2-10-2014

2-10-2014

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 12:34:16 +0800
Subject: The waters of baptism.
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and Friends!!

This week has been going good, spending time to explore some of the further points of our area, as well as setting up things for next week. so far it has been a good week. so lets dive right in.

This week we were able to have a baptism with a really cool guy named Anderson Chen or as he is now known 陳弟兄who is just really cool.  He moved down here to 高雄 for work and to make money but his wife and two kids live back up in 台中 which is a little sad.  He also works really crazy hours, doing 14 hour shifts through the night, with a day off every 3 days.  Its really crazy and also really hard to set up with him and confirm him for church.  But this guy was so cool that after he worked a crazy 14 hour shift, through the night, he was still willing to come to church for the full 3 hours and stay awake for them as well... thats better than I can say for myself... cough cough

Well outside of that big news, the work here is going pretty much the same, we have been going around, trying to work with less actives, find some Melchizedek priesthood holders and bring them back to church... thinking of which I don't think I have told you all, but here in Taiwan they have some pretty cool things, one of them being right across the street from the chapel that I am currently meeting at, which is a big, empty lot, that happens to be owned by the church.  Right now there is nothing there but a fence around it and some signs that say that it is owned by the church, however at our last Zone Conference, they were emphasizing working with, and rescuing less active Melchizedek priesthood holders to try and establish more stakes here in Taiwan because if we manage to the number of stakes here in Taiwan up to about 5 more, then that would be enough to apply for another Temple here in Taiwan, to be established on that big empty lot that is right across the street from the stake center.  Cool right?

Well that got a little off topic, but I guess last of all I will share a little bit of a funny story. So me and my companion were going out to one of the further points in our area to meet with a less active there that we had set up with, and on our way there was this dog that kind of jumped out at me and just kind of lazily started barking at me.  So I stopped and said hi to the dog, and eventually the owner came out and we started talking.  So eventually she told us that she was just about to give the dog and 4 others (she owned 5 dogs) a bath, and jokingly said "do you want to help?" and we just jumped on it, and before she had time to tell us no, we took off our ties, our shoes and socks and were ready to give those dogs a bath.  They thought it was so funny and we had a fun time, it was really fun. So you can know that I'm doing good our here, one dog at a time.

Well that's just about it for this week, I hope everyone had a good week and that this one will be even better. 我知道這個教會是真實的，也有幫助我很多！我希望你們都也會知道。這是我的見證奉耶穌基督的命阿門！

加油

下個禮拜見！

Elder Heaton

何長老

2-3-2014

2-3-2014

Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 11:59:24 +0800
Subject: 新年快樂。恭喜發財。紅包拿來
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family!

Things are going good here in the 東高雄圓山支會 doing the work and trying to work around peoples schedule here, which gets kind of interesting.  So lets dive right in.

So this week was the start of Chinese New Year or 過年 (Guo Nian), which if any of you care is the year of the horse, and so because of that a TON of the members here, as well as investigators and just people in general are all out visiting family in other parts of Taiwan leaving the ward actually fairly empty.  And also because of that this last Sunday meeting they cut down to only have sacrament meeting and they had our ward mix with 2 other wards to make sure we had enough people so spend our time.  It was kind of an interesting experience.

Also if any of you are wondering about the subject line, it says "xin nian kuai le" which is happy new year! "Gong xi fa cai" congratulations and prosperity "hong bao na lai" may I have a red envelope. This is kind of a traditional new year saying, which I think kids would want to say to their elders which afterwards they elder person would usually give them a little red envelope with a little money in it.  Kind of a cool tradition. 

Also as part of Chinese New Year it seems like almost a tradition for the members to treat or just invite the Missionaries over to their house for a BIG meal, which is super nice of them, and they usually have some really good food there, as well as some extended family that are non members that we would do a small spiritual share with them.  Really fun.  Also an interesting thing about the culture here, if you are invited over to eat at someones house, its usually polite to bring a small gift or a card to show your appreciation, and one of the most common gifts to bring is actually a pineapple, and here's why.  So in Chinese pineapple is "Feng Li" I think, which when you say it in Taiwanese sounds different, but in Taiwanese it also sounds like a word that means good luck and prosperity, so by giving people a pineapple its kind of like wishing them luck and prosperity, cool little fact.

