Moving! Returning to Tao Yuan

hey everyone! This week we had transfers and… I have a new companion Elder Johnson. I served around him for 2 transfers in my last area so I was pretty happy to hear that I was going to be with him. He is from Boulder City Nevada a city around Las Vegas. I am excited for this transfer. Elder Kaufusi moved to Ji Long a place in Taipei for the last transfer of his mission. Time is really flying by!

Todays email will be a little short I wish I had more time to type sorry! I loved watching general conference this weekend and I was motivated and inspired by all of the messages especially from President Nelson. It was a special opportunity to be able to sustain him and look forward to all the good that he will do in his ministry. It is a huge blessing that we have prophets and revelation from God right now. Just like President Nelson said God is really willing to give us guidance and reveal his will to us we just have to take the action.

Elder Carlson

Baptisms & Translating- Happy Easter

One day last September while I was in Tou Fen we went to the park to go bubble finding.(Pretty much we make these huge bubbles with a contraption that our ward mission leader put together and all the kids want to come and play so we can talk to the parents). There were two kids a brother and a sister who were playing with the bubbles forever and we couldn’t figure out were their parents were so we kinda just let them play then when they left gave them an English Tract flyer and told them to give it to their parents. This week their Dad Chris Xu was baptised! I got permission to back for the baptism and had the chance to baptize Chris. It was a very special day and really spiritual experience. He was so happy and excited to start his new journey.

Chris Baptism

That same day Jed our investigator from the Philippines was baptised as well. He brought all of his friends and girlfriend to attend. He was literally so happy and excited when he came out of the water! He has such a strong testimony because the gospel changed his life. He quit smoking and drinking something he has been wanting to so for a long time.

Jed and friends

Jed’s Baptism

On Sunday two families stationed in Japan for military work currently in Taiwan vacationing came to our ward for Sacrament Meeting. One of the husbands was from West Bountiful. Between the two families there were probably like 8 kids. All the kids went up and bore their testimonies it was awesome haha! The ward told us to translate for them but no one could find the translating machine so we just ended up awkwardly sitting behind them moving back and forth on the bench giving them bits and pieces of the meeting. There was no way to translate for all of them at the same time because we didn’t have the equipment. One of the moms went up to bear her testimony and I got to translate for the ward. It was cool defiantly a unique experience haha!

On Thursday we went to our ward mission leader house to have coordination meeting. He is preparing to open up a restaurant in the front of his house so there were a bunch of  un-assembled tables there. We asked if we could help him put them together. As we were working he brought out a plate of chicken nuggets and onion rings with some watermelon tea (the best beverage on earth!) for us to eat for dinner. We got pretty good as putting those things together haha! Right after that we realized we had a dinner appointment as a member’s house.  We invited our investigator to go there and we had a lesson after. Going into dinner I was already stuffed and I knew I was not going to get out of there without eating a lot of food. I was stuffed to the brim. On a mission some times there are those days when you get 2 dinners on accident.

Moving Tables

 I love being a missionary here in Taiwan! Last night we were at a new member fireside and a senior missionary couple who is going home soon was giving a talk. It made me sad thinking about leaving Taiwan. It really is such a special place and I am so grateful to have had this experience to serve my savior Jesus Christ as well as the people of Taiwan. I still have 12 weeks left so I am definitely going to make the most of it!

Elder Carlson

Golfing Adventures!

Last P day we went golfing! It was my first time in a year. It took awhile but I got swinging kind of decently haha. It was a fun p day and good start for the rest of the week.

 

This week was full of a lot of good stuff!  The two biggest highlights were definitely Chris an investigator from Tou Fen and Jed both passed their baptismal interviews. Chris is in the morning and Jed is at night so I can go to both!

 

Ran into Andy this week, who got baptized a few weeks after I left Long Tan

We held a Zone Meeting on Tuesday and did some training on finding skills. We assigned various companionship in the zone a certain thing to train on so a lot of people were involved. It went really well!

“Finding” at the Park- kids love giant bubble makers & some random guy who picked me up- he was jealous of my bubble maker getting so much attention

This week during my studies I realized the impact that faith can have on our lives. Reading about Nephi and his brothers you can clearly see a huge difference in the outcomes of their lives. Nephi chose to have faith and that led him to receive more of the blessings God had prepared for him. In life everyday we can choose to have faith and that faith can influence our decisions and actions.

I apologize for the short email this week. I need to do better haha! Have a good week everyone!

Elder Carlson

Crazy Week in Taiwan!

