Jan 9, 2011 - Monkeys & Miracles

Ok so this week we baptized a father and he will soon be getting the priesthood and is planning on baptizing his wife and when his daughter turns 8, he will also baptize her. And he eventually plans on going to the temple with his family. I did the actual baptizing, and my companion Elder Summerhays confirmed him. It was really cool. Chen zhong liang is a very spiritual person who will stay in the church. I am confident in that. The ward members love him. He had about twenty people come to his baptismal service. And after I had baptized him, he kept on saying "chongxin de kaishi" new start. And he bore pure, amazing testimony that this church is true and that Jesus is the Christ. Sooooo goood.

Sorry Sisi no super quotes. Maybe next week.

Of course I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday. But they all knew anyway because they looked at my card that says I am allowed to be in Taiwan for longer than a vacation. But I did get the package you guys sent me this week. Thank you. It was very good. Oh! I bought some sweet shoes today because they were only like 12 USD. But sending them home might be kinda expensive. I don't want to wear them here.

This week we had five investigators at church. Which is really good. A couple of them were from part member families which is really special to the ward that we are directing our efforts towards completing families in the church. These people are very special. They know everything they need to do to be sealed to their family forever. They just need to go and do it.

Dad I forgot to tell you. If you buy a Mac it comes with software that can help you learn Chinese and it also has the ability to type in Chinese using pinyin or zhuyin (bopomofo).

This week we taught a lesson to a guy named John. It was so funny. I almost couldn't stop laughing. We were trying to explain why we need a savior. My companion asked him "are you perfect?" and at this piont most people say no. John said "yes."
"John. How old are you?"
"28."
"In 28 years you haven't made a single mistake, ever?" .
"nope"
"wow"
and then we ended the lesson because he is weird. Which happens a lot.

We also are teaching a man named Pan and he has a beard that goes down to his waist. So beautiful.

We also went to monkey mountain today!! again. We saw lots of monkeys.

I hope you guys like the pictures I sent.
Love,
Elder Graham

Jan 2, 2011 Chou Dou Fu (Stinky Tofu)

Hello family!!

Sisi that is a weird dream.

Pops, so far I haven't found a really good way of studying Chinese. It seems like the words you really want to learn, you will learn and you will use. So it is good to have an SYL book. If you speak all in Chinese but then you don't know a vocab word, you write it down. Its how we all do it at the mtc. Its good because then you learn the words you use most, even faster. As far as characters go, Ive found that just memorizing them on flash cards isn't really enough. You need to actually use them. So part of studying characters is reading the BoM in Chinese. That way you get used to recocnizing the characters in a book. The flash cards are made by the mission. They missionary who put it all together lives here in my shi zhong ward. His english is really good because he went and studied at SNOW before his mission. His name is Tommy. I thought I would put that in there.

Yes, they have lots of weird fruits and veggies here but I have no idea what they are called. I just point to them and the person puts it on my plate. Most of them are really good. Oh yeah. a few weeks ago I tried chou dou fu and it was soooooooo000o0o0o0oooo gross.

Man that family reunion sounds awesome.... oh well. I get to baptize people! ;)

Ok so we found this guy in the Area book and the only comment some random missionary wrote on it was, "needs baptism". So we gave him a call. He has met with us twice. He wants to be baptized because he knows he will be able to change and live a better, cleaner life after he is baptized. He has been having some problems with his wife and is scared that if he doesn't change that they will get divorced and he doesn't want that for his little 6 year old girl. She likes church too! The wife works on sundays so I haven't met her yet. But he is really awesome. He passed an interview this past week. Hopefully he will be baptized in the next two weeks.
I also taught a drunk guy yesterday. He told us that he wants to quit. we are going to help with that. He lives in our apartment complex so we can find him when ever we need to.

Sorry this is short, we need to help an elder pick up his new companion at the train station.
Love,
Elder Graham

Dec 26, 2010 Christmas and huge Buddha

Hello everybody! yaya!
It was very nice to talk to you guys for Christmas. When I was about to call you guys my hand was shaking. It was kinda funny. Anyway. Yeah it was good talking to you guys. The time went by really fast. So yes I would like to still hear about other missionaries and also pictures and stuff.
I have some pics for you!

And yes, Wang got baptizzled on Christmas!!

I'm glad that you guys liked the scriptures. They werent like "you guys need to repent and do this" Just cool scriptures that I found during the week.

Pops I want to hear about Afghanistan. Why are you going there?

Ok I think this is cool. Last week we didnt have a single investigator at church. This week we had SEVEN. So yeah we worked hard this week trying to get people to church.

At the christmas activity president bishop's son, daughter in law, and grandson were there. His grandson is like only one year old and is really cute. white babies are so cute.
Also we went to a huge temple place and they were handing out free buddhist scripture and you could actually go inside the huge buddha.

It was good to hear from you guys!

Today we should be going to the island again to take pictures.

I miss holding babies....

See ya in two years,
桂长老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

Yep, that's one hot missionary!

