From: Nathan Miner [mailto:nathan.miner@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Sunday, December 6, 2015 9:47 PM
To: NathanMissionary@thepickandshovel.com
Subject: [Elder Miner’s Missionary Mailing List] (no subject)

hey everyone!

so this week we had another baptism! the Elders we share an apartment with have been teaching this family, the guo family, and they had their baptismal interview and did so well! it is so exciting to see them make such great progress! The Dad and his two kids accepted baptism, they have made such great progress and im super excited to see that 🙂

on another note… our investigator Leo just has his baptismal interview for this week!! we went over them with him already and he was just honest and we helped him realize that he is so ready! ah! i cannot even express how happy i am to see him make these steps! the only sad thing is… is that transfers are next week… so i am not going to see him baptized but i am so greatful to have the chance to teach him while i could have!

Oh another super crazy miracle/exciting thing. I don’t know if any of you remember but a month or two ago we were teaching a Brother Bai, then he moved back to china with his wife… but this week he came back! we were at a church activity and all the sudden he comes up behind me and says "Elder Meng!" (his english isn’t that bad, they like to say elder then our xing 🙂 ) but i was so confused because i knew he was in china but he is actually back for the next little bit so we are going to catch up and see what we can do to help him out! he said he is super willing to get baptized if its alright with his mom. super sick guy!

This area of Taidong has been so good to me, i have learned a lot and have met some of the greatest people. I am going to be sad to leave if i have to but i can also say that i am so stoked to go to another place just as amazing as Tai Dong! Happiness is a choice, so lets be happy!

Love you all!

Elder Miner

This week we had a lot of fun crazy things happen! first off we had our pday as usual so that was fun we didn’t do anything super crazy for it but it was good for sure. Then on Tuesday we woke up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a train up to Taipei for a special meeting from one of the new Apostles that was picking up his son from the Taizhong mission. Elder Stevenson, it was super awesome! there really isn’t any way i can share how great it was. he shared a lot but what i learned most from him was that the gospel is just so very simple and brings so many blessings!

Then after he shared with us on the east coast got to go to the temple! its the first time in 5 months or so! super great to go i love the temple. don’t take it for granted 🙂 then we headed back and when we got back, we had a member that picked us up and this is what he had in the back of his van…

​

super fun ride home. this member is such an awesome guy i love him!

then the next thing is that we have an investigator that is working for baptism and we taught him the big one… the law of chastity haha he took it well and is working hard! im excited about him! pray for him.

Then Tanksgiving was awesome! to be honest i forgot… me and Elder Lindahl both forgot haha! it was at lunch that we finally were told by the sisters that it was Thanksgiving! so we got some super good deep fried food for dinner.
​not bad!

Then i had a lesson with a guy that was just sleeping on the side of the road. it was honestly such a great lesson i loved it. he spent the first 2/3 of the lesson laying down haha! then later that day we had a baptism! The sisters in our ward met this super prepared girl that is super legit! she asked if i would be able to baptize her. her name is zhuang ya wen, and might i say… i didn’t mess up which i was super worried about doing! haha!

​Other than that the week was great. we are working with some amazing investigators and i am so glad that i have to opportunity to be apart of this! the work is going good in Taiwan and there is nothing to complain about 🙂 im attaching more pictures of my birthday cake, the hong family,our wards Thanksgiving activity and just some other fun stuff 🙂 Love you all and hope that you are all doing good! remember who you are, remember where you are from, and Remeber why you are doing what you are doing 🙂 love you all!

Elder Miner

oh last of all this karate performance is not what it looks like. our first councilor teaches these kids and they are pretty good! but when they got up for this act they actually started doing it to this song that they kind of danced to it was super funny to see the things they did! haha!

Hey everyone!

So this week was another good week! to start off we had interviews with president! super great, i love that man. He shared with us many things that are going to help our missionary work now and then he shared things that we can do now to ensure we have a strong gospel centered family when we have one of our own someday… he’s a good guy and definitely inspired of the lord! Then after interviews i had a chance to test on my phase 2!

so our mission has a great language study tool. its broken up into 3 phases. first is strictly on gospel related vocab and phrases. second, is just 2 thousand most commonly used words in chinese… or close to it. Then 3rd… IS ALL CHARACTERS BABY! and i passed on the phase two test this week so i have started on learning characters! im so flipping excited you have no idea! 🙂

Then we had a baptismal interview this week which was the sisters in our wards investigator! she is probably the most solid investigator ive seen, and she is getting baptized next week! she asked me to baptize her so that will be cool to help with that! its been exciting to see her progress even though she isn’t my investigator haha!