This week was crazy! I am loving this new area haha! So many good things happened this week so I will just get straight in to it because I don’t have a ton of time.

 

Found a Dragon!!

Tuesday we had zone conference at the Zhu Bei chapel! President and Sister Jergensen gave a ton of good training. President posed a question to the mission “What would it take to baptize 1 convert per month per companionship?”. He said if we were going to meet this goal we could only answer with the phrase “Yes of…” not “No because…”. It was a huge eye opener for me! If you want to be successful with anything in life you have to use that kind of attitude while making plans. I am super excited to work for this goal in the final months of my mission.

Right after the conclusion of zone conference I did something I never thought that I would get the chance to do! I went on exchanges back to my first area long tan! It was so awesome even though we were only there for a night and then left in the morning I had such a good time being there. I saw a few old friends at the chapel including Brother He a guy that me and my trainer taught. He is doing awesome. I we also went to visit Tina and Charlie two other RCs. We tried to see if the missionaries there could start teaching her husband and daughter as well. Great exchange that sure brought back a lot of memories!

Exchanges in Long Tan-  Tina & daughter on left and Long Tan Bishop on right

I got a call from my last area Tou Fen this week. Chris on of the investigators back there that we met when Elder Hogge and I were together is getting baptized! He has his interview this week and I am so excited to hopefully get to go back in 2 weeks to see his baptism.

We met with our investigator Jed this week and shared tithing! He accepted it so well and we were so happy! He is sharing the gospel with all of his room mates and he called us this week and said his girl friend wants to be baptized! He has an interview this Saturday. Pray for him.

This week I have really seen the blessings of sincere Book of Mormon study in my life and the lives of my investigators. All of the investigators who we have right now who read the Book of Mormon daily and are learning from it are seriously progressing so well. I also realized that there were a few days this week I didn’t read from the book of mormon with much focus or effort or even on days like zone conference forgot to block out a time to read. I felt a big difference and then realized that it came because I was not studying the scriptures like I should have. The Book of Mormon is true!

Have a good week! Love you all!

Ido!

Hello everyone! This week was great here in Tao Yuan. I am loving this area and being able to serve with Elder Kaufusi. This transfer is already half way over and it has been or fun.This week I got the opportunity to translate for an investigator from Africa in sacrament meeting. I though my days of translating where over after I left Tou Fen. There where a lot of Filipino people there so we had to do it every week. I have never come so close to malfunctioning in my life than when I have to translate. I feel like a computer. Because people talk so fast and I can’t keep up because they never pause. It’s good practice though I guess haha!

This week I also got to go on some awesome exchanges. One with Elder Cheney who is from my MTC district. It was our second time exchanging together. When I was in Tao Dong I also got to go with him. We both share a love for golf which makes it easy to get along. We found a cool high school student who just walked up to us and asked us if we were the Mormons. We affirmed that we were and asked if he knew why we were called the Mormons. He didn’t know so we shared about the Book of Mormon and he set up for Thursday. Then on my next exchange with Elder Nader who went to Woods Cross High we met with him and it went great! He came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it. He has already read to 1 Nephi 5. That is one cool miracle from this week.

 

Elder Cheney and me

We also went on exchanges with the AP this week. It was surreal doing missionary work in Central Taipei right by the temple. I went with Elder Walters who is from Las Vegas. We taught a few lessons and prepared a bunch of stuff for a musical devotional thing that the mission is putting on soon.

For work outs this week me and Elder Kaufusi have been going to the chapel. It has 4 floors with a basketball court on the top. We do jump rope and stuff then take these really heavy bags of rice that a member gave us and run them up and down the stairs. It’s pretty fun! Other than that we go and play frisbee with the missionaries here. For like 3/4 of my mission I have been far away from other missionaries so it’s fun to do exercise with everyone in the mornings.

 

My Comp is buff!!

Ido our Japanese investigator finished the Book of Mormon this week! He also came to church in a really nice suit. He is probably the most unique and strangely prepared investigator I have taught on my mission. Who would have thought that a Japanese man who doesn’t speak Chinese of English in his mind 70s would be willing to meet with us. Anyways he made a lot of progress this week and is now preparing for baptism. All of our other investigators are doing great as well. Brother Jed from the Philippines came to church as well as brother Lai.

