August 28th

Ni hao

Its been what five days since my last email? So I don't have too much to say. Lets say that I had a really rough time on Wednesday. We got to the temple late and missed the endowment session. I was about to go on a rampage. We still got do some temple work which as in Chinese. At first it was a bit hard to understand, but then everything started to make sense. Oh it was some of the fastest chinese I have ever heard, if you think that the English ones will go fast... Your in a treat for Chinese. They could take out Muhammed Ali's float like a butterfly sting like a bee before he could even blink, that's how fast they were. Anyways it was good, but not quite the intersanctuary meditative peace I was looking for.

Friday we had President Osguthorpe of the Sunday School Presidency have a specialized Meeting. It was good, these meetings tend to have a lot of discussion and sharing of experiences. Well I volunteered to say something and basically I could not speak English. I tried to say how to begin Teaching but everytime it came out wrong everyone tried to fix me but it just came out wrong. In the end everyone laughed and thought I was an idiot, but its ok. I am just worried that if my English grammar is this bad now... Oh a year and a half... Well at least I don't sound taiwanese. He also pointed out that effective teachers do three things. 1.listen 2.Observe. 3.Descern. This is the teaching pattern for using the spirit this is how the Gospel can come alive within them. After the meeting we had companion exchanges and Elder Ah Puck and I took over xin zhu. Because we had a couple of lessons that night Elder Ah Puck and I had two members go with us so we could teach the investigators at the same time. The brother who helped me, dong dixiong, was awesome. He just bore simple testimony of how he came to know God and also shared how this world can prove we have a God. He said that if there wasn't a God why would we want to make good or evil choices? They wouldn't be either if they didn't have a consequence in the end. If there wasn't a consequence and we all die, why does it matter what we do? We have these choices and agency to receive the consequence of our actions. It means we have some after this life. We have a Spirit inside of us that guides us, gives us the feelings after we sin, make a mistake or do something good. Oh by the way we were teaching an atheist. He is way cool.

The reason I am emailing late today is because we had a typhoon. So saturday they gave us permission to go prepare and buy food so Thomas our ward mission leader took us to costco. It was like a wonder land. I loved it and they have american things! For prep for the storm I bought a bag of krusteaz pancake mix. That will last my mission:) It was pretty great. Sunday we got the call that after church we have to return home and stay inside. I got sick I think from one of our investigators on Saturday so I took a little nap and it felt amazing. Still a little sick but improving. Typhoon days are no fun after two hours I was going nuts. and this morning we had to stay in till they let us go. So I am free and going to enjoy my preparation day inside places without exploring!

Lots of Love from the Elder on a small asian country of formosa (Taiwan formosa is the dutch name for this island when they were here)

Elder Townsend

 

Oh Ps! The english class kids were good and there wasn't a parent insight! It was a miracle because basically I was the only one there because ELder Siebert had to take desk! Thank you for the prayers!