WIPEOUT (Season 5 Episode 5) - 2/25/19

Another week in the life of a servant of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! What a blessing to represent Him everyday. 

Awesome preparation day on Monday! We learned how to do a dance with a member that came down from the 台北 area. It was a super good time I enjoyed it and there was a lot of laughter. Before that happened I got to call home! It's such an amazing change I think the potential this has to help other people is so amazing and I can't wait to continue using it to it's full advantage. And it's nice to see and hear Mom and Dad's voices! Along with Noah too but sadly today I didn't get to video call him, I dropped the ball on that. Nonetheless the change is awesome. We also played a great game of ultimate frisbee today. I made some stellar throws and catches and our team ended up winning! Playing ultimate has always been one of my favorite pastimes so doing it today was super awesome. Aside from that nothing super special happened but it's gonna be a great week this week!

Tuesday was exchange day! We took a train down to 玉里 to do a District Leader exchange. I am with the District Leader himself Elder Thayne! We had a great day today biking around and visiting some people and we actually sat down and shared with three different people and it was incredible! The first was with their investigator closest to baptism and we watched President Nelson's talk about the Book of Mormon and talked about it some with her. Then we biked to a man's house who they call, "Mr. Yellow" since that's what he calls himself. We shared a Restoration story with him and it went so well. The last visit was more of a sit and listen since the man really likes to talk. It was all good though he has some good Christian values, even though not a member of our church he still agrees with some points we share about. I got to really be a part of the teaching and sharing today and I felt so confident in doing so. I know it was Heavenly Father's blessing. I even made 2 phone calls today which is way out of my comfort zone, but I did it. This exchange has already helped me a lot! Tomorrow before we finish I'll have to see what other insights I can learn!

Wednesday was such a great day. We finished up exchanges in 玉里 and hopped on the train back home. Because the time was weird we still had to do our studies so the day got pushed back to the point where we finished studies and had to eat dinner than prepare for our English class! Exchanges was really great though and I learned a lot from Elder Thayne. The biggest thing I learned pertains to how to make a mission really "your mission" and not be a robot. I think I can apply a lot of it into my own mission! I also learned that since moving down to 鳳林 I have lost 8 pounds. Pretty crazy but just goes to show how much biking we do everyday. Elder Thayne also has a skateboard he bought in a previous area (... 🤔🤔😏) and this morning I landed the first nollie of my skateboard career. Definitive proof that miracles happen on missions! I'm just kidding, but miracles do happen and amazing things unfold in my life every day!! That's what makes a mission so amazing is seeing the hand of God touch your life and others as well.

Thursday was incredible! We woke up in 花蓮 and played an awesome game of ultimate frisbee for our morning exercise than we got ready and headed to the chapel for Zone Conference! We had to be there early so we could practice our special musical number (will say more on that later...). The conference itself was amazing. Sister Peterson spoke to us about receiving revelation and I learned a lot from that. Then President Peterson spoke about recognizing the Spirit and using it to teach and always striving to feel it. I learned so much from these talks if we had ended the conference right then I would have been so filled spiritually! We didn't and received some other awesome trainings and it was super great. And of course we performed our musical number. It was the first time I have ever sung solo in front of a group of people in my life. And I was terrified. Thankfully it was only 1 verse out of 4. The number went great though. Everyone said they liked it so I'll take that as a great compliment! This was definitely a push out of my comfort zone but it ended up great (despite that however, I probably will never volunteer or let myself be volunteered for anything like that again). Zone Conference was the highlight of the day though and I really learned a lot that will help me in my ministry!

Friday was a great day! Due to the fact it is Friday it was our Weekly Planning Session once again. This week though I really tried to follow Preach My Gospel to the letter and follow all the parts it has. I really noticed the difference between using it as a guidebook and not a suggestion book. We set a lot of great goals and made plans to make it all happen! There is lots to be done, even in the second most remote area in the whole mission. I have that responsibility to make it happen, talk about pressure! Thankfully I have a companion to help, and we are really gonna rely on the Lord and it will all be done the way it needs to be. We also did some finding today and though we didn't get any firm return appointments we met a really nice Grandma who said we can try back on Monday or Tuesday. All the rest of the houses rejected us but we had that one small success! I am totally pleased. It is by small and simple things that great things are brought about.