We have had many good investigators but despite all we do to help them we haven’t had any progress to the point were they are willing to put the gospel in front of their work or other things… we do have one that is making it super close! his name is Bluce… yes i spelled that right haha 🙂 he is super cool and im super excited to see him make these steps for baptism! we also have another investigator named leo. he is also making great progress! we just figured out though that he might have a pretty serious problem with some of the commandments so when we teach those i will be praying we can teach in a way that will show him the hope the gospel has! im very hopeful for him though 🙂

I love this work guys! its so much fun and the most tiring work ive ever done! i constantly am put into situations that i learn so much about myself as a person and learn to change as hard as that is. but aside from my shortcomings it is great to be a part of this work! life is good! love you all!

Elder Miner

this week…. i literally only took this picture… my bad… but hey my famliy is awesome they sent me this for my birthday! super sick boat!

Hey everyone!

this week was awesome! thank you for all the birthday wishes!!

we went to monkey mountain again and this time was soo sick! i got to feed some and it was just a fun time! then we just had a nice normal week! oh and guess what… my comp forgot my birthday… :p he is awesome i love him!

This week was a slower one with not a ton that happened but i realized that time is flying by too fast… we had an LA that came to church this week that hasn’t been in a good long while so that was awesome!! im glad that i can serve here another transfer and hope that i can have this much fun and this many spiritual experiences in my next areas! im coming up on my year mark already and i feel like i haven’t been out long enough! Just keep up the good work and know that god provides! Love you all!

Elder Miner

孟長老

to start this off i just want to share something that i thought was pretty great that i read this week! so its in Jesus the Christ: pgs 340 and 344.

A little background first, This is when Christ gives the teaching to many of his deciples including his 12 and many others. He tells then that he is the bread of life and in this instance Talmage states that many of his followers didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand or were offended in some way by his statement. In this sense he was proving those that were his followers, either they would follow him or they would take what he said as too hard or not possible. In this instance not even the 12 Apostles fully understood what he ment. now i want to quote a part of what was said after many had left on page 344:

"Jesus said talking to the apostles ‘Will ye also go away?’ Peter, speaking for himself and his brethren, answered with pathos and conviction: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.’ The spirit of the holy Apostleship was manifest in this confession. Though they were unable to comprehend in fullness the doctrine, they knew Jesus to be the Christ, and were faithful to him while others turned away into the dark depths of apostasy."

Now I don’t know if you all noticed but in General Conference i counted a number of times that the Apostles and others referenced the members of the church as Disciples. So, i just have one invite. This is to all those that are members of the church no matter how active you are or where you are on your conversion process. I would pray that if you have any doubts or anything that you just plain don’t understand, Just hold on to that belief in Christ and the power in his teachings. There are still many things that i don’t fully understand but i can promise you all, as you press forward and just have the simple desire or hope that these things are true god will, through the spirit, make these things known to you. you will have a deeper understanding and eventually it is promised to know all the secrets of heaven. First we just need to do our part, President Uchtdorf once said "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" I would hope that you all can just hold onto the truth that you already know. I love you all and know that these things are true! 🙂

Now for the week! we had another transfer this week and guess what… im going eternal with Elder Lindahl!! he is a stud and i couldn’t be happier! its going to be an awesome transfer! then last week we went to san xian tai (i think that is the pinyin for that…) but that was sick!!! i loved it and honestly i haven’t seen a more beautiful place in my oh so short life!! 🙂 ill attach pictures and probably send more in another email 🙂 then… we had a sick english party that was the craziest i have seen in Taiwan yet! haha 🙂 then… yeah that is about the week. nothing else super exciting happened aside from amazing personal study times! i love studying 🙂 chinese is legit and Taiwan is beautiful! im so glad that i have had this time and have so much more time here 🙂 and my birthday is awesome too thanks for the birthday wishes! love you all and i love the gospel! pictures to come soon!

Till next week!

Elder Miner

Hey everyone!

