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!!