Saturday was interesting to say the least. God's hand was definitely in it!! Nothing too crazy happened till we went to visit a member who lives on top of a mountain (no joke). We tried biking up but it ended up turning into just us walking our bikes up. It was raining too so we were literally walking in the clouds and it was pretty awesome. I tried to take pictures but felt like that one scene in Walter Mitty when Sean doesn't take the picture of the leopard. It was just so pretty the pictures wouldn't do it justice! We had a cool visit then came the fun part. Biking down a mountain in the rain. Needless to say I was scared and knew what could go wrong in this scenario. So we said a prayer for safety and started our descent. About a third of the way down though I took a section too fast and tried to brake but my bike slid out from under me and I slid about 10 feet on the road then off the side of it (no guards or anything and just a straight drop). My bike slid off the road too but thankfully neither my bike nor I sustained any serious damage. Just some great road rash and some ripped pants. My bike lost one bolt but it's an easy fix. I definitely had a great brush with disaster but I know that Heavenly Father had His hand in it and prevented a very bad outcome from occurring. I'm still beating myself up about the situation and I'm just grateful that things aren't worse.

I woke up Sunday feeling sore from the crash Saturday. As if my knee wasn't hurting enough now I got a nice big scrape to keep my attention on it. Thankfully once I got moving it felt a bit better. Sunday was a great day! Church was awesome and we got to participate in the circle of giving the gift of the Holy Ghost to the man we baptized last week! That was a very cool experience for me. We didn't have any appointments today so we biked out to a further part of our area to do some finding. Not a lot of people willing to talk but that's how it is sometimes. We were blessed with lots of rain today which made for some beautiful scenery! It was one of those times where pictures can't capture it all. It made me very grateful once again to be serving in such a beautiful place.

This week was pretty wild!! Thankfully I can see the end of it. Thanks for your prayers I know they are answered!!

Elder Heber Chase Ciminski 

宋希伯長老

ANOTHER BAPTISM! (Season 5 Episode 4) - 2/18/19

Another week in the books!

Monday was a pretty good preparation day! We got the usual things done in the morning and then hopped on the train to go to 花蓮 and spend time with the missionaries up there. We did some emailing and lunch at the chapel and then we headed to the beach and played some frisbee and then went down to the water. I waded a bit and went to a different part of the beach than before and it was super cool. Another Elder found a fish clinging to life and he picked it up and saved it's life! Just another day on the job, it was pretty cool though. I really like standing on the beach and letting the waves hit me and roll back and forth. It's so relaxing and throw in some rocks to skip and I'm in heaven! It started to rain on our way back so going out to work tonight I had on my rain coat and some waterproof gloves I found on the ground earlier this week that work perfectly! I kept very dry and now don't really mind the rain that much. Goes to show how having the proper tools and preparations can change the outlook of the situation! Though I am looking forward to the summer a bit. Even though it will be scorching I'm an Arizona boy and the heat is always better than the cold!

Tuesday was a pretty great day. Due to the fact it is Tuesday we had district council in the wonderful land of 玉里! The weather was amazing compared to yesterday and 玉里 is a great place to be! The Zone Leaders came down as well and it turned out really well. I got some inspiration for how we can potentially help the people we are teaching so I will qualify that a great success! For lunch we were also able to eat 八方 and that's one of my favorite places to eat and since 鳳林 doesn't have it it's a treat whenever I can eat it! After our arrival back to our area we made a visit to one of our investigators who we haven't met with in a long time and were able to share a short message with them from the Book of Mormon! It was pretty cool but than right after we got stood up for a lesson with someone else. Such is life, ups and downs, wins and losses. All in all I can't complain I've been given so many blessings the little things don't matter in the end! Just like that one Hope Works speech, it won't matter in a thousand years.