Well other than that, there hasn't really been much that has happened, lessons are a little harder to set up because of 過年 so we have just been trying to make due with what we have.  Another tradition people have is during 過年 they actually do a deep cleaning of the whole house similar to spring cleaning back at home, and so sometimes we offer to help them do the cleaning, and sometime people accept our help, so I have had the chance to help clean some peoples houses for them, its been pretty cool.

Well thats about it for this week, its been a rather slow one, but good things have happened and we are working to build a good amount of lesson after all of this new year stuff blows over.

Hope you all are having a good 過年 and that this year goes good for you all!

Until next week

Elder Heaton

何長老

1-27-2014

1-27-2014

Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:52:08 +0800
Subject: Life in Gaoxiong
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the Family and the Friends and the other, whoever that might be =)

This week has been exciting, getting to know the new area, finding out who all the people are, what the different culture here is and all the phases of missionary work, so lets begin.

First off I would like to introduce my new companion, as I said last week, his name is Elder Wootan, he is from Utah but also lived in China for about 5 years going to an international school, but while he was there he didn't really learn a ton of Chinese.  He has be out on his mission for 8 months now, which is about 2 move calls longer than I have and he just barely went senior companion.  The most interesting thing is though, he actually arrived in this area about 3 weeks ago on whats called a "mini move call" which just means either someone from the MTC was on the fast track and came here early, somebody who got an extension went home in the middle of the move call or something like that, but either way, we are both working together to try to figure out the area.  It has been really interesting working with him and seeing his teaching style.  and its been fun learning about the new culture here.

Now a little bit about Gaoxiong.  So in Taiwan I feel like theres 3-4 really BIG name citys here, the most commonly known one is Taipei or 台北 if your speaking Chinese, the second biggest one is Kaohsiung or 高雄 in Chinese. Which I think are the two biggest city's in 台灣.  then after that theres Taichung 台中 which is my mission's name and where the mission office and mission headquarters is then maybe 台南 or Tainan which is a little smaller than all the rest.  But 高雄 is super different compared to Huwei 虎尾 because Huwei was just a little city that nobody had ever really heard about, with very few people there, and so if you were waiting at a red light, a lot of the time there would be no body to talk to.  But here in 高雄 there are SOOO many people here, usually at every light theres a good line of cars as well as a good 10 or 20 motorcycles or scooters just waiting, so you can just go up to any one of them and just start the contact.

So that's just the biggest differences that I have noticed while working here. so you can take it as you will.  but now I will move onto food as this week I went to another buffet, the same kind, a hotpot buffet where you just put the meat in the pot and boil it until it is good.  The interesting thing is the one that we went to this time, (by we I mean me, my companion, two other elders that share the same area as us, and a member named Brother Chen) one of the broths that you could choose from was a Milk broth.  I though it sounded really good and so did another person and Brother Chen.  But then the funny thing happened while we were eating, somebody though... "you know its kinda ironic boiling beef in milk" and we all had a good laugh out of it. so that was fun

Well thats just about it, I'm still working on figuring out who our investigators are right now, as well as what the best way to do the work here is.  hopefully I will have more for you all next week.  But until then know that I love you all and to have a good week!

From Elder Heaton

何長老

1-20-2014

1-20-2014

Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 17:22:38 +0800
Subject: Off to Gaoxiong!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and friends

So I don't really have much time to write a big e-mail let alone everyone individually but I just want to send a quick one off and just let you all know that I'm still alive and kicking.

So yesterday was movecall for me and I have moved on from the humble beginnings of Huwei to the big busy city of Gaoxiong.  I haven't really had a chance to explore here yet as I didn't really see my new home till about 4:30 and we had to go out and buy some food to last the week but it seems good.  I'm super sad to be leaving Huwei, its weird to think that I was there for a whole 6 months before moving out, but now I am here and ready to start the next phase of my mission.

