ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #13

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #13

AUGUST 11, 2013

It was a scorcher of a week here in Taiwan! The hottest it got here in Neihu was 39.3 degrees celsius. I have no idea how hot that is in Fahrenheit, but I'm sure it was really hot! It certainly felt like it!

Investigator update:

Zhang DX came to church!! When we had a lesson with him on Saturday, he was still a little iffy on coming, but after fervent prayer, he came for sacrament meeting! We were really excited. He's at a point where he can keep progressing. He has a baptismal goal for the end of this month, so we hope to be able to help him reach that.

We've got a really great group of new investigators that are really interested in progressing. We hope that they will have a desire to keep learning and found out that our message is true!

Lai DX used to be an exchange student in Missouri, so he's got almost perfect English, but he's got a bit of a Southern twang and uses a very Midwest high school vocabulary. It's really funny! He's Catholic, but he's got a lot of interest in learning about what we believe. We really hope he will read the Book of Mormon, and hope that he will continue to learn and progress. He has a great desire to follow Christ, and we hope to continue to develop that with him.

Lin DX was really interested in the history of the Restoration and Apostasy. He thought it was fascinating, and even though he's really busy, he wants to keep learning.

Liu DX is interesting. He had a dream that he was waiting for us in a restaurant a few days before we met with him. He is super intrigued by all the doctrine of the restoration, but he doesn't quite understand how important Christ is in our lives. He has a very Buddhist mentality - very similar to what we run into a lot of the time. To him, all things are good and he can believe all of them. He thinks of Christ as a prophet who taught good stuff. Liu DX also has a university teacher who apparently has warned him against talking with us. We hope to continue to work with Liu DX. He has such a good heart, and a sincere desire to learn. We hope to show him how what Christ did for him can change his life!

Similar to Sister Richardson's letter this week, I also felt the influence of the devil trying to work against us. I think he works on the hearts of the people and motivates them to inactivity. We got stood up a lot this week, and I think that and people not answering phone calls is our biggest obstacle to the work right now. Satan's influence is real, but God's is infinitely greater! As we do the Lord's work and give him our heart, might, mind and strength, He will prepare a way for us to do all the work that He needs us to do!

Chinese is still hard. People talk so fast! I think I say that every week, but it's still a struggle every week! I'm trying to get more bold in talking to people, and trying to keep applying what I'm learning in language study. PMG says it will be hard, but it is possible through the Lord's power!

I was thinking this week about how people express themselves. In English, we express a lot of things by our tone of voice. In Chinese, because it's a tonal language, that effect is exaggerated a lot! Chinese people are also a lot more animated when they speak. They talk a lot with their hands and tend to act things out. Because Chinese is so dependent on context, they use these other things to help establish the context. I really love how expressive people are here!

I hope to not pick up TOO much of the Taiwanese accent, but some of the things people say here are just different, and I'm learning a few of those. For example, here you don't say "Dui" it's always "Dui a." There seem to be a lot of extra ending sounds in Taiwan, and that's one I picked up the first few weeks.

You can also completely cop out of any statement at anytime by just adding a "ba" at the end. The "ba" shows that what came before is uncertain or subject to change.

Other stuff:

"Chi1 bao4 le ma?" is a common question. It means "Have you eaten?" or "Are you full?". It's interesting to here it from random people on the street. The correct answer is always "Chi1 bao4 le" because otherwise they are obligated to feed you.

There's this one pet store in DongHu that has a bunch of bunnies and other small furry creatures in the store window. Every time we walk by, or if we are not having a lot of success in contacting, we'll stop by and look at the bunnies. It always makes us feel better.

This week was the start of ghost month. In America, there's one day: Halloween. Here they have a whole month. People here will leave food out in the street, to allow the ghosts to eat it and then leave. People will also bang pots or pans out in the street to keep the ghosts away from their houses.

We have a favorite noodle shop that is really conveniently close to our chapel, so we go there a LOT. They have really cheap food and it's super good.

There are a lot of super nice cars here in NeiHu. I see Mercedes all over and I've seen probably 7 or 8 Porsches. I also saw a Camaro once.

Still looking for the best brand of chocolate milk here. It's all soy milk base, so it's a little weird, but I should be able to find something satisfactory ;)

There's a guy in the building across from us who plays saxophone a lot. He's probably a junior high student or something. We know he's got a Lion King book and a Phantom of the Opera book. We hope to tract in the area sometime and find him!

Our ward is really awesome. They feed us every Sunday for lunch in the church building, and then we usually have dinner at someone's house. There are tons of great people in our ward, and we are just working with them to get them to put that awesomeness into missionary work!

We had a Family Home Evening activity last night. We had some great food, and then we played a game of Mafia! It was different in Chinese, but really cool!

Taiwan is awesome! I love the people already, and even though I'm still working on the language and still working on learning how to be a good missionary, we're doing the Lord's work, so He will compensate for our weaknesses through His perfection!

I miss you all!

Thanks for you letters!

Elder Richardson

田長老