ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #99 -- APRIL 13, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #99

APRIL 13, 2015

Wow, 96 is a lot of weeks.

This week had somewhat of a slow start, but the end of the week was really great!

Last week, we felt like we should go visit a less-active Melchizedek Priesthood holder whose phone number on the ward list was wrong. We got to his house right as he was leaving, so we got to talk for him a minute, and we'll get to go back again this week. On Thursday of this week, we felt like we should go again and visit him. He wasn't home, but we knocked the door next to his. We met a guy who was really willing to listen and chat with us, and he became our new investigator! So now we've got 2 people in that new area so go and visit!

On Friday night, we had dinner with a couple of members and recent converts. When I got here in December, our ward didn't have any 30-yr-old YSA members. Brother Liao starting coming to church and got called as the YSA representative, and then Jonny got baptized in February, Lucy started coming back to church in March, and Brother Peng got baptized in April. We had dinner with all of them on Friday, and they are all going to a stake FHE activity tonight. It's cool to see how the Lord has brought them all together, and is giving them all friendships in our ward!

Sunday afternoon we decided to go visit one of our members. Usually we call ahead of time, but we didn't have a landline so we decided to just go. When we got there we discovered that Brother Li's entire family was there. They welcomed us in and we got to share a message about General Conference and family to his 5 children and 1 grandchild, all who are not members. Brother Li thanked us for coming and told his kids that the Spirit had brought us there!

We had some appointments cancel on Sunday night. So I called one of the less-active members (Sister Huang) of our ward to see if we could visit. She said she had also been feeling like she needed to invite us over, so she accepted and said that she would feed us too! We got there and her boyfriend cooked some delicious food for us. When we started to share about the Book of Mormon, he said he has always wanted to be a Christian, but he had never really felt anything when it comes to church stuff. We had a great lesson with him about how to get answers from prayers, and about reading the Book of Mormon. He was really excited about reading the Book of Mormon and Sister Huang is really excited about introducing him to the gospel!

Conference was awesome! My companion said he just loved having church in English again. It really is great to hear from the Apostles and Prophets and to feel the Spirit as they teach us about Jesus Christ. I think my favorite talks were President Eyring's on fasting, President Monson's in the Priesthood session, and Elder Nelson's on the Sabbath. But there were soo many great talks! Hopefully our conference Liahona's don't take as long as last year!

Well it was a good week, and I'm looking forward to 6 more great ones!

Elder Richardson
任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #98 -- APRIL 6, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #98

APRIL 6, 2015

This week had some good and had some bad. But the good was really good so the bad didn't seem as bad!

Brother Peng got baptized!! It was a really great baptismal service and I could tell he felt pretty good afterwards. I asked him how he felt, and he said he felt really "fresh." I realized that Brother Peng is the first person that I personally contacted on the street and taught all the way until baptism, which is pretty cool! He's a really awesome guy and he is super funny! He got confirmed yesterday, and he wants us to visit his family to see if they are interested! And we're going to eat Dairy Queen with him today!

This week were talking about Brother Peng and Jonny, who got baptized two months ago. I really feel like we found Brother Peng for Jonny. Jonny liked the members of our ward, but didn't really have anyone close to the same age to be close friends with, but now Brother Peng is baptized, and they'll just help each other stay active! They are really funny together, and one of the investigators that we started meeting with last week is a friend of Brother Peng's friend, so hopefully the chain reaction keeps going!

We visited Brother Liao this week. Elder Davidson and I decided that is was some of the best missionary work we could've done, even though we spent awhile just talking about the robot that he is building. He doesn't have any siblings, and his parents don't really take an interest in his projects, so we felt like just talking about robot stuff was pretty good missionary work for the situation. :)

Yesterday at the fireside, I ran into David Yao. Elder Clyde and I found him in the Wanda area in November, and I found out that he got baptized two days ago. Pretty cool!

That's it for this week. I'll send a bunch of pictures!

Elder Richardson

任淳楷長老

ELDER RICHARDSON #97 -- MARCH 30, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON # 97

MARCH 30, 2015

Well, this week was pretty good, but we didn't have a baptism :(

Brother Peng smoked on Wednesday, so he couldn't get baptized on Saturday, but he has recomitted and he will be getting baptized this Friday! He's still really excited to get baptized, and hopefully everything goes really smoothly this week! We spent a lot of time meeting with and helping Brother Peng this week. I think he'll be set for this Friday!

