開會啊 (to hold a meeting)

Hey y'all.

    

Christmas is over but really it goes all year round.

We had a good one over here. On Christmas day we did nothing that had anything to do with Christmas, but the surrounding days were pretty festive! We went picking strawberries and on a cool bridge that led to a little hidden retreat. 

Then on Tuesday we woke up super early and went to Taibei for the mission-wide Christmas conference. We went to the American Club hotel which is a super nice hotel with very authentic American food. They even had Mac and Cheese! 

The conference went from 9 am to 5 pm and then I went on exchanges with Elder Perkins. We got lost in Tucheng so we walked around and sang a lot of carols but no one wanted to listen. Still it was fun! 

The next day was Christmas and we had our ward party and our members killed it. One family brought three friends and their families which was super cool. We met a lot of great people!! 

    

It was good to see my good old family on Skype. It is weird how much time changes people. I almost didn't recognize some of my own family members, which was odd, but they were good changes. I miss them a lot and I love them even more. It is surreal that I haven't seen them in person for such a long time. It is something that not too many have experienced in this way. Which doesn't make me special, but it has helped me learn a lot about myself and further my belief that family is very important.

Love, Elder Henry David Christensen

WHO?

Transfers this week were stellar. I am now serving with an Elder Hu, who is Taiwanese. He is a homie. Although a little despondent at times he is a super hard worker! 

We have already seen a few miracles together. For example: Last Friday we met a Brother Zhuang and had a lesson with him, then set him up for the next day. He came, we had a great lesson and set a baptismal date, then he came to church and attended a young single adult fireside last night. 

We are meeting with him today again so it has been kind of fun because we didn't even really have to set up any of it. He is super willing to learn and likes the environment a lot! Super cool experience for me and Elder Hu to see right from the start! 

Besides that nothing else is really new. I am doing super happy and I am excited for this week. Our ward has a big Christmas activity coming up and all of the members are inviting homies. We are really pushing for a lot of new investigators to be coming out of this, so it is really exciting to be working so well with the ward! 

Also, I met this guy who is super smiley. He is from Sweden and lives in the Southern-most city. He likes to climb trees and is super friendly. 

Love,
Elder Henry David Christensen

Looks like there is one less meow in Miao Li

Title credit: Elder Anderson

    

So here is what happened. We biked through the church gates, chased away the twenty or so cats that hide on our church property and unlocked the church for an early morning meeting. I am not sure why (spiritual prompting maybe?) but I walked around the side of the chapel building and about 10 yards in front of me I saw a little mound on the pavement. Upon a closer inspection I realized it was a cat that had been, for lack of better words, ripped in half. 

It's innards were all over the property and the entire back half was just gone. We at first thought it was just dogs that somehow got in but later looked where the cats usually hang out and there were a bunch of bones. So, in short, we have some cannibalistic cats over here! Moreover we have one less meow in Miao Li! 

Anyways, this last week was hard! I am not sure why, but it felt pretty rough. However, we did see a few miracles. Last night, for example, we were waiting for an investigator in a KFC,when a man we had not met came up to us and introduced himself as he sat down at our table. 

We talked for a little bit before our investigator came in. The investigator confessed that he had shown his parents the BofM and they were opposed to him looking into other religions. But we prayed for him, and bore our testimonies to him and told him to never give up, then invited him to try again to talk to his parents.

He is a brave soul. Most investigators just don't show up and never answer our phone calls when this kind of stuff happens. But he came and told us to our faces. It was very respectable. 

Meanwhile, this other man, Brother Xu, was listening in and flipping through the BofM. After our now former-ish investigator left, we talked to Brother Xu for a little bit and set up with him to meet again. It was a miracle. I believe God wanted us to meet one so that we could meet the other. Super cool!! 

Anyways, other than that not much happened here in Miao Li! We are getting everyone excited for Christmas by sharing the new and old Christmas videos! It is a time to be jolly.

