ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #16 -- SEPTEMBER 1,2013

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #16

SEPTEMBER 1,2013

This week was absolutely crazy. We did soo many different things, and it's frustrating because I didn't feel like we were able to do missionary work for very long!

On Tuesday, I was on splits with Elder Anderson again. My companion Elder Pratt had to go back to Jilong to do a baptismal interview, so I was again with Elder Andersen. It's a lot different being senior companion!

That morning, we got a call from Operations. They asked us to be ready to move on Thursday! Not transfer areas (it's confusing because in Chinese they are the same word - ban1jia1) but move apartments. So half of Wednesday and all day Thursday, we were doing that. And then on Friday, we got word that we were getting two new Elders in Neihu! Elder Deal (who used to be in my district in Jilong) and Elder Morgan (who I knew briefly in the MTC) now live with us in Neihu! Because we are all sharing the area, they have to start from scratch for finding new investigators! It will be challenging, I'm sure, but they are good missionaries, so they'll be fine!

Because of moving taking up Wednesday and Thursday, a lot of this week was occupied with doing things other than missionary work, which was a little frustrating. But with the time we had, we got a lot done! We're also finally starting a new transfer, so hopefully the other things will be kept to a minimum and we can focus on the WORK!!

We had a cool experience on Saturday. We were at a ward activity but then had to leave early and bike across the area to XiHu in the pouring rain for an appointment. When we arrived after a twenty minute bike ride, we looked at the phone and he had texted us to cancel. That was a little frustrating, but we decided instead to go tracting. 

Tracting in Taiwan is a little different. Everybody lives in apartments and the main door is always locked, so what we do is push each of the little intercom buttons to see if people will answer and let us come in and share. What we really hope for is that the people will just unlock the door so that we can actually come to their door and they have to reject us to our faces (which is harder). Most missionaries in Taibei don't like tracting very much; it generally isn't very successful just because of the system. But we do it because our mission president has asked us to do all the different methods of finding.

This night we went tracting, and we actually got in to a home! My companion said that in his year and something of missionary work, he's only gotten into a home seven times! This family at first didn't want to talk to us - "women shi fojiaotu" (we are Buddhist - the excuse that almost every single person gives) but I think because we look so pathetically wet and were dripping everywhere, they took pity on us. That's okay with us! We got to share the first lesson and they seemed pretty interested! They said they had been looking for a church for a while and said they would read! When God closes a door, He opens a window.

I've noticed that especially in missionary work, agency is an important thing. Everybody has the right to make their own decisions, for good or bad. As much as we want everyone to accept our message, everybody has to decide for themselves. All we can do is invite. We invite as many people as we can in the best way that we can, and the rest is up to them and up to God. I've learned a lot about allowing people to choose their own course in life.

Other notes:

-The swastika is a symbol which here means good luck and peace. It's of Buddhist origin, and apparently Hitler (I learned how to say his name in Chinese - Xi1 te4 le4...I don't know why) just took the Buddhist symbol and flipped it. It's interesting how things work like that, different cultures have different associations with the same symbol!

-We don't have any hot water in our new apartment yet, so cold showers have been all we've got!

-Because we're in a different area, we have to find new places to eat that are close! It's been fun to experiment with new things. Saturday I had a passion fruit slushy which was absolutely delicious.

Hopefully, this next week, we'll be able to see a lot more progress with our investigators because of more time spent teaching them! 

Things are going great, and I'm excited to be a second-transfer missionary!

Elder Richardson

田長老