Earthquakes and Applesauce

First of all, to all of those that told me Taiwan was warm (Marissa, Kelsi, and Bryant) you are liars. The past two days have literally been freezing and it has been snowing up in Nantou. We were fortunate enough to ride our bikes all they way to church yesterday... in the rain (nearly snow) and super bad wind. Soooo fun! We have had to buy winter gloves and wear extra socks and borrow jackets so we can stay warm. One of our LA's loaned me his sweet Cabela's jacket. And yes mom, it's  camo. I'll send pics later. In a nutshell, it feels like Utah out here!! 

So this week we all got to watch the worldwide broadcast on missionary work and it was pretty cool! As lots of you probably already know, the title was Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts. It's just so nice to have the general authorities talk to us and give us all advice. We already knew most of the stuff but it was just nice to have a refresher. I loved it because Elder Andersen, I think, told us that when we don't know what to say or forget what we wanted to say to just testify of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lots of times out on the street when you are contacting someone your mind goes blank or they say some dumb response that you don't know how to respond to, that has happened to me all the time. But it really hit me that when that happens, just testify. That is the best way to invite the Spirit in. 

This week our investigator Tony came back from the military for a little bit! And guess what?? He accepted a baptismal goal!!! Right now he is set for the 27th of February. Sadly, I think I will have moved by then, but hopefully I will be in the area so I can come! He does have concerns though. His family will not like him getting baptized because they are Daoist and such and he also loves to drink tea. I really hope we can help him out with these problems and if you all have extra time please pray for Tony!!

On Saturday we had a really cool lesson. His name is James and he was a referral from the Zone Leaders in Daya! He is practically a Kiwi! He lived in Christchurch, New Zealand for like 10 years and his english is perfect! So we taught him in english and it felt so weird but it was nice to hear that good ol' Kiwi accent that I miss. He really is super prepared. He told us that he has been searching to know the truth and he has lots of Christian friends that have been trying to help him on the way but he just doesn't know what is true. He's totally gonna get baptized if he just tries out our gospel. He is so awesome!!!

Oh yeah and on Tuesday we were sitting in our apartment doing our studies like good missionaries and then all the sudden I realize  I am moving. At first I thought I was going to pass out or something and then I looked at Elder Sims too and he had a super confused look on his face. We just sat there kind of rocking back and forth for a little bit and then it stopped. Soooo my first earthquake!! Yeah! It was really fun! Now I just need to hit my first typhoon! 

I can't really think what else happened this week...  but it was just an all around good week. We are so close to catching fire. I can feel it!! It's like on NBA Jam when you hit two shots in a row and you need one more to be on fire. Yeah, that is where we are at right now! I'm super excited for this week too! You all keep being great and don't lose the faith!

Love you all!!

Love, 

Elder Anderson

Miles had to borrow gloves and a jacket from a member. We can hardly see him in the photo because he blends in ;)

January is flying!

Oh man what a week! On Tuesday we were able to do interview with President and Sister Blickenstaff. It's such a refresher. It's just nice to sit down and talk with them about the work. Sister Blickenstaff talked to me about our new president. Oh yeah he is Elder Teh from the first quorum of the seventy. She asked why I think God called him as our new president. I didn't know. She said she thinks it is to hasten the work here in preparation of China opening up! Super cool! I'm excited to see what new things he will bring to our mission.

So I don't have tons of time but yesterday I had to give a talk in Sacrament so that was really scary. My topic was missionary work so that was pretty easy, but it was still super scary! 

The best part of the week was on Wednesday and Thursday! We got to go on exchanges with the Assistants!! Super fun!! It was exactly what we needed. I went into Beiqu with Elder Kujinpaa (try saying that) while Elder Sims stayed in Tanzi with Elder Bringhurst. We both saw tons of miracles!!! In Beiqu, we didn't really have much planned out for lessons so we practically spent the whole day contacting! Super 辛苦 but totally worth it. The Lord definitely blessed us because we got so many numbers! And there were a few really really cool contacts! There was a time when we got three numbers in a row from three different dudes that were on their smoking break. So I learned to contact dudes that are smoking more because it seems to work! And if they don't set up, we at least helped them smoke one less cigarette! 

But my favorite was we stopped and talked to this girl who was at a cross walk and we went through the contacting routine and she said she was Buddhist and didn't really have interest. We just bore testimony about our message and she looked at Elder Kujinpaa's pocket and saw the tract that said, "What relation does Jesus Christ have with me?" and she pointed at it and said, "Wait, I have interest in that! I want to know more about that!" Oh man it was soooo cool!!! I really hope she gets baptized. 

Another thing cool was when we first get here on island we do our Dan Jones. Do you all remember? We stand on a box and yell out our testimony in the middle of a night market and then go out and try to find someone. I gave this one guy a Book of Mormon and he said he is interested so I got his number and such and that was the last I had heard about him. Elder Kujinpaa told me that he remembered that and apparently the guy lives out on an island call Jin Men. It's super far out and really really close to China. There is a branch out there with two families in it and no missionaries. But Elder Kujinpaa said that they are in charge of teaching people out there over skype! And the guy wants to meet with them but not until after Chinese New Year's so I thought that was super cool to find out. Then that night we got fed by a member and that was super good. 

