Zhang Hua April 25, 2016

Hi Parents! Everything is really good! I love Zhang Hua! The apartment is so close to the church! The members are great and they always cook for us on Sundays so we don't have to worry about cooking meals on Sundays! Elder Quist is moving today to be a Zone Leader in a place called Tainan. President and Sister Blickenstaff really are amazing and I feel really blessed to have been able to learn from them! I am also really excited to meet and learn from President Teh and his wife. I appreciate all the support from you guys and I'm excited to talk to you guys in a couple weeks on Mother's Day! Well, love you both and I pray for you every day! You're awesome and your testimonies are amazing!

-Son

PS. Service is the best! That's how we learn to love people! In Taiwan it's kind of hard to do a lot of service. There is no yard work to do because no one has yards and Taiwanese people haaaatteee taking help from strangers. However, this Friday the 1st counselor in the bishopric needs us to come over and move a bunch of heavy stuff so that'll be fun!

Zhang Hua District

Elder Quist is pictured just left of me. What a boss. My new comp/son, Elder Chen, is pictured second from the right. He is also a boss. OH, and on the far right is Elder Spendlove who also went to Brighton and is a BRO.

The Peace the Gospel Brings April 18, 2016

This week was unlike any other week of my mission. For those of you that are unaware, this past Tuesday Elder David Hampton was killed in a car accident here in Taiwan. I did not know Elder Hampton extremely well, but I was blessed to be sent to serve in the same ward as him and his companion Elder Quist the day before he passed away. We were able to get some meals together and him and his companion shared with Elder Chen and I about what the work was like in the Zhang Hua 1st ward. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for each and every one of His children and his plan usually transcends our human understanding. As Elder Chen and I were walking home Tuesday night (we still didn't have bikes at the time) we were passing the church when we had the thought that maybe we want go inside the church and see if there are any members that we could meet (#whitewashinglife). It was in the lobby of the church where we met a Brother Huang who introduced himself as a 1st ward member. We were excited to meet him, but he seemed concerned about something. He then informed us of the accident, but did not know all of the details. He then received some texts which he showed us. With my very little understanding of Chinese characters I could only understand the last line which said something like, "returned to Heavenly Father". Then the next text which said, "Hampton". I could not believe it! However, I didn't have much time to think because at that very moment, President Blickenstaff called and said that we need to get to Zhang Hua Christian Hospital as soon as possible and help Elder Quist. The next second, we asked Brother Huang if he would be able to take us to the hospital which he was glad to do. On the way there Brother Huang was telling us that it was strange that we were able to meet up. He said that he usually doesn't go to the church on weekdays and just decided that it would be a good place to wait while he gets more details about the accident. We got to the hospital extremely quick and were able to comfort Elder Quist a little and after a couple other missionaries got there we were able to give him a priesthood blessing which was one of the most electrifying spiritual moments of my mission. I know that Elder Chen and I would not have been able to get to the hospital in the time we were needed if we had not stopped at the church. I know that President Blickenstaff receives revelation for our mission and that Zhang Hua 1st ward is where I need to be (why else would we be sent to white wash in a relatively small area where there are already two elders?). Miracles! I know that our Heavenly Father has a plan for each and every one of His children and the events of this past week have helped me understand that principle better than ever before. It's been amazing to serve with Elder Quist for the last few days. After a few days in the mission home, he returned to Zhang Hua to help out here. He, along with the Hamptons and others here in the mission that knew Elder Hampton, have held fast to their testimonies and it has brought them the peace that only the gospel of Jesus Christ brings. I have felt it too and I know that God will continue to bless us as we live the gospel. :)

In other news, we are going to a Taiwanese style bbq buffet today. :)

Oh, and my son Elder Chen is a BOSS. He's a baller/amazing at the piano but he's so humble at the same time!!!

