Monday was an awesome preparation day. We had a good morning taking care of the necessities and then headed up to the city to have some fun with other missionaries. We had lunch together at my favorite dumpling place and then all headed to the beach for some frisbee. This is the first time this transfer we have played and we got some real good players now so it's a lot of fun. The weather today was sublime. The sun was shining nice and bright and the ocean looked beautiful and we had some nice instrumental music going as we were playing and it just made the whole environment amazing. The vibe was incredible. One of those that just fills you up with joy. Then we just sat on the beach and talked about all types of stuff and just soaked in the rays. Such an awesome day with great people and definitely a day I'll remember for a while.
Fun day Tuesday! Did the usual morning stuff and I'm still overcoming a recent cold so it takes a little bit to get started in the mornings, but by the time we are out the door I'm feeling good! Today we tried to visit some people and made some calls too. We also walked around some smaller towns to talk with people also. Didn't see a lot of appointments set today but we are gonna keep on pushing forward and we'll see the success soon enough. Today was a pretty normal day in terms of the work so nothing super noteworthy to write about.
Wednesday was a cool day. We started off by doing some farm work for our group leader and we just made some rows of soil that he could start planting. It was actually hard work and it felt very satisfying to finish and see the results of our work. Just goes to show that some of the most rewarding things come after hard work! After we finished up the daily labor we did some spiritual labor and did our studies as well as teach a lesson to our friend on baptismal date. She is doing well and I think she will be able to hit her goal. After that though we had dinner then set up for English class.
Boy Thursday was a packed day. We woke up in 花蓮 very early because we had to catch a 6:03 AM train to 台北 for a special mission conference with Elder David F. Evans. We were blessed to be able to make it there safely and the conference was great too. We received a lot of training and inspiration. One big takeaway I got was from a metaphor President Peterson used about coasting. How when we coast we can lose control very easy, but we can regain control when we have a little resistance and pressure. It will help us grow and improve more. Pretty cool. Today was also probably the last day I see my mission father, Elder Pope, before he goes home at the end of this transfer. I look back fondly on the times we shared and am excited to see what his future has in store for him! I also got to see lots of other missionary friends today so it was an awesome day! After the conference ended we had to travel back to the area and by the time we got back we had to get home for curfew.
Good day Friday. Had a busy night after the morning and afternoon studies and whatnot. After we finished weekly planning we headed out and biked to a aboriginal village and talked with people. Nobody was super interested, but we tried our best! Afterwards, we had a lesson set up with a person we stopped meeting with a little while ago. She set up for tonight but when we showed up she canceled. Hopefully she still has the desire to learn. We made the bike ride back and finished out the day calling some formers and one set up an appointment! I am very excited for that.
Great day Saturday. We had three appointments set up for the day, but none of them went through so we are going to have to be more diligent in getting more appointments. We started off strong now we gotta keep up the pace. We spent a lot of today trying to find some formers and hopefully help them feel the spirit again and set an appointment with us, but sadly we either could not find the address or they didn't answer their doors. We call people everyday too so I'm satisfied with all our efforts that we are doing. Recently I have been in a bit of a slump. I hear it's common around the point I'm at in my mission. Lots of prayers and study are helping me overcome this slump and with the week wrapping up I really gotta set myself up for this next week. The mission can be hard mentally and I just need to focus on what's good and take the counsel of President Hinckley's dad, forget myself and go to work. That's the secret for success no matter what!
Sunday was such a great sabbath day! We had a great church meeting without any drunk incidents. Thank goodness. We had a great day after church biking around to try and have 2 lessons. One of them we biked the 45 minutes there and than got stood up so that was fun. Then we had a lesson that went super well! I have total faith the man we met with will be baptized. He has a cousin in our group that's already a member and he seemed super willing today. I'm excited to see how it goes moving forward. It was a great day today. The slump I mentioned a few days ago is pretty much over with. I had a great study about faith and diligence today so that helped me a lot. The power of the scriptures is unreal.
Elder Heber Chase Ciminski
謝希伯長老