To start i want to talk about something that i have been doing ever sense watching General Conference! its that ponderize thing! its super sweet! i would invite you all to do it! the scripture that i chose this week is alma 33:11 would love to hear back from you all to see which scriptures you have chosen if you are doing it!

So this week was a really good one! for the past few weeks we haven’t had anyone that was seriously working toward baptism or had really a ton of interest in our message aside from the fact that we are white Americans… ahah! but thats alright we have seen a pretty big change this week!

To start we have been working with some investigators for a while now where they haven’t been progressing or keeping commitments for a while BUT suddenly they have all started to do what we ask them and as a result they have been willing to set baptismal dates! im so excited! One that we have been putting specific focus on is Ellen xing is zhang, she is so funny1 we have gone to visit her at her work many times which is the only place that she can because she is super busy all other times so it was amazing to see her begin to progress! she is awesome, she and her husband own this place and she is keeping the invites and he isn’t quite yet… but its ok! we all know that sometimes it takes a girl to make guys do things 😉 haha kidding!… kind of…

Then we have this kid who reminds me of Tony back home in our ward in Saratoga Springs! he is super legit i love this kid! his xing is zheng and he is here alone just in collage but he has a super deep sincere desire to learn truth and has been working hard to actually understand what we have been sharing and im super stoked for him! he is going back to tainan to visit his family and he’s like "yeah im bringing my book of mormon on the train to read and im going to share it with my family too!" haha he’s funny! love that kid!

Then i just have some pictures that i can attatch to describe the rest of the week!

got some of the zone up at our stake presidents house

our zone leaders taking some glammer shots

pictures with my comp and other missionaries

and a super good thing they sell on the streets for super cheap! 12 kuai or about 50 cents!

Love you all! hope this week is great for you all!

Elder Miner

Hey everyone! how are you all doing this week? 🙂

I have to say that this week has been a hard one but has brought with it some of the most sincere investigators that i have seen in this area so far! I can say that there are definitely reasons for the times we go through, and the strength we can find in the gospel amazing! There is one experience that i want to share:

On Wednesday we were spending most of the day out finding, just looking for those prepared people. Let me tell you… i didn’t feel like there was anyone that day, just because literally everyone that we contacted was not willing to talk to us in the least! But as missionaries you just learn to push forward haha. but anyway so we are just about done with the day of complete rejection and had two investigators drop our lessons we were heading to dinner and my companion Elder Lindahl decided to contact just one more girl. so we start talking to her and turns out that like a lot of Taiwanese she was kind of Buddhist but not super devout. After talking with her she just seemed to get more and more interested! it was super exciting to see the change in just that short 10 minute contact 🙂 Just those little moral busters and miracles you see on the missoin that make you day 🙂 to top it off her name was Grace… haha the irony 😉

Other than that we had a good p day last week up at our stake president house and took some good pictures and had some amazing food!! love the mission! This culture is amazing and the language is good stuff too haha! its actually starting to click more and more now 🙂 love you all!

Elder Miner

some picures to show this week and the people in my mission 🙂

So this week wasn’t anything super different from the weeks before, still seeing miracles and loving the area! biggest things that happened was that i went on two exchanges so i wasn’t in my area at all for two days in a row… that was weird! haha but i saw some super great miracles and ate some great sausage 🙂

On Tuesday we worked with a sister in our ward to surprise a sister missionary with a birthday cake! it was super fun and the cake was amazing!! went on exchanges into the zone Leaders area and met my ward mission leaders grandma! she spoke mostly taiyu (which isn’t chinese… its a little different haha) so that was sweet! then we had english class which is so much fun to be honest! i love teaching english but im not going to do that when i get home… haha Then we met an LA that we haven’t seen in a long time! you teng yi is his name, it was great to see him again he’s super cool but not willing to meet with us again… so yay 🙂 Then we met with our Filipino friend Isreal! he is super awesome, he has pretty broken english but we made it work because i don’t know Tagalog… yet! haha nah kidding i got to get chinese down first! anyway we are getting him to church in November when he stops working all day sundays!

that is all the big things that happened this week! Nothing super crazy although every day is different! in a little bit we are going to be heading to our stake presidents house to eat a huge lunch! so don’t worry about me ill be fine 😉 I love you all and hope that you are doing good! the Atonement works! just try it! 🙂 god is just waiting to bless every one of us! The church is true, the book is blue! Love you guys!

