Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Possession in Taiwan


Hello
We are serving in Daxi which is two hours away from Taipei. It is awesome. 

We woke up as normal and did our studies but then got informed we had a special training, so we biked all the way to Taoyan which is like an hour or so away if you bike fast and we did, so we made it pretty quick. 

And then we had a special training and it was awesome! We learned a lot about the use of pamphlets and stuff. It was good. 



Anyways we headed home and by that time it was 5 so it was getting dark, so of course we decided to look for a former investigator who the last elders thought was possessed. She lives in the middle of no where. We biked for quite some time and asked a lot of people but her address doesn't exist. There was a dark feeling in the area and we really could feel that. This island has had a lot of cases of that where a missionary will state they are a representative of Christ and another voice not belonging to the individual will answer. 

Otherwise this week was busy and good! I will be writing again in about 3 days. Thanks for the news and stuff. That pumpkin party looked fun!! I am glad I am still your son.
Tell Hannah she is awesome and tell Adelide to not get married but to keep helping Lillie. I miss those guys and that ward.. The wards here are tiny! But awesome too.
I am doing well in all ways. And I am lovin' it as Ronald McDonald says i am doing well and I wish you luck. I pray for you every day. no foolin.

The Church is pretty awesome that is a cool fun fact.
I love you and I hope you are doing super well
-Elder Christensen

Monday, October 20, 2014

Run Forest Run!


More like Bike Henry Bike! 

This week we had a lot of hills. Whether it was biking up the biggest mountain in Taiwan to meet with a less active family or a day where no one would meet with us and all our lessons were cancelled. (Those are more of the downhill kinds of days). Uphill days are pretty hard but they get better and better and are very satisfying at the end, whereas, downhill days can be fun but you don't feel success because anyone can ride downhill right? 

This week we had two days that fit specifically into each of those two categories. We will start with the good day. 

10-17-14 - I wrote in my journal: "WOAH! Today was an awesome day!" But that doesn't do it justice. We saw so many miracles and too many blessings to count. We started out the proselyting day by riding up a hill that was at the base of a mountain to meet with a man named George. George was originally from Taiwan but when he was young, he made it to American. There, he built a family and for 40 years he worked in America. When his business got successful he decided to take it to China, but in China he got very sick and traveled to Taiwan for health care. When he recovered and tried to leave they would not let him. So his family is back in the U.S.A. in Arcadia California, and he is still trying to return. But until he can return he is living in the most ghetto part of our area. 
this is a little alleyway in the back of the most populated street of our city
It is pretty low down and pretty much free. It houses a lot of people with disabilities and troubles. But he is an awesome and hopeful guy. He hopes to be baptized before he leaves and has already sent his family as a referral across the seas. His date is for the 8th of November and he is so prepared. We are teaching two lessons a week and really just trying to get him to church. The church is the hard part because he lives so far away from the building and can't walk too well because he is about 60. 
Plus the members mostly don't have cars so it is really hard to get him there. But he has a few friends that have sat in on our lessons and they want to come too. Anyways, we taught the Plan of Salvation and it was awesome!! 
Then we biked around trying to find more people to teach and we met Seth. He is 15 or so, and he gave us his number to meet again and he even said his own prayer with us! So that was another miracle right there. The lesson itself was short and sweet because it was a street contact. 

Then we met with Liu Jeimei at McD's. She is about 16 but she lies about her age every time haha. She ranges from 15-18 mostly. The lesson went well and she is awesome. She can't drive though and her family kind of opposes, so getting her to church is also a problem. But she is going against her parents a little because she believes our message! It is awesome haha. 
these are baozi's they are boiled bread filled with meat.
For two of them and a drink (preferably wintermelon tea) it is about $1 dollar
When our lesson was over we went and grabbed some Baozi's which are boiled bread with meat or red bean paste in them. And they are soo good!! 
Then we rode up the mountain and met with the Jiang Jiating who is a less active family and we committed them to get to the temple to be sealed as a family and the lesson went well. They had been inactive for 7 years and don't remember a thing. We taught them about Joseph Smith and it was awesome! By that time we had about a half hour left and so we dropped by Pan Dixion's work, which is a lottery ticket shop, and helped him better understand the beauty of the Holy ghost and it's many shapes and forms in which it communicates with us.

That concluded our amazing day, and the next day went as follows. 
We biked around for the entire day and prayed and prayed and were just not seeing any luck. I was getting pretty down after just having been so high up the day before. But then we saw a guy across the street. We went over. He gave us water and sat us down in his office. There we shared with him about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. His name was Jiang and he invited us to come back! So we have a lesson with him coming up, but even though he didn't really understand a lot of what we said about Joseph or the Book of Mormon, he was very interested. 
we found a cougar sweatshirt in the middle of taiwan
So the moral is even during times where you feel as low as possible, pray and have hope. God answers prayers and will bless you. The hardest days sometimes have the most powerful rewards. Tell Emma and her whole family to write me!! 
Tell adel to wait for two more years for marriage
Thank you and I LOVE YOU TO DEATH
Elder Christensen

dry tofu which is real good


korn dorf is like porridge but with spices and stuff


that's a giant golden lion we found

p.s. ok.. I have a few minutes left of computer time.
I am about to bike up to this memorial place. 
Apparently there was this president guy who made tons of statues of himself and the people hated him so when he died they just threw them statues up into the mountains so they are all up at this place and we are going to check it out. But first we have to eat lunch at McD's. I haven't eaten at a Taiwanese one yet so wish me luck. haha I have heard it is better just like everything else here. More and more I want to open up a Chinese food restaurant. They have some dang good food here. 