He told us that one day last week he was about to smoke, and he felt really weird about it. He just didn't feel good inside so he didn't. And then another time he was just about to smoke, I called him! The Spirit has been helping him!

Our other awesome investigator, Brother Cai has bene doing really well too. Unfortunately, because it rained Monday through Friday, he had to work on Saturday and Sunday so he couldn't come to church. We were pretty sad, but he told us that the past few days he hasn't smoked at all! We didn't even have to remind him and he is already on his way to quitting. We set a goal with him for April 25th, and we think that he's going to make it to get baptized on that day! He is such a good hearted person, and he really loves to serve others. We were helping a family move, and while we were waiting called him to see how he was doing. Then 20 minutes later he showed up to help move too even though he was feeling sick! He's a great guy!

On Saturday night, our ward had an activity. It was cool because there was a person there who one of the members brought. When we visited the member family a few weeks ago, they told us they were working with him, and he came! We got to meet him and hopefully we will be able to follow up and teach him!

For the activity, some of the ward members acted out "The Giving Tree" and then shared a message about selfless service. It was a great activity!

Yesterday, literally ALL of our appointments cancelled. So we went tracting at a place near Zhou Ba's house that we go to regularly. The other times that we've been there, we haven't found very many people willing to talk to us. But yesterday was different! We found some cool people to talk to and had a couple of lessons in that area! It was great because finding has been pretty rough lately, but it was nice to have a good end of the week!

Well, I forgot to write other stuff down that happened, so that's it for this week!

Add oil!

Elder Richardson
任淳楷長老

ELDER RICHARDSON #96 -- MARCH 23, 2015

ELDER RICHARDSON LETTER #96

MARCH 23, 2015

Last Tuesday, we met with 彭紹維 (Brother Peng) and shared about the rest of the commandments. He was a little sad because his first attempt at quitting smoking had failed, and he relapsed that morning. But we gave him some encouragement and he recommitted. It was cool because when he said his closing prayer, he asked God to help him stop smoking and he said it really forcefully and loud, like he was really determined. Then on Friday he has his baptismal interview, and he passed! Elder Hawkins told him that if he touched another cigarette that he couldn't get baptized, and Brother Peng said that he would do it. If all goes smoothly the baptism will be this Saturday! Yesterday at church our whole ward got really excited for him, and hopefully they'll all be there to welcome him!

I think I mentioned 蔡海山 Brother Cai last week. He originally told us that he would not be able to go to church until this next week, but somehow things worked out and he came to the first half hour of church yesterday! He got to see some of the members that he met before and meet the ward mission leader before he had to go. And he said that he'll come to all of church next week. He also paid his tithing before he left!

We invited him to go with us to dinner at a member's house last night, and on the way his scooter broke down. So he called and told us that he couldn't come. But right after he hung up the phone his scooter started working again! He really likes being with the members in our ward, particularly 周爸 Zhou Ba and one of the recent converts who lives there. He's awesome.

We visited the Bishop on Friday and he also invited his neighbor to eat dinner with us. So we got to share with his family and his neighbor, and give them a chance to fell the Spirit in his home. It was a great example of a way to do missionary work without being overbearing!

One of my jokes with Elder Davidson is that I just tell people that I have "about 3-4 months" left so that people don't tell me that I'm going home soon.

On Saturday we took Brother Cai with us to a baptism in another ward. It turns out that the member who was supposed to do the musical number couldn't come, so Elder Davidson and I put together a version of Amazing Grace in about ten minutes and performed that for the baptism. It went pretty well considering we had almost no practice!

On Sunday, we went to visit an 阿嬤 "A'ma" (means grandma) who we ran into last week. She is about 90 years old, but looks like she is 70, and she has been a Christian her whole life. We got there and she gave us a really cool gift (I don't know how to describe it, but I have a picture). So we said we brought a gift for her. We gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her about how the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ. She LOVED it. She hugged the book and said that she would start reading it immediately. She also said she wanted us to come meet her minister and gives a Book of Mormon to all of the people at her church! We aren't to sure about that, but it's cool to see her enthusiasm for it!

I learned some new cultural things this week. Apparently, if there is a chicken head on the table, the boss will typically point the chicken beak at the next person who is going to get fired, or as they say "被 fire-掉“ (bei4 fire diao4) (they just say the English!). Also, if somebody drops a chopstick, it's actually is a good thing because it means somebody else is paying for the meal!