Other than that, it has been raining a ton! Like is has been dumping rain and today is actually sunny so that rocks! We finally got a lock on our apartment door so that is nice! This week most of our time was spent contacting people. We have definitely learned that when you talk with everyone that you can, the Lord blesses you and you find success.

I love you all so much and keep enjoying that snow and cold weather and don't send any of it over here!

Love

Elder Anderson

Aaaannddd I am officially Asian! They all wear these masks here and it's super weird, but we got a free one in the mail from one of the ladies running for President. go team

Elder Sims used to be a model. Can't you tell? #selfieeveryday

Rain

What a week! Me and Elder Sims have been working our tails off to get this area back into its former self. We have been doing tons of calls and contacting and just about everything that we can think of to find people. Through our hard work, we were able to see a few miracles and they were all awesome!

So one of them was when we were riding our bikes to a members house. I thought I turned onto the right road... but I didn't. So as I was riding I decided it was the wrong road and instantly stopped. Next thing i knew this car pulled out from a side street and it totally would have nailed me and probably hurt pretty bad, but more importantly it would have hurt my bike! And we definitely do not want that! But let me tell you, that I know the Lord protects His missionaries. The Spirit helps us know how to be safe. 

The next miracle is we were sitting at a 7 doing some calls and no one was answering and no one was setting up. So we called through the APR to invite people to the baptism on Saturday (the sisters had a baptism and I'll talk about it later) and we called one of our LA's to invite him. He said that he would come and then he said to come to his house right now because he wants us to teach his friend! So we went over and the guy didn't have too much interest but he said we could meet again! It is such a blessing that through our hard efforts and faith that we were able to have that experience.

The next one was we showed up to Sacrament meeting and we had 3 LA's  there at church! We didn't even call any of them to remind them about church, they were already there! One of them is super close to getting rescued. We just have to work on some WOW issues.. but that was just a super awesome miracle for me and Elder Sims

On Saturday the sisters were able to get a baptism! yay!! It has been really cool to see the progression of their investigator. Her husband is a member but he is LA and also has WOW issues so we gotta work with them on that so they can get sealed!!! So the baptism was awesome! Her testimony was so strong! I had the opportunity to baptize her and that was really cool. BUT the sisters forgot to turn the water heater on.. soooo it was basically a baptism in Bear Lake! Super cold!! But still awesome. And then us missionaries had to sing Come Thou Fount. We practiced it for about 20 minutes the day before, but it went really well. It's a good thing the spirit was there.

This week was super awesome and I am really excited about this up coming week! We have lots of potentials set up and it will be a super fun week!!!

I love you all a ton!!!

Love

Elder Anderson

ps here is something cool: I ate some stingray this week and it was really good. So there's that

Oh and it has been raining a ton and it is currently pouring so we love that

 Miles in the rain (the camera shot makes him look very dwarfish)

Miles drinking his chocolate fancy milk at StarBucks

Happy New Year!

Well take off the training wheels Mama because I am a big boy now!! 

That's right, I finished training today and I feel the same haha. Elder Fleming is now in Tainan and my new companion is Elder Sims!! He is such a beast. He is 24 years old and from Arizona. He actually owns his own company called Ch Ch Check It so that is awesome! He loves music and video games so we are getting along just great! 

So this week we were finally able to meet with one of our investigators 邱弟兄 He has come to church like 4 times already but we have only been able to meet with him once. We shared the Plan of Salvation with him and he said it sounds so awesome but he thinks it is all a legend. He thinks all religion is just legends.. It was really sad to see because the Plan of Salvation could bless his life so much! But he doesn't believe it is true. And then to top things off, he is moving today down to Tainan so we lost another investigator...

I am really excited for this transfer though. Me and Elder Sims have some awesome plans to find, teach and baptize. We have one investigator right now but he is not progressing in the slightest.. but we are so fortunate to have tons of LA's that we get to work with. We even got two at church yesterday! It was so great to see them there. One of them hasn't come in forever and we really hope to change that. There are so many LA's here in Taiwan. I think our ward has about 300 or so. It's so sad to see all these people that entered into the covenant of baptism but decided to forget everything. I don't get it. 

Yesterday it rained all day. Classic. We had dinner at a members house and it was just pouring and pouring and pouring all the way there. We show up and one of the members was like, "Are you wet?" so naturally I responded, "What do you think?" Then he laughed and we ate dinner and talked about the ward mission plan. They gave us so much food and Elder Sims couldn't even finish all the food that they gave him. It was so awesome to get to talk about how the work is going in the ward. They all love missionary work and they are trying so hard to get things going. We got so much advice and it is going to help so much. I am so excited to get the work rolling here. It's going to be awesome.

Welp, we don't have tons of time but since it is the new year... make sure that this year is just awesome. Make some goals to become a better person and make a plan to draw closer to our Lord. 

Make 2016 awesome. 

You all are so amazing and you all helped get me to where I am today. 

Love you all!!!

Love 
Elder Miles Anderson

This is us after we were soaked