This week I have been thinking a lot about how I can become a better teacher. While we where watching a world-wide missionary broadcast from 2016 in preparation for zone conference this week Elder Oaks said something that really struck me. I don’t have the exact quote but he said something to the effect of that we need to carefully craft our message for people all around he world who all have different cultural and religious back grounds. In this area I have learned that because some Taiwanese people don’t have a lot of concept of God or Jesus Christ sometimes it is good to first teach them simply about God and his son Jesus Christ. Once they appreciate that then sharing the message of the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith is so much more meaningful.

BBQ with our district

That’s all for this week. Love you all!

Elder Carlson

I Am A Movie Star!!

Hello! Another week here in Taiwan! It was good and exhausting haha! We we pretty busy and seemed like we never had time to get everything done. I passed out when my head hit the pillow every night.

Monday we played board games at the chapel it was fun. There are like 5 missionaries from my same generation (came on island the same time as me) in this zone. It is a blast to be around all these missionaries I haven’t seen since the mtc.

I went on exchanges with Elder Yeh from Texas and Elder Huang from Tai Zhong Taiwan. We got to teach some lessons and find some people too. When I was with Elder Huang we met with this new investigator who lived in North Carolina for 30ish years. His English was perfect. We share Book of Mormon scriptures with people on the street a lot. I like talking to people then applying the gospel to people’s lives using the Book of Mormon. We met a guy who said his favorite part of his job was that he got to help people, so we shared Mosiah 2:17 with him and talked about service and how the Book of Mormon teaches us other things that can bless our lives and bring more happiness.

 

On Thursday we met with all district leaders in the zone to talk about how we can become a better finding zone. Then on Friday we went to mission leader ship conference. Me and Elder Kaufusi are really excited about all the stuff we learned. We think it will help the mission a lot. That was a tiring day. One of the councilors in the stake presidency fed us and the sisters in our ward at night because it was the last day of the Chinese New Year. He also drove us to and from Taipei. The ward here is so good! So willing to help missionaries.

On Tuesday morning we went down to Taipei to film a church safety video. We went to the Chang Kai shek memorial and filmed. There where some guys from the church film department there and they told us what to do. I got filmed walking up some stairs holding a camera for like 5 seconds.

 

This week we found some people to translate for Ido our Japanese investigator. He has read to Alma already in the Book of Mormon. I am convinced he is prepared or else he wouldn’t keep coming to church where he can’t understand anything except for us using our phone to translate. Once we got a translator he was able to understand a lot more and we made a lot of progress. We are meeting with him again today and have a returned missionary from Japan coming to translate.

 

Helped a guy push his car out of the road!!

That’s all! Thanks for the love and support!

Elder Carlson

Moving! Returning to Tao Yuan

Last of our Chinese New Years Celebrations!

 

Hello everyone! I moved This week to Tao Yuan to be a zone leader. I have 3 transfers left so I will most likely finish up my mission here. Long Tan my first area was in this zone so I am going out in the same zone I came in. I have always wanted to serve in Tao Yuan City my entire mission so I am really happy to have this opportunity. My companion is Elder Kaufusi from Salt Lake City Utah! He is an awesome missionary really hard-working and loving. After the mission he is going to play football at Stanford after the mission. We are in the Tao Yuan 3rd ward. Our chapel is the stake center and it is huge. There are 4 wards that meet here. I am super excited for the next transfer!!!

Saying good bye to investigator- Chris on left and Jeffrey a member on right

I was sad to leave  Tou fen and all of the members and investigators there. I loved serving in that ward it was so fun and the members were so good to us! We had the last Chinese New Year’s meals with the members on Monday and Tuesday. I will attach pics. There was a member from mainland China at one of the meals and she told us a ton of crazy stuff about the Church in China. Apparently there are a lot of members over there and the church is really developed already but they still have a lot of restrictions like not being able to have missionaries. 

Farewell to Elder Shaw!  Hello to Elder Kaufusi !

We have an awesome Japanese investigator here! His name is Ido He cannot speak Chinese or English so we use Google Translate to communicate with him haha! It is so funny to meet with him. We just sit there passing the phone around and making a lot of hand gestures. He loves to read the Book of Mormon and takes notes. We are working on getting a member to translate or finding a way to Skype missionaries in Japan to teach him more effectively. 

Early St. Paddy’s Day surprise from home before I left my last area with Elder Shaw

 

This week we sent this scripture to our investigator who is trying to quit smoking.  

2 Corinthians 12:7-11

9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

11 I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.

This scripture is so cool! Everyone has weakness, but through Christ those weaknesses can become strong! Have a good week! I love you all!

Elder Carlson

Chinese New Year !

