What an awesome Tuesday! We started another exchange in 玉里 and this time I was with my district leader, Elder Thayne. We had a fun afternoon performing some service for a member of their branch, which consisted of helping him build a chicken coop! We just pounded some metal rods into the ground to get it started but it was some tough work. We were using a pickaxe as our "hammer" and my hands were so sore and shaky afterward because of the vibrations. It was awesome though we had an amazing view and the weather was perfect!! We got to watch the sunset and had a fun drive back down the mountain (he lives way on top of a mountain). When we got back in town we had some dinner, did a study, and then played ping pong with the potential from last week! He is super good still and this last week I bought my own paddle so I got to use that today and it took some adjusting to but I got the hang of it and won quite a few games! It was a great day and a cool first half of my exchange!
Wednesday was a wild day. I woke up the normal time in 玉里 and when nobody else woke up on time I basically got an extra hour of language study today. Pretty interesting, but it's whatever for me. Once we got out of the house we went straight to the train station to catch our train to 花蓮 for interviews with President Peterson. My interview with him went well. He low key called me out for some things, but it was good. I needed the shift in perspective so I think it was helpful. He did call me the "man with a walk" today (referencing his comment at Zone Conference about walking like a cowboy that just did 6 seconds on the bull and conquered) and told me I would be staying in 鳳林 one more transfer! That's good news to me and so in late May, I'll be heading to a new area. Still got a good while. After interviews, we had to say goodbye to Elder Endicott because he flies home tomorrow for medical purposes. It is so sad to see him go because he is such a great guy I really learned a lot from him the 5 weeks I had around him. He needs answers to his problems so it's for the best. We finally made it back to our area and had dinner and played badminton with some kids to end the night! They had a lot of fun with us and they helped us improve a lot (we won 5 games and they won 1)!
Our only full day this week in 鳳林 was Thursday. We had 4 lessons so we made the most of it. The lessons all went well and our 2 baptismal date friends are looking good to keep progressing and hit their goals!! We are very excited for them. One of the other lessons was with a former who agreed to meet with us again next week and hopefully, she can start taking those steps for baptism once again. The last lesson was with a man who believes in psychic powers and magic because he saw it on TV. Just gonna leave it at that, but he set up again for next week so we can help him understand Jesus more. That was basically the day though! Elder Lee and I are having a great time in this area so we just gotta keep the fire going!
Today was a wild Friday! We did the usual thing we do on Fridays and that was weekly planning. We got that done pretty smoothly and afterward, we went to visit a less active member who works at a ranch resort thing near 鳳林! This place is super, super big and has a bunch of animals and different things like that and the sister we visit works there!! It was super cool and when we were talking with her she offered to give us a tour! So she drove us around on a golf cart and we saw a bunch of cool animals and whatnot. That was pretty awesome and afterward, we took a train to 花蓮 for an epic weekend. Except when we got to the train station the exchange bike I use was gone... so I ran around 花蓮 for a bit to get to the chapel and get to the apartment we stay at which has an extra bike. Definitely didn't expect to get that exercise, but it was pretty refreshing!
Saturday was such a great day. We spent 12 hours at the chapel today which was pretty crazy but totally worth it because we got to watch General Conference! I loved it so much and definitely have a testimony of our prophet. He truly does lead this church and is called of God. I loved the talks and learned a lot from it!! My favorite talk was by Elder Stevenson about the Priesthood Playbook. I loved the reference to all the athletes that testified of the Gospel. I thought that was so cool. Another reason Conference was great was because we had a lot of food! Since not a lot of people watch the English version we turned it into a potluck and it was super good. Definitely gonna have to start heeding President Nelson's counsel about treating my body better. After Conference, we did a study at the chapel and then attended an activity for a young man who leaves on his mission to Florida next week! He is super excited and I am excited for him! Missions are the hardest thing ever but definitely the best thing also!
Another super great Sunday in the awesome city of 花蓮. We woke up and went for a 20-mile bike ride to a lake because the other elders have a friend they are teaching that loves to bike so we took this chance to develop a better relationship with him! We biked to a lake and it was so beautiful! Once we biked back though we caught the last talk of the Sunday morning conference session and then watch the afternoon session. We made up the morning session later thankfully. Tad R. Callister is my favorite speaker and he spoke in that session! After all that we had a Family Home Evening with the ward which was super awesome and we finished up the night with studies. I'm super sad Conference is already over. It feels like it goes by so much quicker every time I wish it could last longer! I'm glad I was able to watch it all.
Elder Heber Chase Ciminski
謝希伯長老