Last night, we got out of our last lesson a little late and missed the last bus. Instead of waiting 30 min for the next one, we decided to just walk the 25 min home so that we could get home on time. As we were walking down the mountain, we started talking to some people that were walking too, and they ended up giving us a ride home! They weren't very interested in the gospel, but they were really nice and did a great service for us. They said it was just destiny that we met and that they could help us!

It was a good week, and we've already got some great plans for next week!

Add oil!

Elder Richardson
任長老

On left we have some delicious pig heart and on the right some pig galbladder...all just sitting in the open in carrefour.

Picture of the sunset right by 周爸 Zhou Ba's house.

The gift that we got from our A'ma investigator hanging on our investigator whiteboard in the apartment

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #95 -- MARCH 16, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #95

MARCH 16, 2015

Well, this week had some good and some not as good. We had a lot of people cancel appointments with us. We were especially sad about a family that we tracted into a few weeks ago; they called us and said they didn't want us to come, but God gives everyone a lot of chances!

彭紹維 Brother Peng is doing awesome! We taught him the Word of Wisdom along with some other commandments this week, and we were a little worried because we know that he smokes, but he was really willing to quit, and I think he will be able to do it. He's got an baptismal interview on Friday, so we are praying that he'll be able to quit by then!

Our lesson this week was great because our Recent Convert Jonny helped us teach Brother Peng. His testimony is so strong already, and he is doing so much to fellowship and encourage our investigator!

蔡海山 Brother Cai had a huge miracle this week! He couldn't come to church previously because of his work, but today he is starting a new job that will allow him to start coming to church next next week! We taught him the Word of Wisdom this week too, and he is really willing to accept it, but it might take him a little while to quit smoking. On Saturday, we ran into him as we were headed to a dinner appointment, and we just invited him to come along! He really enjoyed being with the members there, and he stayed around even after we left to chat with the members. He is just a really nice old man, and his sincere desire to follow Christ is a great example to me.

This week we spent some time creating a map for our area. Most areas have maps at the store that we can just buy, but this area is a little bit different. So we got a little creative with LDS Maps and some post-it notes, but now we have a functional map for all of the places where people live in our area. Picture attached.

There are a lot of less actives in our area (like most of my areas), and this week we found some new people to go and visit. Our training this month was about the three parables in Luke 15, so we're going to go find all of the lost sheep and bring them home!

I took a picture this week of the amount of dirt on my bike...I should probably clean it, but it means my bike won't get stolen, so maybe I won't!

Last night we had a great lesson with the Liao Family. We shared the "Finding Faith in Christ" video, which really brought the Spirit into their home. They are progressing slowly, but they are still progressing. Their testimony will come little by little, but they'll get there. We have a lot of hope for them!

That's about it for this week. I'll try to take more pictures next week.

Add oil!

Elder Richardson
任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #94 -- MARCH 9, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #94

MARCH 9, 2015

This week was really long, but there were a LOT of miracles! 

I contacted Brother Peng with Elder Casper a few weeks ago. I called him last week, but he didn't answer. Then he called me back but I was in a meeting so I couldn't answer. I completely forgot that he had called for two days, and then on Saturday I suddenly remember that I hadn't called him back. I talked to him, and he said he wanted to come to church! Then we set up with him and met with him twice this week. He really likes hearing the gospel, and had another great experience at church yesterday. When we taught the him the Plan of Salvation, he didn't really understand it, but we could tell he was trying really hard to get it! I think over time he'll understand it more and more. He hasn't run into any problems yet. We know he smokes, but he has already expressed a desire to quit, so with some faith, he'll be able to quit really fast!

Another person we started meeting with is Brother Cai. We think he's just a really cute old guy who smiles really big even though he's got no teeth. He's pretty poor, but he always really wants to buy us lunch. He has a really strong belief in Jesus Christ. He said he hasn't gone to church for 2 months, but he has been saving 10% of his income because "it's God's money," and he is hoping to get a new job that will let him come to church so he can pay his tithing. He's got some awesome faith, and we are praying that he'll be able to find a better job and come to church and get baptized!

