New Address

Elder Pack
No. 498-11, Wucyuan Rd.,
North District, Taichung City 404
Taiwan

Later.

Sunset. Address Change

Cool Picture, eh?

Also, my address changed, I'll get the new address here someday.

Nothing new

I feel kinda stupid updating this, when not much has happened.

I'm still working hard, spreading the gospel, changing peoples lives for the better, and pretty much the normal live of a missionary.

Anyway, here's a picture taken at someplace called Wushantou Water Reservoir. Not the most interesting place I've visited on our weekly preparation day, but we went nonetheless.

Sometimes as a missionary we have these lessons with people that are pretty amazing. Just helping them resolve all of their concerns and helping them see the truth of the things we teach them. It's great to be a part of their spiritual awakening (I think that phrase makes sense.) There's nothing more fulfilling.

I still have a year before I'll see any of you, but I hope everyone else is using their time wisely too. Until then, I wish you all luck. I'll try to think of more things to write next time.

Elder Pack.

I'll never forget....

I'll never forget the day we helped someone do service at their egg farm because of unexpected lack of workers.

Taking chickens out of cages is an art and requires much skill.

We needed to take all the chickens from the left side and find a place for them in the right side.

Pretty fun

Hope everyone has this sort of experiance once in their lives.

Elder Pack

Syria

Unfourtunately, in Taiwan half of the countries are named Syria. Makes playing monoploy knock off products on Preparation Days a little harder.

:/

I've moved to Xinying....or is it Sinying, not sure what it is in English.

A Stairway into the heavens.

Oooo, cool eh?

Pictures. Hurrah.

Pictures: I'm not sure of the order, but:

In front of the Taiwan Taibei Temple

A field where he helped plant ~200 trees

A typlical residential street

I might have been away from America too long, but does McDonalds usually have a Spa?

The Temple from the street view

Elder Pack

Oh right, I'm 21.

Oh no, I'm old. As for celebrating my birthday....I didn't really do anything. I've reached the age where birthdays aren't a time for celebrating.

I haven't really written here in a long time, oops.

I've been in Donggang for the last 6 weeks, and I just moved to Hengchun once again.

We had a chance to go to the temple last week, that was great to be able to attend.

Next time I'll have some cool pictures.

We saved christmas

The 4 missionaries here put together a christmas play loosely based on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" called "How the Missionaries Saved Christmas".

As you can probably guess, in the play the Grinch is contacted at a stoplight after stealling everyones presents by missionaries and is taught the gospel and afterwards returns all the presents and stuff.

This picture is the house we made for the play. It's made out of those foam things usually used for floors in play rooms. The play was really funny. Never acted in Chinese before.

Elder Pack

The view from the tallest building in Kaohxiong

....only half way up though.

The Kaohxioung 85. Pretty cool.

Ate lunch there. Was tasty.

Merry Christmas everyone.

There's nothing cooler than...

....my new area, penghu, an island somewhere between China and Taiwan. mostly because the wind is feirce! We ride bicycles, but most of the time we're just struggling against the wind to stay on our path. It's a little bit like a typhoon, but everyday. Also sometimes little bits of sand are mixed with the wind and hurt a little bit. You could say it's almost like an epic struggle between Good and Evil. (see Helaman 5:12) Luckily us missionaries are built upon the Rock of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so we don't fall over off our bikes. (if you don't get this, read that scripture.) heh.

Also, chirstmas is coming. I hope everyone can avoid focusing on gifts, unless you're focusing on giving them, to spread the christmas spirit. Happy Christmas, in case I forget to write again.

It's pretty odd that I fly a plane on my mission, it just never occured to me that I might be flying in a plane on my mission. I guess all of my previous thoughts have been changed a little bit. Except dogs, dogs all around the world love missionaries.

Also, there's nothing cooler than being a missionary, remember that. (see picture included)

hmmm, yeah.

And feel free to admire that picture, especially the amazingly good looking weather.

Elder Pack.

Ooops

Eh, oops, haven't written here in a long while.

Well, now I'm in Taibao, pretty cool place. It's really small and everyone knows us. It's a nice feeling just riding down the street and greeting everyone.

