Sun Moon Lake

Shi Baba (green shirt on the end)

Green Mango popsicles

.25 November 16, 2015

Hello! Sorry I have not written a big email in a while! My last couple p-days have been super busy!! Anyways, life is so awesome. Elder Chan and I are having a blast in Taiping and it makes the work so much better! The highlights of the last couple weeks are 1) mission tour! Elder Sam Wong from the 70 came and toured our mission. He gave some great insight on how we as missionaries have several different tools and skills that we need to work on so we can be prepared to be a good missionary in any phase of the work. It was a great conference and he also spoke at our stake's stake conference the following weekend so we got a double dose of Elder Wong and his wife and also of President and Sister Blickenstaff! Then last P-day, a member from Dali named Shi Baba, wanted to take a few of us missionaries to Sun Moon Lake! It was so awesome! So beautiful. I had almost forgotten how much I love nature. Shi Baba owns a few dongxi dians (stuff stores) so he is constantly reeling in the $$$$$. Therefore, he took us to a super nice lunch first and then bought us all tickets for a ferry around the island and tons of fruit along the way. The rides there and back were just as fun as the lake too! We had a guitar in the back and we jammed out hardcore (missionary style). Then this past week I celebrated my 6 month mark! I/4 done! My brain honestly cannot fathom it! To celebrate we went to Mr. Steak! However, a salmon bone got caught in my esophagus and that sucked... It was still good though! Then a few members invited us over for pizza!! A great day indeed. The work has been fairly solid as of late. We're just trying to keep diligent and we've seen the Lord's blessings in doing so! We had 3 miracle new investigators yesterday! Taiping is the best, man. I'm gonna miss it if I have to leave next Monday cause it's the end of the move call, but I'm also stoked to see new things and experience a new part of Taiwan! That's all folks! I'll try harder to not miss weeks in the future!

-Elder Poon 

6 month commemorative tie burning!

Teppenyaki!! Fun Fact: I'm sitting by an apostle's son in this pic.

The Land of Too Much Peace November 8, 2015

Happy Birthday Momma! For those of you that can't read Chinese (like me) this says, "Happy birthday mamassita I love you!"

Elder Parker pondering life while gazing over Taichung.

Perks of baptizing a hair sytlist.

Watchin' the Joseph Smith movie

Chairs represent move calls

The Legendary buffet (3rd time). I love this place so much but I always feel absolutely terrible by the end...... but it's so awesome.

Pan's for life! (In Chinese, there are only a certain amount of good last names so me and my boy elder parker here both have the same Chinese last name, Pan!)

I am Sww October 25, 2015

After close to four months here, Taiping is still awesome! The work is always the same but there's always new people and miracles that happen every day. Wednesdays have become one of my favorite days because we get to teach English! We usually have around 50 students. I teach the advanced class and it's super easy cause all my students' English is super good already. Sometimes it's even better than mine... Sometimes they ask me grammar questions and I have absolutely no idea what the answer is. Also, after English class we have 5 golden investigators that always want to meet! Two pairs of brother/sister and one other girl! That means 3 lessons...This poses a huge problem because there is only one me and one Elder Chan even if we do split work. Somehow it all usually works out though! Elder Chan is the man. He cooks me food. He used to be a cook at a country club. It's awesome. In other news, we started teaching this less active guy that has 3 personalities. 3. One of them exclusively uses Chinese, one of them is a girl, and of them can only say, "I am Sww" in English. It's really weird to teach him especially when he's in "I am Sww" mode because we'll ask him questions like, "What does this scripture mean to you?" or "So are you willing to come to church on Sunday" and his response is always, "I am Sww". We're still trying to figure out how to help him lol. 

Today I am going to go buy a laser fitted suit for a ridiculously cheap price. That is all. :)

-Elder Poon

First Week of Real Work October 18, 2015

Having an extra hour and a half of proselyting time is pretty exhausting. However, this past week was great. We had a baptism and we celebrated my new companion's birthday! That means we went and got really good (but also expensive) food. So worth it though! The baptism was awesome and I almost cried when our girl, Sister Zhang, started bearing her testimony of eternal families! That's what it's all about! Not much time though, I'll let the pictures say the rest!

 Her cousin (a bishop in another ward) got to baptize her!

For Elder Chan's b-day we went to a place called Mr. Steak. :)

Another American place called Shark Bites Toast. They're famous for  their papaya milkshakes... so good.

Training Complete October 12, 2015

I'm officially just a junior companion! Training was an adventure, and I'm ready to start doing more work. This movecall I will be staying in Taiping and my new companion is Elder Chan from Canada! He's been out for just over a year and he's super chill. We're gonna do some great things here, I know it! This last week was one of my favorite weeks of the mission. We had a lot of great things happen. First of all, that buffet last pday was so amazing and was just as good if not better than the first time we went. I have learned to love sushi. I ate like 3 rolls of this smoked salmon sushi... soooo good. Then Wednesday we had our English class's Halloween party. As English leader (the least desirable calling) I was in charge of planning it, but it actually turned out pretty decent! English class is one of our best ways of finding new investigators, fun fact. Then Friday we had Alex's baptism! It was my first time baptizing someone! It was awesome even though I had to dunk him twice because the first time his knees came out of the water. Afterwards, Alex bore a powerful testimony but instead of closing in the name of Jesus Christ, he said, "any question?". Lol. Then General conference was awesome. All the missionaries had a room to ourselves and we all bought a bunch of snacks so it was awesome. Very few things are better than getting spiritually and physically fed at the same time. I loved so many talks and I especially enjoyed the first talk given by President Uchtdorf. I definitely think that sometimes I make my discipleship more complicated than it needs to be so that is something that I'm going to work on. I'm also gonna start ponderizing every week and I encourage all of you to as well! I also really liked the quote (I forgot who said it), "You don't need to prepare yourself to start becoming who God wants you to be". Seriously, general conference is such a blessing and such a great way to receive revelation! This week we've got a lot of work to do, gotta find some new investigators!!!

-Elder Poon

The Spirit of Revelation October 5, 2015

Many miraculous things happened this week! To start off, I will tell a quick story. This last Saturday I was on exchanges with a certain Elder Stevenson. He is the son of the newly called apostle, Gary E. Stevenson. During the exchanges the conversation came up about conference and his dad being a general authority. I then asked Elder Stevenson, "Dude, what if your dad gets called as an apostle?!" He replied, "There's no way!". I thought for a second and then said, "Well, there's 'apostle'-bility!". Lolol so I basically prophesied a new apostle with a pun. Life is good. However, last Monday my companion and I rode our bikes home from the chapel in a typhoon with approx. 832 mph winds. Perhaps one of the crazier things that I've done life. In addition to the risk of trees and other things falling on us, my companion almost got his leg chopped off by a passing motor scooter and I was almost blown over into a barbed wire fence. We made it back to our apartment safely though! My entire body was super sore the next day though from battling the winds! Fun stuff. The work is awesome. This week we've been stressin' out a little bit because our golden people have had a few little issues, but we've worked them out and as long as nothing else happens, everything is ready! Tracting sucks. However, I've learned that tracting is a great way to show the Lord your diligence and He will bless you for that! It seems like every time we go tracting, there are very few results, but afterwards (like the next day) we will have a miracle new investigator or a miracle lesson. God works in mysterious ways! It's my last week of training and the movecall is next week! I'm thinking I'll probably stay in Taiping though... but who knows? 

Have a great week y'all

-Elder Poon