I've been meeting with one of the Less Active members, Lucy, since I got here in December. She finally came to church for the first time a week ago, and then again this week. On Thursday we met with her, and she told us about how much she enjoyed church. She was scared to go for a long time because she didn't know the members very well, but she finally conquered her fears and had a great time! She told us on Thursday about how much she felt the Spirit at church, and how much better the week felt because she went. She has been looking for a job for about 3 months, and the week after she went to church she got hired!

I switched to teaching the kids English class, so it's going to take a lot more creativity than my usual English class plan. If anybody has ideas for teaching kid level English, I need all the help I can get!

Well, this week's update is short, but full of great miracles!

Add oil!

Happy Birthday to Mason!

Elder Richardson

任淳楷

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #93 -- MARCH 2, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #93

MARCH 2, 2015

Well it was quite an eventful week! I guess the biggest news is that I'm training! They didn't tell me until after emails on Monday, so surprise!

Last week for P-Day, we had a really fun adventure. Us and the XinDian Elders rented tandem bikes at one of the parks and rode to a taco restaurant in the middle of Taipei. It was quite a sight to see four white guys on tandem bikes peddling super fast through the park and then the streets of downtown Taipei. We got a lot of weird looks, but it was pretty fun!

We were in meetings for trainers all day on Thursday, and then on Thursday night we do a thing call "babysitting," where we get randomly paired up to take a new missionary out finding on their first night here. I was with Elder Davidson and we went to a park in my old area Zhonghe. We met a really cool guy named Vincent, and he was super excited to talk to us. He actually contacted us because he heard me say hello in an Ama in Taiwanese, and he thought it was cool. So he started talking to us and said he believes that the Bible is true, but that he has never gone to a church before. He was really interested in the story of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Anyway, it was a really cool miracle and he will hopefully start meeting with the missionaries in Zhonghe soon!

On Friday, I got my new companion who turned out to be Elder Davidson! He's a pretty cool guy. He spent two months serving in Colorado while he was waiting for a visa, but now he's here in Taiwan! He's fun to work with and his Chinese is super good! We'll have a lot of fun for these last two transfers. 

On Friday, we met with Buddha! I mentioned him a while ago. He is the boyfriend of a less active member, and they finally met with us again! This time he was a lot more interested in the lesson and we set a new baptismal date with him. His girlfriend also started coming back to church, which was really exciting for the ward here. We also had some other less active members come, which was great for the ward.

This week we've had a ton of people call us back after we've called them. My whole mission, I've almost never had people call me back, but for some reason it happened a lot this week! We have a lot of new people set up for the next couple of days, and hopefully they will all stick around!

Sorry this update is short, but that's about it for this week!

Add oil!

Elder Richardson

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #92 -- FEB 23, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #92

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

Well, this week was Chinese New Year, ("GuoNian") which just made everything crazy for a week, but now things should be back to normal.

Starting on Tuesday, everyone in Taibei started leaving. For Chinese New Year, everyone goes back home to their parents house, and for a lot of people in Taibei, that means the south part of Taiwan, so there were probably only a quarter of the population here for the whole week! 

Most places to eat are closed during the week, so the members of the church here started the tradition of feeding the missionaries during the week of the New Year. So we got fed a LOT. From Wednesday all the way until tonight, we have members feeding us for every lunch and dinner. And they feed us a LOT! I didn't eat breakfast for a week because I ate so much for the other meals! 

The food we ate was all delicious, but we had some weird stuff too, like fried fish egg, cow stomach, jellyfish, fried squid, and pig's foot. But also one of our members went for "American" style and cooked us steak! 

We started taking around a Ukelele to share at member visits when they fed us. Elder Casper learned "I am a Child of God" and I learned "When I am baptized." They all loved it! One of the members joked that they should teach Ukelele in the MTC and have all missionaries play at lessons!

Unfortunately, all of our investigators and a lot of our RCLA members left AnKang for the week, so as for missionary work we mostly went street contacting everyday. Thankfully, everybody will be coming back for this next week!

But this week was cool because we got to meet a lot of the family members of the people that we ate with, and got to share a message about families or temples with them. Our favorite thing this week was to give one a Family Proclamation to all of the people who were at the dinner.

One other tidbit: I found out that to say "Crocs" in Chinese you say "布什鞋” (bu4shi2 xie2) which means "Bush shoes" (as in George Bush).

It was a crazy week. But everything will be back to normal this week!