Elder Miner

free stuff, english class, amazing sunset, and my companion got cold… haha! 🙂

How are my stateside friends?

This week has been a good one! The best part is that we got to see conference 🙂 There was a ton to be learned from what was said! probably one thing that stuck out to me was that my mom is amazing, and just essentially how much mothers go through to raise their disobedient children 🙂 i recommend that you all go read or re-listen to Elder Hollands talk on Mothers! its good, you won’t regret it 🙂

anyway, other than that we went up to our past invetigators house on tuesday because they are having a funeral for his mom. He is the one i talked about two weeks ago or so. He is a stud and he is doing really good! ill attach pictures of us and his family 🙂 He has such faith and he is handling the loss of his mom way better than i thought he would! Im lucky enough to get to know some very amazing people while out here!

Here is a fun thing that every missionary ever just loves to hear! ALL OF OUR INVESTIGATORS DROPPED THEIR DATE…. we had 3 investigators on date and this week something came up that they just got hung up on or we are working through with them. Don’t get me wrong im still loving my mission nothing could change that! We are working with them to get over their issues and honestly i still see them getting baptized just need to help them realize that the gospel has more blessings than they are realizing right now. They are all great and i love them 🙂 keep it up!

I want to give everyone an invite, if you have any questions of your faith or just questions in general. Ask our Father in prayer and he will without a doubt, i promise, answer your prayer and resolve any problems or questions you have. Something my "all knowing and wise companion" 😉 said was that god is going to answer our prayers in the way and at the time that is going to be the most beneficial to us, don’t get discouraged because you don’t get an answer right away. be happy that god loves you enough to watch you grow stronger and allow you to become what he knows you can be. This gospel is all about love, we are here on earth, because god loves us. we are given our families, because god loves us. we are put through trials and such, because god loves us. its such a great life we have, just keep it simple and remember the basics and you won’t have any worries 🙂

Love you all! and you are all Handsome and Beautiful remember that! 🙂

Elder Miner

here is some pictures of my investigators, some ward members, my average dinner, dropping by a dry cleaner and they just have a hawk outside… thats when you know you have quality dry cleaning! and some ma zhang fun stuff 🙂

oi!

alright so this week has been a crazy one! In all honesty it has been one of the longest ones of my mission. We had just so many miracles happen, good lessons and just some great times. The biggest thing that happened though… our investigators mom Died this week of a stroke. I can’t even tell you how sad that is to meet this kid who is 16, has such great faith, and is always super excited to learn more and more, and then four weeks later have his mom pass and the impact that had on him. He is a trooper though let me tell you! Don’t get me wrong, this experience has been a testimony builder. We had the chance to teach him all about the plan of salvation before all this happened and he has shown to me that you don’t have to be a 5-10 year member to have unshakable faith in our Heavenly Father and his plan for us! I am so privileged to have met him and support him through this. oh and to top it off… he actually lives in the zone leaders area so they are teaching him now…. so yeah haha! 🙂 i love life its so crazy, The eternal perspective makes all these crazy times just so much fun! i know that its all going to work out!

This week was actually the first week of the transfer, i am with Elder Lindahl again which i am so stoked about you have no idea! We have seen so many miracles together and im sure we will see many more! so we had 3 investigators with a Date but like i said we had to give up one haha 🙂 One is named Travis he is legit as every still going strong! we fasted with him yesterday to have his moms heart softened so he might be able to get baptized. i will keep you updated on him 🙂 then we have shonu…. oh she is a fun one 🙂 she has such a crazy sense of humor that its almost hard to teach her but the more i teach her the more i love her and know that she really does have faith. she has a lot of faith and even though she isn’t the "Golden Investigatory" everyone is always talking about she is the best! I have been blessed to find and meet such amazing people while i have been on my mission 🙂 i Love them all!

So yeah, this week has been and good one! it has had its hard parts but even those are just amazing learning and testimony building experiences. I want you all to know Just a few simple things but things that have more effect than we know: Our Heavenly Father loves us, We are LITERAL Sons and Daughters of our Father in Heaven, he has prepared for us a plan that is so incredibly merciful, and with the knowledge of this plan we can look forward through so many daunting trials and know, all is well. i love my savior, and i love you all! Peace! till next week!

Elder Miner