So Most important, my new area is called Yuan Shan, which is in the west part of Kaohsiung, or with more proper spelling, Gaoxiong.  It is a lot smaller then my last area but still a good size, the streets here are a lot bigger and I don't really have much more to say about it.

Last week went well, I spent the last part of the week especially Sunday saying goodbye to all the new friends I have made and exchanging information with them, so I hope that a certain somebody (cough cough emma cough) is still doing a good job managing the people who decide to add me on facebook =)

Other than that though things are looking good, life is doing well, I was pretty sad to leave my last companion Elder Stratford as we were just having a blast last movecall, but my new companion, Elder Wootan, is a good replacement for him, so things should be going well.  I'm happy, excited to be here in Kaohsiung and excited to see what its like in a more developed area.

Love you all, see you next week, with hopefully a longer e-mail!

Elder Heaton

 何長老

No longer the Hope of Huwei, new nickname soon to come =)

Bye!!

1-13-2014

1-13-2014

Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:12:54 +0800
Subject: Time Flies on the Wings of Lightening
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

HELLO Family and friends!!

This week has been a fun on full of lots of adventures as well as meeting lots of fun people.  But before all of that I think I just need to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!!! another year of things learned, another year of having fun and another year to just be cool =) Hope that you have a happy one!

So this week here has been good, although I had a real shocker occur to me this week, so when I first got here to Huwei I was contacting with Elder Raley and we were noticing a lot of people on the streets, and we asked some people about it and they said that the semester has just started or was going to start so all the students were moving back to start school, and now everyone is preparing for their finals and winter vacation, which lasts for a month here, and they wont be back till march, and then I realized that I have been here in Huwei for an entire school semester, I have been here proselyting from the time that most of these students came here until the time that they are leaving to go back to their home town... kinda weird.  However I feel as if my time here in Huwei is just about up as the next move call is next week and I might be in a new area at that time... weird.

So theres a little bit of a funny story on the food this week.  As we were with one of the members here, a really cool guy who goes by the name of Tobias, he was telling us about a huge activity that would have over 200 people attending, and that he as well as "The Missionaries" would all have a part in it, and he was asking us if we knew anything about it, well we had no idea and started to make some calls about it, and as it turns out they were having a planning meeting this Sunday about what they were doing and what they wanted us to do.  So we went to that and had some fun talking about things to do with all the people that would be there, and afterwards they fed us dinner.  So they bring up some food and lay it out, then ask some people to go down to the kitchen and help out with the last bit of it, so some people go down and the ones who stayed up ate, and the food was REALLY REALLY SPICY!!  It was rice, tofu and blood rice, with some really spicy sauce and it tasted pretty good but it was just so hot, but there were a bunch of hungry people and even though most people complained about it, they ate it all.  and afterwards the people who came up were all talking about how they wanted to eat the spicy food and they were bringing up the mild stuff.  but there was no spicy food left... Kinda funny

Outside of that though most of our efforts have really been trying to work with the less actives here in the ward, theres a lot of really cool people who have a lot of potential to come back and I would love to see them coming to church, but it is a slow process as most of them work on Sundays or just don't think of coming to church when Sunday rolls around.  Kind of sad, but we are trying our best and hopefully they will be willing to do the rest.

Well that's about it, things are going well, Huwei is still awesome and the people are still fun, if I move next week I'll let you all know!

Love you!

Elder Heaton

何長老

1-6-2014

Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 11:58:35 +0800
Subject: I'm out of random subject lines... ><> normal fish }{} fancy fish
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and friends!

This week has been a really good one.  We have had the chance to visit more of our secondary areas and to learn more about our ward, our investigators, the less actives and just have fun.

