Wonderful Time of Year

Hello Everyone!

 

Well... sadly, Christmas is over, but a new year is about to begin! What a wonderful time of year. I think this is a great time to reflect back on all the good things that have happened this past year, all of the blessings, memories, or major events which have come into our lives. As I have been out here on my mission, I have really started to enjoy the time that we have at church more fully. One of the reasons is similar to what I have just talked about, it's a great time for me to reflect back on how things are going. Sometimes in the mission or life in general, we just start to go through the motions, but I have found that as I take the time to reflect back on my week each time at church and realize all that has happened, it motivates me for the next week and helps me to see what I can do better and what I need to continue to do. Reflection helps us to stay out of the rut of just going through the motions. One of my biggest goals in life, is for it to be FULL - filled with experiences, memories, family, friends and happiness. I hope that everyone can take the time to reflect and see what we can do this next year to achieve our goals. Make life fun!

 

This past week has been a good one. I was able to talk to the family over the phone and get a little taste of life back home. It sounds like all is going well! Even the Seahawks are having some success!? One of the highlights this past week has been the opportunity to serve. On Friday, we were able to go to a Buddhist temple and help out with their service team for about an hour. When I first got there I was wondering what it was going to be like and how the people would receive us, but as they took us around to the back and we saw so many people working together, I knew it would be a good experience. This Buddhist temple is famous for its service in the community over the years. That day we helped recycle plastics. Here in Taiwan, one of the popular things to eat is guava that you can buy from the street vendors. It comes in a small Styrofoam container and a plastic bag. Our job was to pick out any of the left over bits of fruit or leaves from the packaging so that the packaging could be recycled and used again. It was actually pretty fun, and all the older ladies who were working there thought it was pretty cool to see some young foreigners helping out. They were pretty great and took a big picture of us at the end. 

Another cool experience was going over to the home of Brother Wu who just got baptized about a week ago. His father had come to the baptism last week and Elder Johnson and I were able to meet him. Brother Wu really loves his family and was hoping that we could meet them sometime soon. So after the baptism we talked to his dad and set up a time to come back during this past week. Brother Wu told us how his family might not be too receptive to the gospel because they don't have a lot of interest in religion, but he still wanted us to come over anyways and at least get to know them. When we got there they were super friendly and we got to know a little bit more about this family and introduce ourselves - where we are from, and a little bit about our families back at home. As we started to talk about the gospel, Brother Wu's father proceeded to tell us about how impressed he was by the missionaries he has seen and their willingness to go to a completely new country and do all the things that we do. It was cool to hear that. We started to talk to him and his wife a little bit about the importance of families in our church and family history work too. You could see them start to open up a little bit more after that. We were able to set up a time with them to go to the family history center this next week. There was nothing super special about this visit, but to me it was memorable because I was able to see the big picture and look at the influence this gospel is starting to make on their family and how it is able to spread from person to person. I don't know if they will be up to hearing more about our message in the future, but I hope that things go well! There is so much joy that comes from this gospel. One last quick experience - this last week my companion and I were about to go to a pre-school and teach the children about the Christmas story on Christmas day. It was pretty cool! There were about 20 little kids running around when we got there. We were able to teach them about the nativity story, the birth of Christ, and sing some songs with them. It was pretty cool!

Well my time is about up here but it's been a fun week. I hope it has been a good one for you guys too! Don't let things change too much while I am gone!

Love you all!

Elder Bastian