Super great day on Wednesday! We started off the day going to a members home to read the Come Follow Me scriptures for the week. A few other members came also and we read the chapters. It was quite a stretch for me since I haven't studied characters but after a while, I was recognizing more and more. I still needed a lot of help though but I made it through! Nothing else super special happened today but we had an English Class today, my first one in 2 months! It was a little less than ideal since it's been so long since either Elder Crimm or I have taught. Now that we had 2 people come we can get back into the swing of it. Because I am English Unit Leader for our area I really wanna leave this English class better than I found it! I have some ideas but I also need to seek inspiration from Heavenly Father too. He knows the ways already! For now, I am thankful for the chance to have taught an English class. I really love teaching (not just English class, but teaching in general)! Now the hope is the students keep coming!

Happy Valentine's Day! Thursday was a good day. We did lots of biking but it feels good for the legs to get a good spin in. We did a lot of planning for English class today so we can have a great lesson next week! We also tried to visit one of our friends but they weren't home so we couldn't share with her so that just led to more English planning. I got a good feeling about this English class! At night we paid a visit to a returning member and invited him to church and he said he would try. His mom is having some problems so if she is doing well enough he will come. Then we did some exploring of a part of our area we haven't been too. When we do that it kind of feels like the Maze Runner because we are "running" out farther and farther, not necessarily to escape the maze but to find some cool people! And we always have to make it back in time at night! It's a stretch but it makes sense to me. And lastly, we saw a snake tonight on a road! It was pretty long just cruising around. Thankfully it was chill and didn't come after us!

Friday was a pretty interesting day. We had to spend a lot of time inside today for various planning things. We did our Weekly Planning Session and it went really well. We are scheduled to have a baptism next Saturday! Today I was also presented an opportunity to develop my singing talent once again! In our zone group chat the Zone Leaders asked if anyone wanted to do a musical number for our Zone Conference next Thursday. Elder Pope jokingly volunteered me and Elder Crimm, and someone else also joked that we wanted to do it. The jokes on them because now we are both singing in Zone Conference next Thursday! It'll be a great time but we gotta get practicing! Not only do I have the same first name as Heber J. Grant but I also share his sentiments about singing and that expression of talents.

What a historic day Saturday was! We woke up to the announcement of the new preparation day options for communications with our families! I think it's a cool change because it allows the family to be more involved with the missionary and makes it better for the whole family! As for what we did today though we did a lot of biking and some visits to people as well. Nothing super exciting but it rained and I always enjoy a good rain mixed with bike riding. Today was also another SYL day which means that outside the apartment we only speak Chinese (or very little English)! I think these days are really helping my Chinese so that's a good sign. Onward and upward from here!

Wow Sunday was a whirlwind! We had an awesome church meeting and it was nice to have the schedules sent out in advance this week! We got it Thursday or so and I scanned it to make sure I wasn't speaking or anything... I hope you see where this is going. I rechecked the schedule 10 minutes before the meeting started and sure enough I was slated to share a testimony and spiritual thought during sacrament meeting! It all worked out. I shared some scriptures and talked a bit about service and helping others, and although I'm not a man of eloquence, I feel very good about my share and I hope it helped some others too. After church we learned about and organized the baptismal service for the friend that was going to be baptized this Saturday! Thankfully we were able to get train tickets up to 花蓮 and everything worked out. The service was great and I was able to be a witness and I just felt the spirit so strong throughout the whole time. Baptism is such an amazing thing! Even though the whole trip took up our whole day I don't regret it at all. To see someone be baptized is always worth it!!

Such a great week this week!! Being a missionary is awesome and I appreciate all of the prayers and support I am receiving! They truly make a difference every day.

宋長老
Elder Ciminski

ARAGOG STRIKES AGAIN! (Season 5 Episode 3) - 2/11/19

It's 過年 time and that means some crazy stories!