Monday, October 13, 2014

Slum Dog Millionaire

 I am in one of the more ghetto parts of Taiwan serving in the mountainous area of Daxi (dah-Shee). And it is beautiful. Because of the mountain that overwhelms most of our huge area, we are limited to a very small workable area. 
This is the city part of the area and you will get a lot of pictures of this part throughout the next few months :D . My Companion is Elder Dexter and he is awesome! He has been out about 10 months and is quite good at Chinese. He is also a fan of the fine arts like music and Pokemon. So we have a ton in common and get along quite well. He is from Tennessee and had a lot of experiences there that have made him into a very strong missionary. He is quite awesome and I got lucky. Plus he is a fast biker and I have to push myself to keep up and I already am getting stronger.
Our apartment.. haha. Where to begin. It is sort of a dump. Apparently we got one of the worst ones in the mission haha. I have only seen a few cockroaches but there are always at least five ants in reach of my desk chair. And the shower heater is out of gas and will cost a lot to repair so we have ice cold showers every morning haha. But despite the dirty floors and lack of cleaning/cooking supplies, I am blessed. I have a bed to sleep in, a fridge and a desk to study at. I could easily be bothered by all the bad things but instead I think it is awesome that I get to see what it is like to be on the other side and also I get to laugh at how awesomely different everything here is. 
The food: I am addicted. I am always looking forward to the next meal I get to eat. I will start taking pictures of my meals if they are note worthy. But it is so interesting the things they have here. Milk is expensive and sent from Australia. Nutella has a different name and has caramel in it too (it is way better), and brown sugar tastes weird. I haven't had something yet that freaked me out. The only thing I thought was interesting was the hairy meat haha. It looks like beef that has hair. They have wonderful juices and these things called Zhuabings, which is a shredded onion pancake and it so far is my favorite thing. I cook them for breakfast already too much. I am gonna get fat!! hurrah!! And to add to that statement. They have a chocolate bars here called Tappl bars that taste like solid hot chocolate. Also they carry a lot of Kinder products and Kinder chocolate is SOOO SOO very good. The McDonald's is supposedly better but I haven't yet had the chance to go. 
The restaurants are usually little carts on the side of the road but sometimes are in an actual building. And the 7-11's which coat the streets are more like mini-grocery stores. They are awesome! We have gotten curry at a 7-11 and it was sooo good. So, unlike the USofA, the 7-11s here have capability to have amazing food. There are these drink shops all around that use those cups with sealed-on plastic lids that you stab the straw through. They sell all kinds of tea and we can only have a few of them. But what we can have is really good!  They have these little black tapioca balls that I think they also have in the U.S. but I am not sure. They are super good. Plus the people that work there are sort of like investigators. We have prayed with them a few times and stuff but they are so busy and it is hard for them to find time to meet with us. 
We spend A LOT of time finding/contacting. We bike or walk around the city and knock doors, approach random people, and sometimes just hand out tracts with information about our church in passing. We also teach an English class on Wednesday nights, so during the week we hand out English tracts for a free English class in hope that some will come. At the end of the class we have a short devotional and it has helped a lot with conversion of people who came to learn English haha. 
We have already had quite a few doors slammed in our face and one after being scorned by a Chinese guy. But also a lot of doors have been opened. Here, and probably everywhere else, people notice the missionaries. They notice what we do and how we act. So a smile is required haha. Which is hard. I didn't smile as much as I should have at home, so that is probably the hardest thing for me. haha
We were able to watch conference this Saturday and Sunday and I loved both session. I am excited to receive the ensign so I can read Jorg Klebingnat's talk. He was AWESOME!!! Make sure you have heard that one. I feel myself change everyday. This place is wonderful and I know I belong here. My testimony grows each and every day and I have a strong love for this gospel. I am excited to tell you of all the miracles I see and I hope you can each look for the small miracles in your life every single day.
Best wishes,

Elder Henry David Christensen

So Long Idaho!!

the AP.s and my companion and I (in Idaho)
Thanks for the email ma
This last little bit of time has been wild. 

I don't have much emailing time sadly so I will have to do a lot of catch up later! UMM 
Ok first and maybe most importantly. 
I am in TAIWAN!! And i have no money!! 
this family is Bishop Hillam's... he is like Doug
xiexie
Right now it is almost 12 noon and it is the 6th. So we skipped an entire day in traveling here haha
my journal is just missing one day! haha
Yesterday we went to a big park and met a whole bunch of people and shared our wonderful message with a few of the ones who were interested. Most took at least a temple card but all were Buddhist and didn't want a Book of Mormon haha
Then this morning we ran to the Shanghai Sheck memorial and checked that out. We ran, all 30 of us plus President Day, and it was the first work out i have had in a while. I loved it and it was soo cool! I will try and get pictures to you soon but I can't right now. But get stoked!! 
Idaho Falls District


In Japan I bought Spirited Away playing cards!! They are soo cool!!!
But even after all my travels I still have not had any Asian food of any kind. We have had sandwiches (ham and cheese), Spaghetti, and pancakes with bacon. SO I am still yearning for some Chinese food. But other than that I am doing so wonderfully and am excited to meet my companion and get into the field. We leave the mission home in about 2 days and that's where it really begins so I am stoked for that. 
我是你們的兒子 heehe
have a good week I love you all and know that the CHURCH IS TRUE! 
  • Elder C
Henry got to see Adelide in the airport!