It's not just raining cats and dogs... It's raining MIRACLES. January 18, 2016

It rained a ton this week. I still don't have good rain gear.... Lol, but the rain doesn't stop us from preaching the gospel!!!!! The rain also helps a ton with the pollution which is terrible in the Minxiong/Jiayi area. If you were to use the scale that is used back home for pollution, the pollution here would probably be ranked "quadruple red death". Anyways, the Taiwanese presidential election was also going on this week. That means that there were parades and there are campaign cars driving around 24/7 with ridiculously loud speakers blazing, "VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!". Lots of things in the campaigning process here would never fly in the U.S. The work is super interesting in Minxiong right now. Elder Mitton and I are working pretty dang hard. Probably the hardest either of us have worked in our lives. However, we have 0 progressing investigators. We've taken a step back and looked at how we are doing things and decided that much like sports, we don't have to switch up the entire starting line-up (we don't have to make drastic changes), but there are small things that we could really focus on to do better! We got a lot of insight from our interviews this week with President Blickenstaff. He counseled me to make my personal study as effective as possible and really use that time to "put on the armor of God". President Blickenstaff is the man! Oh, and we found out that in July we will be getting out NEW mission president. President Teh! You can go look him up. I'm pretty sure he's serving as a seventy right now... Anyways, even though we don't have an progressing investigators, we have still seen a TON of miracles this week. The biggest one is perhaps this:  We walked into Costco on Saturday night and there were a gajillion people in there, we had like 10 minutes before dinner so we decided to talk to a few people. The VERY FIRST people we talked to were super cool. It was a guy and a girl (cousins) and they spoke English super well. We talked to them for 10 minutes and then exchanged contact information. Anyways, we went back to the food court to eat and then right when our dinner ended those same people came and offered to buy us pizza (obvi we weren't gonna refuse that). We then got invited to go over to their apartment and we found out that they had met with missionaries 6 years ago, but for some reasons lost contact. They expressed that recently they have been feeling a lot of distress with things that are happening in the world and were "seeking peace". Elder Mitton and I couldn't believe how golden these people are! They also expressed how they felt like it was a miracle and was God sending us to them. I couldn't agree more! We're meeting with them again tonight, I'll let you guys know how it goes!

-Elder Poon

oh, and I got pooped on by a bird last night while I was riding my bike lol

My Burden Is Light January 11, 2016

The mission just gets better and better! Taiwan is the bomb.com I really need to invest in some good rain gear though. Last Sunday it was basically a torrential downpour. The rain gear that I have currently was not built for the Taiwanese acid rain I guess so all my clothes still got soaked. I brought an extra pair of pants, but I spent all of church with a soaked shirt and tie... But besides that the weather has been pretty much perfect this week. The weather has been so good that even though we spent one day pretty much biking the entire day, it wasn't too bad!  Minxiong is super cool because there's 5 different colleges/universities in our area and so there are surprisingly a lot of foreigners. We've met a ton of Indians, a ton of Indonesians, a few folks from the states, some Europeans, and even a black guy from Idaho! It's been great being able to see people that don't look exactly like me! The work in Minxiong has been a little slow lately and we're having some struggles getting real solid investigators, but the work is still super fun and we try not to get too down on ourselves when we bike an hour to an appointment and the guy doesn't show (or when that happens four times in one day lol). We also had a great ZTM this week about how each missionary has responsibility to "be the light of the area". After ZTM I got to go on exchanges with one of the Zone leaders, Elder Nipper. Exchanges are one of my favorite times as a missionary because there are a lot of incredible missionaries out here and there's a ridiculous amount that can be learned from each one of them. Anyways, Elder Nipper is a stud. A convert from Oklahoma. One of the most Christ-like dudes I've ever met. Well, we were talking in comp study and we read a scripture, Matthew 11:30 which states that "...my yoke is easy, and my burden is light". We took this to literally means that our burden is LIGHT. We are called to carry this "light", the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to wherever we are called to serve. As David A. Bednar says in 'Becoming a PMG Missionary' (paraphrasing), "Missionaries are the conduits of light". Now all Elder Mitton and I have to do is go out and be the lights of Minxiong!

Love each and every one of you!

-潘長老

I need to get better at taking more pics but here's one of this super vast field of flowers we found!