P-day was so amazing on Monday! We woke up in 吉安 and had a great morning. It was a little special though because of Chinese New Year and in the tradition of doing a lot of cleaning at this time of year, all the missionaries deep cleaned their apartments! Since we weren't at our own apartment we helped clean the other Elder's apartment and I had a lot of fun doing it. Cleaning is so fun and it feels great afterwards! I found some cool little trinkets I'm taking back to 鳳林 with me but one of those trinkets is a pair of slacks! So it's not all useless 😜. After the cleaning we went to the beach and played some football and frisbee. I had probably the best games of my whole life! In football we were going to 4 and the first to get 4 points wins. Of those 4 points I scored 3 kickoff return touchdowns and got 1 interception and ran it all the way down the field for the 4th touchdown. That good of a game reignited my dreams of playing rugby (sorry, Mom probably doesn't wanna hear that). In frisbee I made a sweet diving catch to score a point for my team and all in all today was a great day athletically for me. That made me super happy 😊 (it also paralleled nice with the Super Bowl going on at the same time. Which I forgot about until another missionary talked about it). We finished off the day with an amazing dinner with the Bishop's family and today is officially 過年 time so there was a lot of food and it turns into a game since they won't let you stop eating! The food was so good so I didn't mind eating a ton of it. Because of the New Year there are so many fireworks going off all day I love the atmosphere! At first impressions this is gonna be a great week!

Tuesday was such a cool day. I got to go to the land of my forefather. By that I mean I finally got to go to the area Elder Pope talked about the most (of his previous areas) when I was in training, 玉里! We are now in a district with those Elders and the Elders in 鹿野. And that means the 3 most remote areas of the mission have assembled into the three kingdoms. It's pretty awesome and we had a great District Council. The 鹿野 Elders couldn't make it so it was just 4 of us but we just talked about our areas and got to know each other more and our areas too. Even though it wasn't an actual training I felt so much upliftment because we can all relate to our areas and can really take our challenges and concerns and bring them in to receive awesome suggestions from others going through the same things. I am glad this district has been formed because it's going to do a lot of good! Travel ate up a lot of time but that's the reoccurring theme of being in this area. The travel time is great and the reimbursement amounts are super great! I wouldn't have it any other way, 鳳林 is heaven on earth.

Wednesday was a fun day. And with it being the 6th of the month it also is another month mark on my mission, number 8! Onward, ever onward! The work never ceases. Today we had a good time knocking. We did a little exploring and a dog started following us around and we ended taking some pretty awesome unplanned pictures (me and the dog), and it was a cool view! Then a bit later we ended up finding the house the previously mentioned dog was from and we talked with the lady living there. She seems pretty set in her religious preference but we still left her with a Book of Mormon and hopefully she'll feel impressed to read it! When we were leaving the house two of their other dogs came up and I started petting them and squatted down to get close to them. Then as we were walking away the lady said that one of the dogs bites people, but it didn't even hint at that with me, not even a bark or growl. As Elder Crimm and I were walking way all I said was, "I'm Daniel dude." It was super cool! I know all the times dogs haven't given me a hard time has been a blessing from Heavenly Father and I sure am grateful for it! I also saw some clovers that had heart shaped leaves so that was cute. Overall today was an awesome day!

What a day. Thursday was lots of biking and a lot of it probably wasn't necessary. We had set up with our friend previously talked about in previous weeks (the Book of Mormon miracle one) and we biked all the way to his house (45 minute ride) and when we show up his Grandma walks out and tells us he had "things" and had to leave. So it was a bummer that that happened. All is well we will learn for next time. We had an awesome dinner tonight as part of Chinese New Year celebrations and that was basically the day! Nothing super exciting since we also did Weekly Planning also. That went super well though I took some pages from my Kansas book and I feel super good about it all! We made a "Plan 2 Baptize" and I have the faith that if we follow the plan we will see some results!

