Transfer 7 - Week 1

A pretty good week to start off the new transfer! For P-Day we went to a place where they have this ski lift type of thing and you ride it over a few little mountains and the scenery ain't too bad. I'll send a couple pictures. One of the exciting things is one of our investigators is getting baptized next week! His name is Lin Hong Kun and he's a really good guy. Was going to get baptized last month but wasn't quite ready then so now he's all good and getting baptized! Pretty happy for him! 

Lyndon's parents are still not quite willing to let him get baptized so we're continuing to see him in hope of his parents allowing him. We have another new investigator, Henry, he's really cool and we see him about twice a week. His baptismal date is November 3rd so we think he should be able to hit that date and we're pretty excited for him. I really do apologize for a lack of  any picture, especially of investigators... I

 will do better this coming week I promise! Well I love you all and hope Fall is treating you well! 

Love,

Elder Hagedorn

me an Adventure Time cup! My favorite!

All of us at the Gondola!

Colt and I! I've kind of got a bit of a double chin...

Transfer 6 - Week 6

Last week of the transfer! A cool thing that happened is that an area in our District closed down, North Xinzhuang, so there are no longer Elders there. So that means Elder Leo and I are now over all of Xinzhuang and not just the south so that's some fun stuff. Just a lot of biking! And it also combined us to form a really big district with a neighboring city so we got a new district and new area so it's pretty fun! We've had a few fun P-days recently so I'll also attach some of those pictures. 

Investigators wise, Lyndon is still awesome and still "shuai" (Chinese word meaning handsome, hot, good-looking or downright debonair) as ever but his parents are very traditional in their Buddhist beliefs and do not want him to get baptized. So we hope someday they will allow him to get baptized. Another investigator, Brother Lin, will probably be getting baptized in a couple weeks. He had just been struggling with some of the commandments but now he doesn't have a problem and has been good for a few weeks so in a couple more weeks he'll be ready to be baptized! He's pretty awesome. 

Watched conference this last weekend and it was spectacular! My favorite talk was Christofferson's "The Moral Force of Woman". A pretty good week to end the transfer off and excited to start another transfer! Crazy that Elder Leo and I are halfway through! We definitely have some good times... Got in a water fight the other night in our apartment. Hahaha we definitely have fun. 

Love you all and hope all is well! 

Transfer 6 - Week 5

Hello! It was a good week! Highlights of the week are probably that we're going to convert a whole college. Ha no just kidding but we have about 10 investigators and 7 of them are college students! They are all pretty chill too. Lyndon's parents still oppose a tiny bit but we fasted with him this past weekend to try and soften his parents hearts a bit so we're seeing him tomorrow night and will follow up! He's a man-beast. 

I apologize, I keep forgetting to take pictures... A funny thing happened though. At a fireside, a foreign exchange student said the closing prayer and him, not being a member, said it a bit differently. I think he is from Russia or something I'm not sure. Oh and he doesn't speak Chinese so he just said it in English. It went something like this,"Close your eyes people. Glorious God! We, gathered here today, have come here tonight for one joint purpose. To glorify thee and praise thee! Mighty God, we love you. We thank you. We fear you. Forgive us our wicked sins and forget our dark trespasses. Of this we pray in the name of the almighty being, your Son, Jesus Christ, Jehovah. Amen." It was a strange, but yet still oddly eloquent prayer. 

After opening my eyes I didn't really know what to think. And no one else paid any attention to it either because they all spoke Chinese and didn't notice a difference, they were just listening for the "amen". Anyways it was kind of interesting and made me laugh inside just because I probably had a funny expression on. 

It was a very good week and right now it's hard to think of specifics so sorry! Wasn't able to watch conference because we have to wait another week due to the translation. I love you all and hope the conference can remain in your minds throughout it!

 

Love,

Elder Hagedorn

Transfer 6 - Week 4

Hello everyone! 

Had a cool experience last night. We were biking down the road last night and I saw a family so I was like ,"Family! Gotta talk to them!" so I pulled off to the side to talk to them and it turns out they are members! Started talking to them and apparently baptized about 7 years ago and they said the last time they came to church was about a year ago so we chatted for a bit and they told me where they live and gave me their number! Hope we can meet up with them this week and get them back to church! 

Another funny thing this week was while teaching English class I turn to the lesson of the week and it's on prepositional phrases. The first thought that comes to my head is ,"Oh shoot, what are those again?" And the second thought ,"How do I teach this in Chinese? Does Chinese have prepositional phrases?" Haha so needless to say it was a fun English class. 

Investigators wise, are number 1 investigator right now is probably Lyndon. He's 18 years old and really wants to get baptized but his parents don't want him to get baptized so this c we'll be fasting for him and his parents and he will fast too! We're really hoping that he'll be able to get baptized cause he wants to so bad and is a really cool guy. As always, we do a lot of finding everyday. So basically, riding on our bikes down the street and just talking to people about the Gospel. 


Not a bad week! Man my emails are so short but I just can't think of stuff to write! Love you all!

Something awkward about this photo. Probably a combination of my own awkwardness and Elder Leo's photo skills.

Me doing what I do and making some meat and grilling up some zhuabings (Chinese tortillas basically).

Transfer 6 - Week 2

Hey hey hey! 