I hit a year and nine months last week!

祝大家大吉大利，吉星高照，新年快樂！

Elder Richardson
任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #91 -- FEB 16, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #91

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

Well, this week was awesome!

Most importantly, Jonny (翁子翔) got baptized! The baptismal service went really smoothly, and we can tell that he's super excited about joining the church. He said in his testimony at the baptismal service that he always just had a feeling that this is right, and that's why he was willing to keep going and keep learning more. He's awesome.

Last Monday for P-Day, we went bowling in my old area, Zhonghe. I've never been good at bowling, but it's pretty fun anyway!

Wednesday was really fun. We went to another of my old areas, Neihu, and did a giant service project. Half of the missionaries in the mission went, and we set up about 800-900 tables and chairs for a charity dinner the next day. It was really fun! It was strange to walk around in normal clothes for awhile; I'm not used to not wearing a tie!

This week I could not remember the word laminate. I was trying to tell my companion that something was laminated, but all I could remember was 護貝. It took me like 5 minutes to remember the correct English word for it...my English is getting really bad!

Thursday we had a cool miracle. We had a lesson get done early so we decided to go tracting near the house of one of our members. At the first house we knocked we found Johnny. He lives about an hour away, but he was here just for a day to take care of his grandmother. He said that he doesn't really have a religion, but he believes in God, and has been looking for more in his life. We talked with him for about a half an hour, and he said he thought it was really special that we ran into him because he was there for a really short time. He said he was willing to meet with the missionaries in Taoyuan. It was a really neat miracle to meet somebody who was so ready to here the gospel!

On Friday, I went on exchanges to MuZha (木柵) with Elder Wu. It's always fun to go to a new area and do some missionary work there! We went contacting at one of the big universities there and found some cool people to talk to.

At English class on Wednesday, we had a new student who's name was Rain. She lives in Shanghai, but has been visiting here for a few months. After class she came up and starting asking us about the Book of Mormon and about what our church believes. Then on Friday, we were riding home and we ran into her on the street! She says that she really wants to learn more about our church, but she's going back to China after the New Year, so we gave her a Book of Mormon, and hopefully she'll be able to learn a lot from that!

Well that was pretty much this week. This next week is Chinese New Year, so that means that we eat until we explode!

Elder Richardson 

任長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #90 -- FEBRUARY 9, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #90

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

The most exciting part about this week is that Jonny passed his baptismal interview! He is pretty excited to get baptized and to keep learning in the church. It's also cool to see the members of the ward get to know him and include him in things. During the lesson in Priesthood meeting yesterday, we split up into groups to talk about agency. Our group had Jonny get up to share with the rest of the class. He applied what he had just learned in Gospel Principles class about Adam and Eve and he did a great job! He'll get baptized this Saturday!

Last week, I was looking through the area book, and decided to call one of the phone numbers on an old baptismal record. His name is Brother Cha. I called him again yesterday afternoon, and said we could go up and visit him. So we went there last night and shared with him a couple of scriptures. It's really easy to see his sincere desire to come back to church. His work schedule is fairly busy, but he said that in April, his work schedule will be back to normal, and he will be able to come to church every Sunday. He was certainly one of those lost sheep who wants to come back, but maybe didn't know how. We are excited to keep meeting with him and help him come all the way back!

We met with our investigator David again this week. He's just a really cool guy. He works at McDonalds, and he said he's willing to be baptized if he knows it's true. It was cool to have a lesson that was really relaxed, and joke around with him while still teaching the gospel. He is going to be great!

Our companionship got gifted two guitars in two days! We visited a less active who had one that she didn't want, and then the next day found a perfectly nice one by the trash in our building. So now our apartment has two guitars!

Thursday and Friday were pretty crazy this week. Elder Hawkins, our district leader, had to go to some meetings in Taipei, so we had a trio with his companion and traveled back and forth between our two areas to cover all of the lessons that we had. It was pretty fun though, and we still got a lot done.

Last night we visited the Liao Family, the parents of one of our awesome members. They really liked the Plan of Salvation and we can tell that they are really learning a lot from the scriptures and slowly developing their faith in Jesus Christ! It's always neat to have them ask us questions rather than the other way around!

That was about it for this week.

Elder Richardson
任長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #89 -- FEB. 2, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #89

FEBRUARY 2, 2015

There was a lot of cool stuff that happened this week!