Friday was a super great day. We had a great morning and had our apartment inspection with President! He video called us and we showed him our clean apartment and I'm pretty proud of it. When I first got here things were super dingy but after some hard work we've got it super clean! We have 3 guitars in the apartment which is fun. Elder Crimm plays one and I fixed up one of them and now I'm learning the guitar! It's pretty fun I got a PDF from Elder Crimm of a whole lesson book so I can really learn the basics and build up. As for today's events we had a great lunch with a member and his family and man, during Chinese New Year they feed you a ton. I ate so much I felt so uncomfortable after. The food was good though, I absolutely love Taiwan food. We walked around a lot today as well trying to find people and I was able to swap some more stories with Elder Crimm and get to know him a bit better so that was fun as well. All in all a really good day!

Saturday was such a great day! We just did some knocking and whatnot up until our dinner! Tonight it was the last New Year's dinner with members! And this one was with 陳榮光 and his family! Their family is so cool we had a great time talking and we even heard Brother 陳's conversion story. He's been doing stunts and other cool stuff his whole life, but I loved what he said about the gospel changing his life along with his wife's life also. He hasn't had it easy either, lots of accidents and such that made him angry before he heard the Gospel, but he's always so happy and I truly believe it's because of the Gospel. I know that the Gospel has made my life have so much more happiness, so I know it can be that way for others also. Lastly, on a fun side note when we got to their house they had a Maze Runner movie playing, I think it was The Death Cure, it looked really good so I'll have to check it out someday. I've definitely cherished those little exposures to "worldy" things as I have gone further along in my mission. Tender mercies? I think so.

Sunday was a slow Sabbath. They usually are and I think it's pretty nice. We had a great church service and I blessed the Sacrament again. The prayers are becoming more familiar in Chinese and I can understand the meaning so it is more than just sounds. It makes a difference! I am glad I have had the chance to do it so much and become more familiar with them. Aside from church, nothing super exciting happened. Except for the fact we killed 2 more spiders as big as my hand. The first one of the day I got on video but the second one I missed! I flubbed up and I'm pretty bummed because it was quite the ordeal killing the second one. It was in a corner in the roof and we ended up taking one of Elder Crimm's sandals and throwing it at the spider to get it to hopefully fall on the ground and then when it fell we put a box full of heavy things on top of it to crush it. It was pretty gnarly but I will sleep better knowing that two less giant spiders are crawling around the chapel! Hopefully we don't have any more run-ins with Aragog and his posse.

The Chinese New Year time is over and it was exciting! Lots of fireworks going off all over the place and a lot of people coming too see their families. It was an exciting time and it was great to experience the culture even more! 新年快樂!

宋長老

Elder Ciminski

WE HAD ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE! (Season 5 Episode 2) - 2/4/19

Another week another crazy adventure on the Isla Formosa!

Monday we had an awesome preparation day. The Elders from 吉安 came and slept over at our apartment Sunday night so we could party in 鳳林! We had a super cool adventure biking around and taking lots of pictures on bridges, underneath them and every place in between! It was a super fun day and we were blessed with amazing weather. Recently it's been cold and cloudy and really feeling like winter but today it was sunny, warm and felt so awesome. I definitely am thanking Heavenly Father for that blessing. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, I gave another haircut (I'm a good missionary barber if I do say so myself). Then when we got back to work we knocked the whole time. I'm tired of not being able to teach people and I really want to teach someone I'm really busting my chops to find and begin teaching. So I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Stay tuned for the results of this effort!

Tuesday was a great day. We had lots of scheduled finding time today and so we were able to get a lot of knocking done. We did get stood up by our hopeful friend from last week (the one that lives very far away and already had a Book of Mormon), but that just gave us more time to knock. We need all the time to find we can get. We have a very shallow teaching pool and I want to make sure that changes because I want to teach! Although with Chinese New Year coming up people are very busy and getting appointments is going to be challenging. It will give us some time to do member work.  And some members are generous enough to feed us! Back to today though, we also had a fun run-in with fireworks! As we were knocking some kids were running around and lighting off crackers and whatnot and we were caught in the thick of it! They were popping all around us and it was awesome! It's an exciting time to be in Taiwan!