2016: A Year in the Service January 4, 2016

This is pretty sweet, an entire calendar year in Taiwan and an entire calendar year preaching the gospel! It's a real blessing, no doubt! Elder Mitton and I have put a lot of thought and prayer in our setting of both personal and companionship goals. It's a great time to set goals because it's both the start of a new year and a new move call! Pretty much all of our goals are based on helping us increase our effectiveness as missionaries and helping us become more in tune with the spirit. Our scripture of the week was Alms 37:6. Simple things can lead to big results. It's a simple phrase! But it's true. Also, I've learned to not try to catch too many rabbits at once (not setting too many goals). That way I can really focus and hit the goals that I set. For new years we got taken to a traditional Chinese restaurant by Mr. Chao, it was super good but half of the dishes had shrimp in it which means that neither Elder Mitton or myself could eat them sadly. Mr. Chao is hilarious. He tries to speak English with us and it's awesome. Friday night we saw a super cool miracle. We set out tracting and I instantly felt like we should go down this certain street and then Elder Mitton felt like we should start at this certain house. Since it was New Years night, this couple (that usually weren't home at that time of night) happened to be home! It was a super awesome time getting to know them and then as we started sharing about the blessings of the gospel, we could feel the atmosphere of the room change. It was suddenly 15x more peaceful. God leads the way! I'm just super glad that E. Mitton and I were paying attention so we could follow. Now that all the holidays are over, we can really start to get back to work. Happy new year to all it's gonna be a great one, no doubt!!!

-潘長老

dinner with Mr. Chao

Back to Work December 27, 2015

It was nothing short of a magical Christmas week in Minxiong! My first Christmas in Taiwan (and my first Christmas away from home) was a memorable one no doubt! Elder Mitton and I celebrated Christmas Eve by eating a ton of cheesecake that we bought from Costco. Christmas day we went over to our branch president, President Li's house to Skype. Our branch president and his wife are so awesome, they prepared cake for us and gave us gifts. These gifts ended up being just a ton of Ferrero Rocher (Mom's favorite). Elder Mitton Skyped first and then the Li's took us out to "the nicest restaurant in Minxiong" and I got Norweigan salmon which was super good. Then I Skyped! It was super weird and I feel like I had just saw them a few days before. 45 minutes is a really short time when you're talking to your family! Anyways, then Elder Mitton and I had a great Xmas dinner at Mr. Steak (there's another one Minxiong wahoo!). Then later that night a family in our ward invited us over to share a xmas message and eat a ton of curry. A great Christmas! It was amazing how it really felt like Christmas. As Elder Mitton and I went out to spread the cheer to ALL, we found that the people seemed merrier and nicer than usual. I think it's cool that the celebration of the savior of the world is able to bring a spirit to even a predominantly Buddhist small island in Asia. Then the day after Christmas, the Barlows, a half American family in our branch, invited us to dinner... It was the best dinner I've had in Taiwan. It was a REAL Christmas dinner. It was a REAL Christmas miracle. But now it's time to get back to work. Elder Mitton and I just found out yesterday that we'll be together for another move-call which we are stoked about. Just gotta set some good goals to keep us moving forward!

Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and hope you all have a fantastic new year!

潘長老

The Jia Yi district choir outside the local mall!

Christmas eve selfie

Dinner at the Barlows

My new baby

#themansion

Holiday Greetings from Minxiong! December 21, 2015

Who knew that I'd be able to feel the Christmas spirit so strongly on a tropical Asian island?? It's really been a pretty festive week! We've had opportunities to be part of a Christmas parade, a huge church Christmas activity, and a Christmas concert in front of a giant mall. The work was actually super good this week too. Probably the busiest/most effective week since I've been in Minxiong. We found some really cool new investigators this week and also we helped our friend Brother Chen come back into activity! That's a big deal here in the Jia Yi district because they still need more tithe-paying Melchezidek priesthood holders! I know I've said this every week since I got to Minxiong, but Elder Mitton and I are really having a blast! We go get lunch at Costco like every day, but it's alright cause we both love it. Great guy. A straight up baller! Also, it was crazy meeting Mr. Chao! I got this super weird email from my dad last week saying that "Mr. Chao needs your phone number". It was kinda weird but I gave it to him and asked why he needs it and who Mr. Chao is. I got an email back saying that there was an email sent the previous week that explained who Mr. Chao was. I never got that email and my email time was all up so I couldn't get another response. Anyways, fast forward a few days... It was during language study and we get this call... guess who it is...... Mr. Chao!!! I still had no idea who he was at this point, but he told me that he had my Christmas present! Turns out Mr. Chao's son just moved into my home ward back in Utah. He went to visit because his son and his son's wife had a baby. Naturally, my parents had to have them over for dinner. They had a good time I guess and it was then decided that Mr. Chao could take my Christmas package to Taiwan and save my parents some pricey shipping fees. The craziest part is that of all the places in Taiwan, Mr. Chao only lives a few minutes away from the mansion! We met up at the grocery store across the street and I got to see all his pics from Utah and his pictures from IN MY HOUSE. Crazy. We're getting lunch with him later this week! 