Our investigator Jonny is awesome! We taught him the big three, Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and Tithing all in one shot after church yesterday, and he said he was willing to obey all of them. His baptismal interview is this week, and he will be baptized next week! He made me think of a line from Preach My Gospel. It says those who are prepared "will recognize that you are the Lord’s servants. They will be willing to act on your message." I don't think it was that he recognized me and my companion were anything special, but he has recognized the truthfulness of our message and that our church is special, and so he is willing to act on it however he needs to. We saw him last night after we taught him the Word of Wisdom in the afternoon. He had with him a Supao (a popular energy drink here). He said, "Well, I can't drink coffee or tea anymore, so Supao it is!" That made us pretty happy.

We had a Facebook miracle this week. Last week, we contacted a guy who was in the middle of selling his motorcycle to another guy. He was pretty willing to talk, but the other guy didn't want to. I wrote down our number on a pamphlet, and on a whim, also wrote down my Facebook name. Then we opened up our Facebook again, we saw that he had added us!

We had a lot of "Team Jesus" this week. We got 3 member referrals, but they all lived outside of our area! 

Yesterday, in the new member fireside, one of the senior missionaries said something that I liked. She said "Faith is not a feeling. It is a CHOICE." I like that.

Found another cool English name this week: Ytterbium Wang.

That is about it for this week. The work goes on!

Elder Richardson
任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #88 -- JAN 26, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #88

JANUARY 26, 2015

Well it was a short week, but there was still a lot that happened, just like every week!

Wednesday we had a fun P-Day at the golf range. I'm definitely not very good at golf, but I got some tips from one of the other Elders and I hit one or two really good ones, which made me feel really successful! The funniest part was Elder Greenhalgh, one of the missionaries in our district. He was a baseball player in high school so he grabbed the driver and started whacking the golf balls as hard as he could. I think he broke the club and he could never hit the ball straight, but it was still really funny!

The temple was great, as it usually is. While we were helping with sealings, the officiator had me start reading the names because they were all in French or German! They were pretty difficult to pronounce, but I'm sure those people are super concerned about correct pronunciation, they are just glad that the work is getting done!

I decided to start the Book of Mormon again. I figured out that I can finish it again before the end of my mission. I've already learned a lot from it, as it is every time that you reread the scriptures. It always makes me think of this story about Blueberries from a Liahona that I read once: http://goo.gl/y9zzVK

On Thursday, we went to help a member move a couch out of their families apartment. It wasn't a particularly heavy couch, but it was really difficult to get it out of the hallway and small door and into the elevator. It was stuck for a while, but then we finally got it out!

Probably the most eventful thing this week was that we had pig brain for dinner! We went to Zhou Ba's house for dinner on Sunday, and he pulled out two big pig skulls, and started pulling the meat off for everyone to eat. They also stuck some chopsticks through the eye socket and pulled out some brain to share. I tried some and it wasn't too bad!

Our Ward Council is funny because there are almost as many kids as adults in there! In a small ward, lots of families have both the father and the mother in the ward council, so the kids join in as well!

That's about it for this week. Our investigators are doing really well. Mostly just slow and steady :)

Have a good week!

Elder Richardson

任淳楷長老

PIG SKULL FOR DINNER!

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #87 -- JANUARY 21, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #87

JANUARY 21, 2015

This week is our temple day, which means that our P-Day is on Wednesday and that we are allowed to get up early to email! Transfer weeks always feel really long, and temple weeks also feel really long, so a LOT happened this week!

Last P-Day, we just stayed inside our apartment, ate Pizza Hut, and played Settlers of Catan and BANG for our whole P-Day. It was super fun!

Last Wednesday, we had a really fun English party! The adults played BANG, the kids played UNO and water colored, and we found a gas burner so that we could make s'mores for everyone. Everybody thought they were too sweet, but that's pretty normal. Americans just like really sweet food!

Friday was transfer meeting! Elder Mayhew left me and went really far away to TaiDong, and I'm now with Elder Casper! Elder Casper just came from Jilong, which is near my first area, and he's on his third transfer, which means I'm a "breaker." He's a fun guy and he's got a lot of energy, so we're excited to see a lot of great things happen this transfer!