Wednesday was a great day. I feel like I really made today count. We didn't have any lessons or anything and we once again had no students show up for English class. It's all good though. Whatever spare time we had today we spent knocking. We had some cool conversations and handed out a lot of tracts. We also walked up a cool hill and it had an amazing view of the valley and surrounding mountains so of course, I had to get a picture! Taiwan is so beautiful even when it's all cloudy. Words are inadequate to express how grateful and fortunate I am to be here. Sometimes when knocking I feel like I'm really testing the definition of insanity. We try the same things without different results. Just because the results aren't changing right now I know that they will soon. I have faith that Heavenly Father has put prepared people in this area. The last point for today is I am starting to speak more Chinese and despite my stutter making its presence known occasionally, I press forward and I'm feeling like I'm improving a lot! There's always a silver lining to everything . Speaking of the language, we had a small earthquake today during language study! I was sitting at my desk (we did it inside today since Elder Crimm's back is hurting), and all the sudden things started shaking for about 10 seconds! It was pretty small but still a unique experience, only my second Taiwan earthquake!

Thursday we had an awesome Zone Council in 台東! That meant that our day was pretty much taken up by train travel, council, dinner and our train back. It was a great time though and we talked about planning and making sure we are doing meaningful things. I really enjoyed it because that's a focus I want to have is making sure that everything I do is furthering our area and contributing to that growth. It will definitely have a lot of future application in my personal ministry. We had dinner at Sam's Burger again and I got the granddaddy of all burgers. I didn't finish it though because I had too much to eat before dinner but I got some good leftovers to enjoy later! That was pretty much today, travel and council. It was nice to see Elder Pope once again and other members of the Zone I don't get to see too often. In my opinio,n our zone is the best in the mission so I feel very lucky to be a part of it and learn so much from others.

Friday we had a pretty busy day with lots to get done. We were able to make some visits and even had a surprise lesson with someone we found a couple weeks ago! That was a pretty cool thing. We also biked 10 kilometers to 光復 and taught a lesson there as well. So 2 lessons in one day is definitely something to be happy about! I'm definitely pleased. This weekend is gonna be pretty crazy though, it is Chinese New Year next week but the people have started celebrating way early and it turns into just a whole February holiday. We also have church in 花蓮 and 2 different people treating us to food both Sunday and Monday. I'm excited for my first 過年 in Taiwan!

Saturday was an interesting day. We had to get a lot of behind the scenes stuff done. With the Chinese New Year coming up we had to shop for groceries since the grocery store won't be open most likely. Basically, everything closes down so there will be lots of time to celebrate and have a good time! We also had weekly planning today as well as trying to teach English class. Once again we didn't have any students so it was just more piano practice time for me! My skills are slowly improving I can muddle my way through a lot of the hymns. We also had a lesson scheduled but when we showed up everyone was drunk so that didn't go as planned, and since there was a lot of smoking as well, I think my lungs got a little more black. The last part of the day we caught a train to 花蓮 and will be here until Monday night. On the train, this crazy drunk dude sat right next to Elder Crimm and I and started talking with us and we were the only ones in the train car so it was very awkward. We just kinda let him do his thing and we did ours. Taiwan definitely isn't short in the memorable experiences category.

Sunday was such an awesome Sabbath! It started off amazing when I woke up and looked out the window it was such a beautiful sunrise and it blew me away I had to take pictures of it, of course. We had some good studies in the morning as well and by the time we finished it all, it was time for church! Because it was fast Sunday we attended in 花蓮. It was a good fast and testimony meeting and I definitely feel renewed and refreshed going into this new week. After church was done we helped the Elders make some arts and crafts for their various member dinners during this New Years week. Then we went to a member dinner of our own! It was so delicious. So much good food and I definitely ate my share. The members in Taiwan are so giving to missionaries it is amazing. We went street contacting the rest of the night and actually got one person to set up and hear more about the gospel so I quantify that an absolute success!

This last week was pretty interesting and this next week is going to be great too! I love you all and can't wait to share it with you!

宋長老
Elder Ciminski