Well anyways, I hope that everyone will have some time to just take a sec and think about how awesome it is that our Savior was born. The Plan of Salvation is literally THE PERFECT plan. I feel like I understand the true meaning of Christmas this year more than ever before. #missionblessings  Christmas is the greatest! I'm stoked to see the fam on Christmas day! Happy Holidays to all!!!

Elder Mitton hates gloves

I'm pretty sure the entire city of Jia Yi was at this parade. Lots of Asian Santa's!

Christmas Party at Sun Moon Lake December 14, 2015

We had our ONE holiday of the year this past week. The annual mission Christmas party! We took a bus up to Puli to go to Sun Moon Lake! I was kinda bummed it was at a place that I had already been to, but it was still awesome! Seeing all my friends and fellow missionaries was a great Christmas present. We had some time to see the lake and hit up the souvenir shops. Then the best part of the day.... Buffet. Unlimited steak and unlimited mochi. 'Nuf said. Then a great Christmas devotional. Several missionaries are going home this week so they all had opportunities to share their reflections on their missions. Reflections are one of my favorite things. You get to hear a fully experienced missionaries insights and advice, nothing beats it! One of my favorite things that was shared was one Elder likened missionary work to the building of Salt Lake temple. During the building of the temple it was discovered that there were cracks in the foundation. Brigham Young then had the decision to either redo the foundation or build a smaller temple. We all know what happened! This is much like missionary work in the fact that everyone comes out on their missions with cracks in their testimony's foundation. However, we all have the opportunity to rebuild our foundations. This is why missionary work is awesome and why it really is ordained of God. Being able to go out at a young age and finding out what the cracks are in our foundation so that we can go rebuild it is a huge blessing. Anyways, the work in Minxiong is a little hard right now. We got fang'ed a million times this past week which means we had some really long empty trips. That being said, Elder Mitton and I are still having a great time! I bought a guitar last week for 2400 NT dollars (approx. 65 US). I'm stoked to go play it later! There's a ton of Xmas decorations around Taiwan so that helps with the spirit, but from what I've heard not very many people actually celebrate Xmas. Elder Mitton has some Josh Groban Christmas music though so that helps! happy holidays all!

-Elder Poon

Mansion Life Continues December 7, 2015

I love Minxiong!!!!!! Have I told you guys yet that we have a Costco in our area?? Well, we have a Costco in our area and it's great. It's like going back to American every time we go there! What a blessing! It's been great finally getting to know the members this week. Minxiong is a great area. It's really big and there are some good urbanized parts but also a lot of rural parts. We have to bike A TON. It's approx. 45 minutes from the mansion to the church and 45 minutes to Zhong Zheng University where we have a lot of our lessons. Riding in the country side is really nice and peaceful though. Our branch has about 50 active members. Our branch president and his wife are awesome. They took Elder Mitton and I to an awesome Italian lunch the other day and then drove us around and helped us with a few lessons! We are working really hard in the  Jia Yi zone because the Jia Yi District is really close to becoming the Jia Yi Stake! That means that there is a lot of emphasis on reactivating Melchezidek priesthood holding males/Aaronic priesthood holding males that could receive the Melchezidek. It's a lot different in comparison to my other area where the focus was no doubt on baptism. It's really cool though cause I feel like I'm becoming more of a full-purpose missionary. Elder Mitton and I are still having a blast together which is great because it makes the super long bike rides not so bad! I finally got the general conference Liahona and I've loved reading from it. Also, I got a chance to see that new Christmas video that the church put out, A Savior Is Born. So awesome! I got the chills watching it. If you haven't watched, watch it! Sorry I haven't been able to upload very many photos lately. Since the church is super far away we have to use internet cafe's and they're super sketchy and have tons of virueses (viri?) but I'll find a way! 

Happy Holidays Y'all

-Elder Poon

The BAT CAVES

Day 1 with Elder Mitton at the train station!