On Saturday, we met with a guy whose English name is Buddha. One of the less actives in our ward called us out of the blue and wanted to meet with us. She really wants her boyfriend to learn about the church and get baptized! We had a great visit with him and we hope that he will come to church and get his girlfriend's whole family back to church too!

We also met with Jonny. He read to 1 Ne 8 in the BoM already, and got to meet a lot of members at church on Sunday. He really enjoyed learning about the plan of salvation, and we are excited for his progress!

One of the coolest things we did this week was to meet with Brother Liao's parents. I mentioned him last week, and this week his parents wanted us back to learn more. Actually they said that they'd prefer if we came more than once a week. They were a little surprised when we invited them to baptism, but I think that they will learn faster than they think. Brother Liao is a really awesome member in our ward, and he is really excited for his parents to learn the gospel!

Today for P-Day we are going to a golf range that's on top of a 20-story building. I've never been golfing before, so it should be fun!

That's all I can think of this week. Add oil!

Elder Richardson

任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #86 -- JAN 12, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #86

JANUARY 12, 2015

Well, I forgot my planner at home, so I forgot everything that happened this week!

Last Monday was really fun! We went to the chapel and played Uno and Bang with some of the members of our district!

We had a lot of new investigators that are really good! About two months ago, Elder Mayhew and Elder Naasman contacted Brother Luo on the street, just a couple of days after he got back from a trip to Salt Lake City. His older sister is a member there and took him on a tour at temple square. We sat down with him this week and had a really spiritual lesson for him. His wife died not too long ago, and we can definitely tell that she's working on him from the other side! He goes out of the country a lot, so it'll be hard to meet with him consistently, but we have high hopes for him!

We got a referral named Jonny from my old area Songshan. One of the investigators that I knew there brought Jonny to church and then the elders there sent the referral here. He has a really sincere desire to find truth, and he's really excited about reading the Book of Mormon. He came to church yesterday even though we just met him on Saturday!

We've been working harder to get member visits, but the problem is that when we schedule member visits, they turn out to not be member visits because there is a non-member or RCLA there! Last night we went to our friend Brother Liao's house (the one that let us use his skype). We planned on just sharing with him, but were surprised when his parents came down and listened to our message too! We invited them all to have family prayer every night, and we are going to go back next week to see them again.

One of the recent converts in the ward hit his one-year mark yesterday, so at the end of our gospel principles class, he got down on one knee and proposed to his wife, asking her if she would be willing to get sealed with him in the temple. Apparently they didn't have a formal proposal, so he decided to do it again. All of the girls there thought that it was really cute!

After church on Sunday, we met with the Bishop and the ward mission leader to talk about the ward mission plan. We set a goal with them and the ward to have 15 baptisms in the ward this year. It's a pretty ambitious goal, and I'll likely be in this ward until May, so with some faith and some diligence, it'll get done!

Well that's all that I remember this week. Add oil!

Elder Richardson
任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #85 -- JAN. 5, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #85

JANUARY 5, 2015

Happy New Year 2015! 

I spent the entire calender year of 2014 here in Taiwan, which is pretty mind-blowing to think about.

On Tuesday we met a lady who used to live in SuZhou! We could definitely tell she was a 大陸人(Mainlander), and we gave her a Book of Mormon, which she was really interested in! Hopefully, we will meet with her again this week!

I found another name for Jesus Christ that I really like. In Moses 7:53, He is "the Rock of Heaven." It's goes along great with the imagery in Helaman 5:12. 

In Taibei on some of the sidewalks they have "blind man paths," which is just a row of bumps on the road for blind people to follow. So while we were walking home from English class, Elder Mayhew and I walked for a few minutes on the path with our eyes closed...everybody probably thought we were really weird.

On Thursday, I went on a really fun exchange with Elder Hawkins in MuZha. And on the exchange I achieved one of my mission goals. I have now been to every single chapel in the 4 Taibei stakes! Between my 5 areas and two years of the Christmas choir, I've been to all of them, and a number of them twice! It means I'm really a "Taibei" missionary!

While on exchanges, we visited a less-active member who shared with us a great analogy that I applied to missionary work. When we study the scriptures or pray or read, it's like we are engraving the words we read or hear on a vinyl record. Then when we share with other people, if we are doing it right and are led by the Spirit, God will take the needle and put it on the things on the record that we need to say.

