play a board game with our English class, so from Monday to Wednesday we had worked hard to be able to get the board game set up and prepared so that we could play it on Wednesday, making all of the cards and thinking of some random rules, then when the day came, I thought that the game might not take the full time and during our English classes I prepared a short activity before hand to help them understand the cards a little better, however I underestimated the time the game would take (it was a matching game) and in the end neither I nor my companion were able to play the board game... how sad haha, but we decided that we could play it in two weeks so that should be good =)

As most of you know, Chinese New Year is pretty much upon us, which to most Americans doesn't really mean anything, but here in Taiwan its a really big thing, where people get a ton of time off (anywhere from 4 days to 2 months) and they go around and see their families and eat a ton of food.  its quite the celebration, so during this time where there's tons of people traveling, we have a potential investigator that lives in one of our secondary areas, nearing the boarder of our area, so we decide to travel out there and to get a good sit down with him.  He decided that he didn't really want us to come to his house because he said his dog is really loud, so we head over to a nearby park, as we get there we look at the benches.. and they are covered in bird poo... so we are thinking where do we want to sit when a woman walks toward us and yells "hi elders!" we are a little shocked but start talking to her.  As it turns out she was a member from Taipei and was down here visiting for the New Years, when she sees that we are meeting with an investigator she invites us to her families home for us to have the lesson.  It was quite the experience, and just kind of made me laugh in the end because of how crazy it felt at the time.

Well to end the week we had a small branch activity where we went to a members to bake a chicken.  As we get there, we start helping the member prepare two fire pits with piles of dirt clumps in it, then we build really big fires to heat up the dirt clumps.  After the dirt is nice and hot, what they do is they put the chicken that they want to cook in a bag, put out the fire, then throw the bag of chicken into the coals and bury the whole thing... once again totally throwing me off, but it was a lot of fun and me and my companion reeked of smoke afterwards. 

Well that's pretty much my week.  Hope that you are all having a great week!!

Love you!

2-9-2015

2-9-2015

From: Eric Heaton <eric.heaton@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 2:32 AM
Subject: Ripping up the roads of Dong gang
To: Judy Heaton <judyhe@provo.edu>

Hello family!

This week went by really well.  Our focus this week was on our investigator that was planning to get baptized this week, and so we were working hard on keeping in touch with her throughout the week.  Other than that though we have just been trying to keep the area going strong and to be able to bring the most people unto Christ.

The week started off pretty well.  One of the biggest things that we have been trying to do lately is to be able to meet with every active member here in Dong gang, its been a fun little activity and I get to hear a ton of different conversion stories and how people got to know missionaries (it's mostly that they were contacted at a red light and they gave the missionary their number) But during it one of the members decided that she wanted us to be able to meet with her less active father, so we head over to there house and just start talking to them.  It was a fun experience however the father had been living in a different city for awhile, and just went to the nearest christian church and was totally smitten by it, so we were just going to start on square one with him, but we will have to see how that goes haha.

Later in the week me and my companion have been really working on our tracting, trying to do it every day and to be able to be as bold as possible while doing so.  I still am not much of a fan of it, but it some times works out pretty well,  however on Thursday night we were out tracting and ran into this lovely grandmother (in chinese you just call everybody that seems really old grandma or grandpa) and she invited us in.  After giving us a ton of fruit we discovered that she was christian and went to a nearby church, however there was one problem, she only spoke Taiwanese, so she was sitting there talking with us for a good long time and neither me or my companion had any idea what she was saying, int he end we just decided to ask to say a prayer with her, which she happily did, but she did it in Taiwanese and I still had no idea what just happened there, so we left, as very confused elders.

Finally to end the week me and my companion decided to make cookies for the baptism that we had planned for Sunday, and so at the end of the week or Saturday night we got some investigators and members together and taught them how to make some lovely American style cookies, we all had a good time and it came out pretty well.  However the sad thing was originally the cookies were for the baptism, but earlier that day we had learned that the sister that wanted to be baptized the next day couldn't because her husband was against it... sad day, but we can still go visit her and share the gospel with her, so we are working hard on making sure that her testimony is secure.

Well that's it for the week, sorry this e-mail was sent soo late, we went out to an island this week and decided to e-mail at the end of the day!

Love you all!! Have a great week!!