10-7-2013

10-7-2013

Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2013 16:19:31 +0800
Subject: A week of... things
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello Everybody

I realize that this e-mail is a little late and... I dont know what else but beyond that lets just get onto the things that happened this week... it wasn't really that much.

So as far as weeks go this one has probably been one of the more bland ones, where nothing really spectacular happened.  We talked to some people, we learned from some people, we stayed busy and we went places.  But we didn't really eat any interesting food, so if that was your favorite part... well sorry =/

So this week we had ZTM or Zone Training Meeting, where we went, got together as a zone and were trained... it was fun, but the biggest thing that happened there was the fact that President Blickenstaff decided that he wanted to implement some mission standards.  Which are just weekly numbers that you are encouraged to strive to reach.  The way that they presented them I really liked because they had been doing a lot of research on the numbers that a person needed to be able to get a baptism each month, and from that data they boiled it down to what you need to be able to reach each week in order to mathematically get a baptism each month.  So I liked it and I think it really gives you a bar that you can strive to reach.

Beyond that though I had the opportunity to once again go on exchanges.  Now the funny thing is, Elder Raley has really been shooting for me to lead the Huwei area for awhile now and I still chickened out of this one as well.  But it seems like every time we have transfers, something really fun is happening back in my area (ward bowling activity, BBQ's, cooking activity ect.) so this next time I will probably be leading the area myself, but I am totally lost when I am here and don't really know how to get around yet so we will have to see how that goes.

Also this Sunday President Blickenstaff actually came down to Huwei for a meeting with the ward counsel, and beforehand everyone thought that they were going to be talking about how they have been thinking of closing down the Huwei chapel lately and people have been worried about that, and so everyone thought that we were going to talk about that, but in the meeting all we talked about was how to best rescue the less actives that are in the ward.  It was kinda interesting but not what people were expecting for the meeting.

Now as for the reason that I am e-mailing so late, its that for this P-day we with the Douliu elders, went out to an amusement park called "Fancy World" which was kinda fun, we were able to ride a couple of rollercoasters and do some really fun stuff there.  It was really interesting being in an amusement park where everything was in Chinese, and so we all (except for the two natives that were with us) didn't totally understand everything that was going on, but it was a blast and we all had a good time.  They have 2 roller coasters there, one is really short but is just a straight down drop for a part of it, while the other one is a more traditional roller coaster.  so that was cool, I'll include a couple of pictures of that =)

Well that's really all that has happened this week.  Thank you for all the prayers and support that you all have given me, I hope that you are all able to be happy and enjoy your time wherever you might be at the moment.  But as for me and the awesome place of Taiwan.  We are doing GREAT!

Until next week.

Elder Heaton

何長老