There is a great couple in our ward, we call them Zhou Ba and Zhou Ma. Zhou Ba reminds me a lot of Grandpa Beach. They had us over to their house to eat twice this week, and their food is always delicious! Zhou Ba cooked some barbecue fish for us yesterday..SO GOOD.

Well, we had a good week, and are looking forward to another good one next week! Add oil!

Elder Richardson

任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #84 -- DEC 29, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON LETTER #84

DECEMBER 29, 2015

Well, this week was great because we had a baptism!!

I think a week or two ago I mentioned a Sister Chen that we were teaching. She was just waiting on her husband to give her permission, and then she was ready to be baptized! On Friday, during the middle of our Skype calls, she sent us a text that said that her husband finally agreed! So we hurriedly planned a baptismal service and she got baptized and confirmed yesterday (Sunday)!

Last Monday, the choir went caroling at a Christmas Park by one of the train stations in Taibei. But unfortunately, half of the choir went to the MRT (subway) Exit #3 and the other half went to the Train Station Exit #3..so we spent awhile trying to find each other and only had a few minutes to sing in the station there. But we had a fun time singing and a lot of people took pictures and videos of a bunch of foreigners singing in the train station!

Tuesday was our only full day of missionary work this week, so we ran around and visited all of the investigators and members that we needed to. Our area is weird because there is a small "city" area where we live, but most of the people live up on the surrounding mountains, so we take a lot of buses up steep hills to visit all of these people.

Thursday was our all-day Christmas zone conference! We had some training in the morning, and then had a huge Christmas lunch with turkey and most important, REAL mashed potatoes! It was delicious. Then I played an arrangement of "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" on the saxophone with Elder Meeks playing the piano for the Christmas Talent Show! The only problem with the talent show was that all of the younger missionaries did songs or skits from "Frozen," so I was lost the whole time..

On Friday was Skype calls! Cool to hear my family all with Mainland China accents :)

On Saturday, we went to visit one of the less-active members who lives near our house. We got there, and then he insisted on taking us out to eat. He stuffed us full of hotpot and some delicious "orange" fish (it was like orange chicken, but fish). I've gotten pretty good at eating fish lately, but I'll never be able to eat the head...or the eyeballs..

Have a good week!

Add oil!

Elder Richardson

任淳楷長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON #83 -- DEC 22, 2015

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON -- LETTER #83

DECEMBER 22, 2015

This week was super 忙！(busy) We had choir performances all weekend and exchanges during the week.

On Friday, we went to the Xinpu chapel. Instead of singing for the members there, we went out on the street and sang with the whole choir for passersby while the members handed out English Class and Restoration pamphlets. It was fun, but hard because  the cars going by were really loud and we had a hard time singing over them!

On Saturday, we started singing in XinDian (my chapel right now), and then the whole choir got on the MRT for over an hour to Danshui, which is on the other end of Taibei! They just opened up a brand new chapel last month, and it's really big and really nice! We performed for their Christmas program along with the high school wind ensemble and an ocarina choir. The performance went smoothly, but it got over later than expected, so we all had to hurry in order to get home on time!

After our performance in Shilin on Sunday, a member who I knew in Neihu had a GIANT dessert spread for all of the missionaries. A lot of us hadn't eaten dinner, so we tore that stuff apart, and it was DELICIOUS.

We had an investigator (Sister Chen) who went to church for the first time this week! Because of her work schedule, she can only go to church in the mornings, so we went with her to a different ward. It was sad because she didn't know any of the members that she has met before, but when our meeting time changes to 9am next year, she'll be able to come to AnKang! We are really excited for her!

Yesterday, I read President Monson's Priesthood Session talk (the one about the Bismarck) in Chinese, and I learned a lot of new vocabulary like warship, destroyer, torpedo, rudder and rotating double-turret guns. But I probably won't be using those again anytime soon!

While Elder Eisele (ZL) and I were tracting in AnKang, we started talking to this one lady. Elder Eisele stopped in mid-sentence because he saw a GIANT cockroach on the door. It was probably at least 4 inches long and really fat. The lady we were talking to got really scared and we let her close the door before it got in, and then we smashed it after she closed the door. We figured out they had just fumigated somewhere, because we saw like 3 more that size on the road as we were walking away!

So it was a good week filled with singing, chocolate and cockroaches!

Merry Christmas!

Elder Richardson

任淳楷長老

The Christmas tree in our apartment

The brand new Danshui chapel!