Love you all,

Elder Poon

New Lyfe April 12, 2016

A very inspirational week. General conference was a spiritual feast. It was without a doubt the most I've ever gotten out of conference. Our church leaders are super "lihai" (which means incredible/amazing/very skilled). My main takeaways were that we need to remember our divine heritage at all times and that obedience, like President Uchtdorf said, is not a process by which we change ourselves into people we are not. It is rather, "the process by which we discover what we are truly made of". We are children of a loving Heavenly Father. That's the 1st principle of the 1st lesson, people! Anyways, I really gained a lot of personal revelation and inspiration. It was fun watching conference with all of the Jia Yi missionaries. Everyone pooled together to buy a ton of stuff from Costco so that we could just have lunch at the church it was awesome. Well, now to the crazy part of the week.... Sunday afternoon, Elder Jackson and I were making up studies when we get a call..... from President Blickenstaff. I answered it and then President told me that he needs me to train a native missionary that is waiting for his visa to go to the U.S. Oh, and I need to white-wash. So that is why I am writing you all today instead of yesterday. I had to pack all my stuff  on Sunday night and did not have many chances to say goodbye to the amazing people of Min Xiong, but I got to the mission home at around 11 Monday morning. We had some meetings and stuff and then I met my new SON, Elder Chen!!!! He's a boss. He's from a place called Tao Yuan which is where the airport is in Taiwan. He's probably the most humble human being I've ever met. The Blickenstaffs took us to this super awesome hot pot buffet that is across the street from the mission home and then we took the train to a place called Zhang Hua which is the next big city south of Tai Zhong. Our apartment is an apartment that has been closed for a while and is just now reopening up. We got there last night to find that the keys they gave us were old keys and the locks have been changed! So we had to call a lock smith and get the locks changed again lol. Zhang Hua is pretty sweet and our apartment is just a 5 minute walk from the chapel which is really nice! A big change from living in Min Xiong where we had to ride 40 minutes to get anywhere! There's a bit of adjusting to do right now. We obviously have no investigators since we are white washing and have even less time because of the training study schedule, but that only leaves room for improvement! I'm super stoked to work with Elder Chen. He's super mature already and has a great testimony. We're gonna see some sweet miracles, no doubt! 

-Elder Poon

President training the new missionary trainers (Elder Poon!)

The new missionaries finding out who will train them inside red envelopes.

After lunch and health and safety orientation, they're off to their new area!

Master of Minxiong April 3, 2016

Looks like I'm staying another movecall in Minxiong! I have officially now stayed longer in Minxiong than any other Elder ever! I am quite content. The work is pretty awesome here and I can make more full use of my Costco membership that I bought with Elder Mitton a few months back. I don't even know where the time goes anymore. I feel like there have been a lot of changes in the mission lately but none of them really effect the work in Minxiong. We've just been doing the work. Ali Shan was so awesome last week! However, the internet cafe that we usually go to put a virus on all of our memory cards so we can't upload pics sorry. We'll get it figured out though! Anyways, it was pretty awesome breathing fresh air again. That was probably the best part. The scenery was pretty amazing. There are a ton of Japanese Cherry trees up there and there are parts that look like the Shire. Preeeettttyyyy sweeet. We went up with the other elders in our district and one of their members, whose name is Rafiki, drove us up. We only had 3 near death experiences as Rafiki tried to pass some buses going up the mountain, not bad!! It was definitely a P-day to remember though. Other than that, our friend Kim got baptized last Saturday! It was pretty sweet. Somehow I forgot to say "Amen" while dunking her the first time so I had to do it again lol. She's super awesome and I'm really confident that she'll stay strong in the church. Her testimony about repentance is awesome. Also, I got to play the guitar for a musical number. We did 'More Holiness Give Me' which has become one of my favorite hymns out here on the mish. I sing it sometimes while riding my bike if I need a boost. Elder Jackson is crazy jacked and is way good at magic. We were having an English party the other day and it was kinda falling apart but then Elder Jackson pulled out his magic tricks and it saved the day. He has this one magic coin trick that I have seen him do like 347290 times but I still can't figure it out! Anyways, I'm really stoked for general conference. We don't get to watch it until next week, so we're still preparing. I've never been so excited for general conference before and I've been studying last October's for the last little while. It intrigues me that President Monson only gave two really short talks (probably due to his health/oldness) but that makes me think how important it is that we really "Keep the Commandments" and "Be and Example". This week we have a plan to go around with a little speaker and have people listen to President Monson's voice to get them intrigued and want to come listen to general conference, it's gonna be awesome! Well, that's all folks! Until next time!

-Elder Poon