I'll try and keep my emails less broad and more specific to details I've decided so here it goes. This week wasn't too bad though we got stood up a good amount of times so that's about average. One cool thing that happened though was the other day we were heading out to go contacting and that day I was just really really praying in my head and literally the only thing that had been on my mind was finding a new person to teach and just kept praying that we could find someone. So we left the apartment and started biking down the street to the area we wanted to go to. 

We passed a sidestreet and I had the thought "go down there" and I immediately thought "is this where we're supposed to go?" I hesitated for a second or two because we were going downhill and to turn around, especially in Taiwanese traffic, is a little tricky. So I told Elder Leo hey let's check out that road back there and we turned around back up the hill and turned onto the street. At the end of the street we found our man. He was sitting on his scooter watching some construction workers a distance off and so we just pulled up next to him and started talking to him. 

We got talking about God and it turns out he's Christian but doesn't know too much about it. We asked if we could meet with him sometime and could teach him more about Jesus Christ and His church and he said ya! So we're seeing him tonight at the church! It was pretty cool. 

Another thing about this week is I've decided to be a crazy person basically. Haha meaning I study like crazy and when we're out working I've decided I just want to work like crazy and be super diligent. So I kind of renewed my Chinese Study and have started reading a lot out of the Book of Mormon (Chinese) everyday. Used to read about a chapter but now I average about 20 pages. So it's really helped my Chinese and in terms of missionary work it's also helped! Like that one guy we found. I think diligence stems from desire and recently I've just had some weird desire to be better so that's what I'm trying to do. 

Maybe it's because I've also been out for a year and am turning 20 and am having some sort of a mid life crisis. But regardless, it feels good haha. Not saying that I'm chasing people down and declaring that they must repent or anything extreme like that but just really, really seeking to have the Spirit and trying to make it so there shouldn't be any reason not to have it. Don't know if this last part made sense! Anyway love you guys and know that I'm still having fun no worries! Today we're going to the zoo! I hear they have a penguin exhibit so I'm pretty stoked. I'll make sure to nab some pictures. Love you all!

 

Love,

Elder Hagedorn

Went on a hike with two of the zones here! Took up most of Friday! Went on a hike up in the mountains with a bunch of the missionaries and the President and got some spiritual training.

 

Flipping monster spider! In australian accent "look at the size of that creature!"

Transfer 6 - Week 1

Hello!

 

This last week my companion and I were during our weekly service at a "rest home" type of place that blind people can go to live and have activities and things like that. We were there for our weekly routine of just helping out however we can, this time setting up for an anniversary party they would be having the next day. Us missionaries and a few other volunteers were there, one of them, seemed to stick out a bit so we struck up a conversation with him while setting up chairs and such. His name is Aker, Brother Lu, and he's a college student, attending the college that sits atop the glorious "Linkou Hill", studying tourism. He's a cool guy. While at service, we chatted with him a little bit and ended up scribbling down his phone number before we left because we had some things come up that we had to get to quickly. I called him the next day and he said he was busy at the moment but would get back to me. Terrific. A few days later, on Sunday, I was sitting at my desk during dinner time and feeling, possibly overwhelmed, or unmotivated, or whatever the feeling was I wasn't quite sure. But I was just sitting there at my desk, having finished dinner. I had the thought to call some referrals so I did and about 5 in a row didn't pick up so I didn't think much of it. One ended up calling back but wasn't very interested in talking to missionaries. I set the phone back down on my desk and continued to just sit, feeling slightly uneasy/antsy because we hadn't gotten much done in terms of measurable success. I said a quick one second prayer consisting of "Help us out" and then a few seconds after that Aker called and asked if we still wanted to meet with him. We then met with him 15 minutes later at the church and taught him about prayer and the Book of Mormon. He's willing to read and said he would start reading and praying. I think God is sometimes just waiting for us to try a little bit and put forth some effort, then, recognizing we need His help, he helps us the rest of the way. As usual, I'm a little tired and no more thoughts seem to be coming to my head so I'll leave that as the email for this week. I love you all and have just now realized an absence of the use of exclamation points so I'll use a few here now! I hope everything is going well for all of you!

 

Love,

Elder Hagedorn!

My son!

Sister Boyer is moving so we had to grab a few pictures!

Sister Boyer is moving so we had to grab a few pictures!

Transfer 5 - Week 6

Hello! 

Crazy my 5th transfer is over and I'll be training again! I kind of wanted to leave Xinzhuang just to see a different place but I guess there's still stuff I need to do here! Another two transfers of being a father (training-missionary slang) and being district leader will definitely be some work but it should be fun! 

This last week I think it rained everyday so it was a great welcome to Taiwan for my new companion, Elder Leo. He's pretty cool and you'll all get to know him more throughout my emails. Forgot to get a picture of him... sorry... Actually forgot to get any pictures at all this week! Sorry! It was just SUPER busy! 

Yesterday at church, I think I was the most tired I've ever been on my mission and that's saying something. I was trying so hard to stay awake in church. I could hardly think. Probably going to try and take a nap today for P-day, that would be nice. In terms of our investigators, Nick is still doing well and we're working with him. We have a few others who aren't too bad either. We just really need some new investigators so this coming week we're going to be finding all the time!! It'll be great. 

Hopefully it doesn't rain as much this week because last week it ended up in the cancelling of a good amount of appointments and stuff so hopefully this week will be a bit better! Sorry this week's email is short and there aren't pictures but I don't have too much time! Things are going well! Love you all!

 

Love,

Elder Hagedorn