So this week I think an interesting thing that I have eaten I actually ate this morning, which was just Red Bean Soup.  Now I think I mentioned this already but in the Asia countries people think of beans as a really sweet food, and people will commonly put beans on ice cream, on shaved ice, and just on other things that are normally thought of as being sweet.  Also another big thing is that the moment things start getting cold outside, everywhere starts taking the things that were normally put in the fridge, like a can of chocolate milk, or maybe winter melon tea, and instead they will put it in a little heater box, so you can buy warm versions of the drinks that you like whenever you want.  Now one think that I like it eat here is actually their shaved ice, because they don't do it like a snow cone, but rather they will add some random, usually chewy stuff, maybe some pudding like stuff, maybe beans, put shaved ice on top of it and serve it to you, its delicious, but now that its pretty much winter, they have changed the thing that they serve here to a soup, which they will add all the same stuff, but its more like a hot, sweet, soup rather than a bowl of shaved ice.  Also really good, but we decided that we wanted to make it rather than just buy it from the store, so we went out and bought a bag full of red beans, and after we got home it turns out that it takes about 3 hours to make them... so we made them this morning, and their really good, but you have to add a TON of sugar and maybe a little bit of honey to make it sweet, otherwise its just beans.  =)

Last week our mission presidents counselor, a president Chen visited with the Douliu and Huwei area's and the first thing that he told us was that we should spend more time visiting our secondary areas and work with more people out there, so we did, and I think this week alone we have easily clocked over 100 miles on our little bikes =O really crazy, but it was fun, we were able to meet with a couple of really cool people including a Brother Dai who has been less active for awhile, his wife is a non member, but she and their son likes America and also speak good English so they sat in on the lesson, it was actually really cool.

Well that's just about all that has happened this week, it has really been a rather slow week, but things are picking up and hopefully we will be able to have a lot to report next week.  But until then know that I know what I'm doing is good, its helping those people who are willing to listen and it has really been a great experience in general to come here and see what these people are like.

Love you all, and see you next week!

Keep Smiling!

Elder Heaton

何長老

12-30-2013

12-30-2013

Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2013 11:59:02 +0800
Subject: Hi!!!
From: eric.heaton@myldsmail.net
To: heatonjudy@hotmail.com

Hello the family and friends!!

This week has been an interesting one full of contemplation, as well and just having fun with our investigators and members as we try to figure out the best way to do the work here is. So lets begin.

First off is I just need to say it was great to be able to see the family this week and to be able to just kinda see that everybody is still there, there still alive and no matter how far away I am they will still be waiting for me when I get home.  It was also just fun to be able to speak English with someone who is not a missionary for a change... Its definitely an interesting thing to think about, and I was talking with my companion about it as we were biking down the road, but just speaking our native language here is almost like speaking in code, because most people wont be able to understand what we are talking about when we speak English and no body really uses it here except to try to communicate with the random foreigners that pop up every now and again.

Beyond that things are going good this week I let it slip that my birthday was on Wednesday and so a bunch of people got together (mainly the missionaries I think) and all pitched in to buy a little birthday cake, which was really nice, but because they gave it to me at church I figured it would be better to save it for DTM which is on Tuesday to eat it because there would be a little less people there =P but it was happy and I'm excited to eat that.  Other foods that I ate this week was actually a... as a Taiwanese person learning English calls it "A traditional Taiwanese wedding cake" which is actually a little odd.  So I think the definition of sweet in Taiwan is a little different than sweet in America, because this cake has I think about 13 layers, and I think one of the layers is actually just plain meat, but it also has a lot of sweetness in it and it just turns out to be a really interesting flavor. but that's the most interesting thing that I ate this week.

Lets see, this week was a little slow on the lessons but we have been spending a little more time working on trying to figure out what it is the ward has in plan for this ward, as well as what our part of that is, trying to see how the ward want's us to use our time, and to follow them.  I think the biggest thing is that they want us to work with as many less active elders as we possibly can so that we can get the accomplishment of having this ward and others turn into a stake! so that's the big excitement right now.

Well thats about all that I have for you all.  The work moves forward, the people are nice, The weather is a little cold but I think its getting warmer, and I'm nice and happy.

Until next week!

Elder Heaton

何長老