Not too much of what I do is too interesting to regular people I guess. The only things I can think of is that we're preparing to do a Nativity Reenactment thingy at Christmas time.

Other than that right now we have 3 people being interviewed for baptism tommorow, which is exciting.

Elder Pack.

Pie

In addition to bringing the Gospel to the good people of Taiwan, this week we brought the goodness of Lemon Meriunge pie.

Everyone who ate thought it was too sweet.

Oh well

Elder Pack

Missionary Work: Hard Work, All DAY

Yeah, missionary work is hard work, and all day.

I know I usually write about fun things, but thats because I write email on my preparation day, the day we have a few hours to have fun.

But really other than that, every day is a lot of talking to people on the streets, trying to find people who are interested in the restored church of Jesus Christ. Then a lot of teaching people lessons about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Which are exhausting in a different way. (sitting down, you'd think it'd be easier, but it's not.)

Even though it's hard work, it's definately worth every moment of it.

Elder Pack

PS: 飛盤城市﹐好啊﹗

Wooo.

"Can't you post on your own blog? A shout-out would be nice." -- heh, Hello Ryan, did you get my letter? I sent it to your house address....I think. Fabrice, give me your address! grr

Just so you know, my sister sends me my blog comments every week, so I was trying to read what you sent me this week, but, for some reason we're emailing at a phillipian owned email place, and I cant see the characters, the computers don't show them! Right now I'm in Nanzi. There are a lot of Philipians here, because they come here for work sometimes. This last week we had a baptism and a Philipian lady joined the church. Every baptism is so special. This last time us 4 missionaries in the area sang a musical number. It was quite good in my opinion.

Teaching the gospel here is pretty amazing. It's actually quite simple, once you get someone's attention and they're willing to ask God to help them know the truth. The hard part is getting someone to sit down with us, most see us and dismiss us as trying to...well, I donno, something. Most older people wont allow us to talk with them either, they're very traditional.

It's amazing to see the change this gospel brings.

I wanted to send some pictures...but this computer doesnt work right now.

Elder Pack

They have bowling in Taiwan also

Yep. That's what I did last preparation day. FYI, that picture is taken right before a strike.

Other than that the work is still good and going well.

2 more

1: The view from the shower as I take my morning, mid-afternoon, and nightly showers (it's so hot and humid...).

2: Where I go if I happen to slip and fall out the window. (heheh)

I don't understand the need for a window that large in the bathroom...

The view from the 20th floor

This is the view out of our closet room in zuoying. Far off you can see Lotus Lake. There are some huge statues around there.

We're Matchmakers

My companinon and I are secretly trying to get this one investigator to remarry his wife. I think it's going quite well. They were holding hands as they treated us to dinner. Holding hands in Taiwan apparently means "This is my Wife". We're thinking a Marriage followed by a baptism. :D Nothing else that odd this week, except eating pig foot, which is quite the experience.

My address.

For anyone wishing to communicate with me, this is my address.

Elder Pack
#260, 24F-A6 Zhong Shan Rd Section 2
Kaohsiung Taiwan 80660

So, funny story time: My companion and I contacted this guy on the road, he was just sitting there. We started talking and he started using Taiwanese and Chinese and even some English, talking about bikes or something, we didn't understand. We soon realized he was drunk. After a while we tried to get him to walk home and get some rest. Then after some more talking, my companion for some reason askes the guy for a hug, just to test to see if he really was drunk, I guess. The man stares at him for 5 seconds and then gives him a tight hug. It was quite funny, but then he came over and gave me one too! After that we rode off and he started walking home. So I guess we helped him go home and sober up.

The other day I had what is called Grease Bucket. You choose a bunch of things and then they throw it in hot oil for a while, then they put it in a bag for you. i didn't like it too much, especially since my companion choose "blood rice" to put in. (He told me it was "chocolate rice".)

There's a 7/11 on almost every street corner it seems.

"Bing Sha" -- Sooo Gooood. The one I like has shaved milk ice, a cut up mango, and a scoop of mango ice cream.

Elder Pack.