Chinese New Years gift from a member

Hello Everyone!!! This Thursday the week-long celebration of Chinese New Year began. It has been an awesome past few days going to members homes and eating with them. Everyday when we come home we are so stuffed haha! Because this time of the year missionary work is a little slower so the mission is having all the missionaries do a deep clean on the apartments. I didn’t realize how dirty this place was until we started cleaning! We have till tomorrow to complete the task. Tomorrow marks the end of the Chinese New Year.

Multiple Chinese New Years Celebrations

Most of our investigators have not been able to meet because they have been out-of-town with family and friends celebrating. The work kinda took a pause but it will pick right back up this week. But even though a lot of our regular investigators couldn’t meet we met a lot new ones this week that hopefully we can keep working with in the future. I went on exchanges with Elder Bird from my MTC district on Tuesday. We had a great time and talked to a lot of people. It was cool to reminisce about when we first started our missions and how far we have come.

 

Elder Bird and I were given free hot dogs, chocolate & drinks by an OK Market worker while doing our language study one day

 

This week I have been hearing all these Chinese New Year’s songs being played in the stores it gives me deja vu. Back in high school we spent 2 months memorizing those songs for a Chinese performance. Back then I had no idea what they were saying in the songs but now I can understand haha!

Today we are going with the ward sight-seeing to a lake in our area so my email will be a little shorter today. Hope everyone has a great week and Chinese New Year! Chinese New Year is a time to celebrate  family. So remember to spend quality time with your family! It is important!

Elder Carlson

過年快到了! Chinese New Year almost here

Hello Everyone! What a great week here in Taiwan it was! The Chinese New Year is almost upon us! For me it is my second time in Taiwan celebrating Chinese New Year. It is a great time and the members are very generous to the missionaries during this time as well. The wards here all pass around a sign up sheet to feed the missionaries. Last year I just remember being stuffed all the time because people give you so much food haha! It is pretty much the equivalent of a week long Thanksgiving in America. The only bad thing about Chinese New Year is that no one can really meet because everyone is out of time or spending all of their time celebrating with family.

The store displays for Chinese New Year

Last PDay me and Elder Shaw had a baking extravaganza! A member gave us a huge can of peaches from Costco so we decided to make peach cobbler. We also made this really good chicken too. We arent professional chefs but the final product was pretty good haha!

This week I also got my cast off! I was very excited at first but once it actually came off I realize it wouldn’t be as speedy as a recovery as I had anticipated. My elbow was very sore and could barely bend it and my wrist was even worse. It almost felt like the same as when I got the cast on. It hurt really bad to bend or twist it. The doctor said that the fracture is almost healed and does not need a cast any more so I just need to slowly rehab it and regain motion. It is defiantly not what I was hoping for and I especially miss having mom take care of me haha. Since then I have regained motion of my elbow and just have to do physical therapy exercises that the mission nurse gave me until it regains full range of motion in the wrist. I can also ride my bike again which is so nice!

Getting my cast off- FINALLY !!!!

This week I also got to go on exchanges with Elder Johnson from Zhu Nan. We were in his area but Had some lessons in my area as well! It was a fun exchange. We kinda where running back and forth from Zhu Nan and Tou Fen. He is an awesome missionary and I learned a ton from him.

The weather recently has been really cold here. Probably partly from the humidity plus the fact that non of the buildings here have heating systems installed and partly because I have become a wimp and got used to the really hot summers. They use these little heaters here when it gets cold so we just huddle up to them when we do studies in the morning. On exchanges in the other Elders apartment they only had a single bed sheet so I was literally curled up around the little space heater on the ground! I felt like a cat!

This is how one stays warm in Taiwan in the winter

Recently we have dropped our quite a lot of our investigators which was kinda sad because you get to love those people and are so excited for them, but because a lot of people stopped progressing and where not keeping commitments so we had to move on. We still have a few really awesome investigators and some new ones we have met as well! Chris is doing awesome still and progressing well for his date at the beginning of March. He is a really busy man with work so we use video call to meet with him alot! It is pretty cool and a huge blessing of using technology because most the time he is just not able to go to the church and meet. We usually meet with him face to face after church though. Another investigator who has been doing really well lately is Sister Huang. She is a high school student and loves coming to church and going to young women’s. She already has a lot of friends there. She wants to be baptized in March as well.

One of the things I have been studying and trying to develop lately is charity. Because of this I started memorizing Moroni 7:44-48. I love that scripture! It lists so many cool things about Charity in it. Encourage everyone to read it this week and ponder what you can do to have more charity!

6.4 Earthquake

All is well, but I must declare Taiwan a “ride.”