Love,

Elder Henry David Christensen 

BIG MOUNTAIN

Funny story, we were on our way back to Miao Li from Zhu Nan, where our zone leaders live, and there was a train leaving 2 minutes hence. 

We booked it up, through and on to the train snagging some seats right as it pulled away. Sadly, about a half an hour later we realized we were on the wrong train. It had said it was going to Miao Li but little did I know there were two different lines going to different places in Miao Li. They did not connect and it was too far to walk into our area, so we got off at the next stop and decided to wait there. 

Unluckily we stopped at Da Shan, which means big mountain, which is one of the smallest stops in Taiwan. So we got stuck there. We were there for about an hour till we just had a member come and pick us up. We got to English Class about 10 minutes before it was supposed to start and had a piece of bread for dinner. So much fun.

The next day we bused to Tou Fen for Zone meeting. I have only one sister serving in my zone who is my same age on the island and she gave her farewell testimony to our zone, which was weird because even though she is going home a transfer early, it makes me think that I am kind of running low on time. I hate that thought... 

That investigator I talked about last week, Qian DX, is doing great. He came to a dinner last night to break our fast as a ward and fit right in. He is super cool and is my brother. 

I am doing great myself and loving life. The transfer is coming to a close and it will be really interesting what happens. A LOT of missionaries will be going home this transfer so the mission will have a lot of areas close down. Should be really interesting... Anyways, Good luck out there 大家! 

Love, 

Elder Henry David Christensen 

Loops and Hoops (or I am doing happy)

This week was quite interesting. It feels like not much happened because we didn't really see a lot of success, but we did a lot of stuff and had some great experiences. I will start from the front and go to the back because that makes it more exciting. 

Last night we had about an hour to go finding at the train station. We got there and immediately started talking to people. The first person I talked to was a boy about my age who just really didn't have any belief or conception of God at all. 

At first I kind of felt weird talking to him but as it turned spiritual, it seemed like it was going well. That was until I mentioned that through prayer we can communicate with God and receive answers to the questions we asked. He kind of looked at me like I was crazy and then made an excuse and ran away which was kind of funny but also a little disheartening. Nevertheless we continued on. 

After slowly inching away from a crazy lady with no teeth we started talking to a kid who was like first, but he did believe in God... he believed that there were many Gods. We introduced Heavenly Father as a God he may not have met just yet. We shared a beautiful message of prayer and how he loves each of us. He admitted at one point after praying that he had felt the Holy Ghost. He said it was hard to explain but that it was a peaceful and a wonderful feeling. However, as we closed, we asked if we could find another time to meet with him or even just to exchange a method of contact. He refused... 

I learned a lot from that. I have encountered it many times, where a person feels the Holy Ghost and still refuses, and I can't complain because I know we are planting seeds.

Earlier in the day, my recent convert from Luodong (my second area) and her mother came all the way to see me and they even brought curry with rice! It is always good to see old friends. 

We also saw a pretty cool miracle with Church. On Friday, we were at the college here in Miao Li talking to people and we met a guy named Crimson who had super long hair and looked like a designer (which he was). After a little while of talking, his brother ran past and said hi, which we didn't really take into account, but then yesterday one of the recent converts in our ward, Annie, brought her boyfriend into sacrament meeting. It was the older brother that had ran past!! We were pretty stoked about that and it was pretty neat. We talked for a while and found out his birthday is one day before mine so we are the same age. He is super cool and his name in Chinese is Qian which means money. We will be meeting with him this week which we are excited about. 

Elder Stevenson, yes the new apostle, came and spoke to us. He said to save some "finding" energy for after the mission and encouraged us all with a "you can get married!" So we were pretty excited for the news.

We got interviewed by a group of teenagers at a library who were very fascinated with us and what we were doing (which was nice and pretty rare). 

Our ward bought a giant turkey and we had a very delicious Chinese dinner after which I had to tell the Thanksgiving story in Chinese hahaha. 

 So it was a busy week. I am doing happy. 

Love,

Elder Henry David Christensen