Preparation day was pretty awesome on Monday! We got up early to watch the sunrise at the beach with some other missionaries. It was amazing the scenery was so beautiful. We then enjoyed a super great game of frisbee and then just went to the chapel for some computer time. Super great time and that was the majority of the activities from the day. The night when we started missionary work again we got 2 appointments for the week and that is some great progress from recent history. Last night we got transfer calls also. I am staying in this promised land but will be welcoming Elder Lee to the land also! I have done a couple preparation days with him and he is a really fun guy I am so excited for him to come! Elder Crimm will be moving back up to 台北, which is where he wanted to go. So all is right in the world!
Busy day Tuesday. Started off with a super great District Council in 玉里. It was the last one of the transfer so that was a little sad since half of the district is moving, but the only constant of life is change. We did talk about consecration and it was a great topic. Consecration always seems to be the unachievable dream, but what I gleaned from today is that it is all about the effort. If we are trying our best and make a conscious effort to consecrate ourselves we will see the results. Aside from district council we got 2 appointments arranged today! One is with a member for this weekend and the other is with a lady we knocked into also planned for this weekend. It always feels good to get these setups since they have been few and far between here. This is the start of a new era! 鳳林 is gonna blow up!
9 months on the mission Wednesday! Didn't feel that different, but cool nonetheless. Today we had to do some errands to get Elder Crimm ready to move and things like that. We had to ship a package, ship a bike and go to 花蓮 to pick up a bike for Elder Lee to use. We were able to get that all sorted out and ready to rock and roll. We made a visit to one of Elder Crimm's recent converts and had some dinner then it was time for English class! We had students show up tonight so that was a great way to end the day. I can say that as an English Unit Leader I have tripled the number of students attending class (even though 0 to 3 isn't a lot, but for the area it is)! Tomorrow is gonna be a big day and I am excited! Transfers are much better when you are not moving, but get to welcome someone else in!
Thursday was a crazy day! Started off pretty normal with studies and stuff and then we had to pick up my new companion Elder Lee from the train station! Thankfully he made it here safely and all his stuff as well! Since there was an overlap between him coming and Elder Crimm leaving we grabbed lunch together and then Elder Lee unpacked a bit and then the time came to drop Elder Crimm off for good. Kinda a surreal experience since I have been with him for the last 3 months, but the change is great and now I can learn a lot from Elder Lee. We had a great time today getting to know each other better and from first impressions, we are going to have a great time together. We had a lesson tonight also which was super good and we are super close to getting our only investigators on a baptismal date. So excited for them!!
Friday was a great day!! Elder Lee and I did a lot of fun things today. One thing included walking up a mountain to visit a member! We walked because it was raining and I didn't want a repeat of the last time we went up there, and it took about the same time too so why not? When we came back though we did Weekly Planning Session, which was amazing. Elder Lee is bringing in such a fire and energy into this area, and it is exactly what the area needs. We didn't get to finish today, but we have already discussed a lot of great things we are going to do to strengthen the 小組 and the members that are here, as well as ways to use all our resources as missionaries. I am so looking forward to this time with Elder Lee, from the first looks of it, it is going to light 鳳林 up! We also got some fun traditions we are gonna start doing but I will talk about those as we do them 😉.
Saturday was super fun! Elder Lee and I headed out in the morning pretty early to go to a lesson with a lady who told us she was more available on weekends and we show up.... she's at work. We ended up knocking doors for a bit. Talked to some cool people so it was good! We did some studies and English class and whatnot then we had to finish our weekly planning we started yesterday. We finished setting some great goals and getting a vision of what we want to accomplish and to sum it up. When we are done here people will be asking to serve in 鳳林! We have some great vision and by executing our plans we will achieve it!! We finished up the day by coming to 花蓮 because of Ward Conference tomorrow and we got McDonald's for dinner as part of our new tradition. Every time we come up for a Fast Sunday we get McDonald's for dinner (we missed last fast Sunday obviously so we made up for it tonight)!
Sunday was a pretty busy day. We started off the morning with some studies and other things of that sort until we had our Weekly Coordination meeting before church. We got some good suggestions for some things we are doing right now so I'd count it a success. We then had an awesome Ward Conference and the theme was everlasting hope. It really made me think about if I have a hope for things and what I do hope for? Bottom line it was really thought-provoking. Then the second hour focused on getting people back out and inviting people. All in all a super great conference! After church, we planned out some English classes and then had a dinner appointment with our Group Leader! It was super great because Elder Lee and I really expressed our desire for working in this area and what our vision is and they really liked it. They were able to help us and give us more information regarding our area and some people we are working with. We got a ride back to 鳳林 and ended out the night making some calls to formers and got 3 setups from it! Miracles are happening down here it's so awesome to see!
Elder Heber Chase Ciminski
宋希伯長老