Dec 19, 2010 New Comp is baptizing machine!

Dear Family,
Hello. So this week was pretty interesting I think. So I have spent an entire week with my new companion Elder Summerhays. It is no wonder every one says he is a baptizing machine. So sweet. He is about my height which is awesome. So we have gotten a lot done. We've been talking to everyone. We have met lots of interesting people. With Elder Summerhays as our district leader, our district has improved a lot. Its really cool. But this weekend our district had 6 total baptismal interviews. Which would be awesome because... Well that's a lot of people and that number matches how many people are in our district! So yeah that's really cool but the problem is.. Well not only did we run out of baptismal interview forms, but our entire zone is out! I guess we just baptize way too much. But you know. That's our job. That's what I am talking about.
Yesterday at church we had this one guy come who lives under the train station(homeless) and when we met him he had a huge bandage on his head. When we contacted him he started crying and telling us how he has been to church lots of times and he wants to change his life. But today when he came to church he saw how many people where and church and he freaked out and started to leave. But then some people from our ward started speaking in Tai yu (Taiwanese) to him and he still was very intent on leaving and he talked to us for a minute and he told us that he had tried to commit suicide and that's why he had the big bandage. And we were like "that's why you need to come to church. We want to help you." anyway. He left and we were sad. But he said that he would "for sure" come next week. We shall see.
Also yesterday we sat down with an old investigator that neither of us have met before. He was so cool. He was asking questions like: Why are there so many churches? I just want to know which one is Gods true church. And almost every "Questions of the soul" (See Preach My Gospel page 107) Anyway he was so cool. He has the biggest stomach I have ever seen.

Thanks for the Cristmas package! Ummm so I'm sorry but I had to take some money out today. I had to send some packages home and our leaders told us to take out some personal money for the Christmas activity.

Ok so we figured it out. I am going to call at six in the morning here. I'm still really confused about when that will be. But it should be sometime Christmas night/afternoon for you guys. or in the afternoon like 3 in the afternoon according to our phone but it could be like an hour ish off. We have to do it that early because we have church at 830 and we have to switch off using the home phone in our apartment. So yes I will buy a cheap calling card and call you guys!

Anyway. You guys should be getting a few packages in the mail in like a week or so. open the smallest one first.

Ok so I contacted this guy and he told me he had been a member for over twenty years. He hasn't been to church in about five years. Anyway he has a mental problem because a drunk driver hit him and now he cant find work and needs lots of help just finding food to eat and stuff like that. Right now he is very thankful. I'm sorry this was short. We don't have lots of time today because we have a baptismal interview to do for the other Elders. I'll try and write as much as possible.
This week we figured out that you get rewarded in random ways that only God knows when you just work your hardest. In the last few days we randomly found lots of willing people
K I have to go sorry this was short.

See ya in two years,
桂长老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

Dec 12, 2010 - Movecall/ Pres. letter

Dear family,
Thank you for the awesome letter. I really am trying my hardest with the language. Yesterday I spent a long time making language study goals. Which I have found to be very important in learning a language. I also got these flash cards that have every character that is used in the Book of Mormon organized by which ones are the most used. So far I have about the first 100 down. Which makes up most of the Book of Mormon. However there are still over a thousand more characters I need to know to read the whole thing like my MTC companion. Oh well. I'm working on it.

So last night we got "mid-transfer move calls" because some elders have to go home early because of school and other things like that. And I got a new companion Elder Summerhays. He is still on the train on the way here while I am with Elder Petters and Elder Chou. I heard that Elder Summerhays is a way awesome baptizing machine, so I hope we have tons of fun together. Right now we have an investigator that has a baptismal goal to be baptized on Christmas day. His name is Wang. It is going to be awesome!

Speaking of Christmas, the attachment I'm sending you guys is the rules and things on calling home on Christmas. So let me know which is more convenient. Also yesterday at church I cant remember why but I was reading in Isiah 9 verse 6. And it reminded me of home when mom would play that one song where its talking about Christ calling him "Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace" It made me realise I wouldn't be home for Christmas and it made me kinda sad. I don't think I've missed home like that before. Anyway. I thought I would share that with you guys.

I hope you guys didn't send too big of a package! And I'm not with Elder Lai anymore... ummm And I will need to pull out some more money today to send your guys' stuff home. If you guys get it before Christmas, Don't open it! I didn't have time to wrap anything! ok? thanks.

I want to copy and paste part of the President's letter we got today: "This week about 30 divinity students visited the Yong Kong ward. These students are preparing to be Presbyterian ministers. After Sacrament Meeting we held a question and answer session. The students were very polite and respectful as they inquired about our Church, our doctrine, and our missionaries. One question they could not seem to understand was, “why do our missionaries, over 50,000 of them at any one time, serve missions when they are not paid any salary?” “What do they get out of it?” It is hard for someone not of our faith to understand the commitment that we feel, and the way we are trying to consecrate our lives to the Lord for the building of His Church. We tried to explain, but in the end these theology students still seemed baffled. This experience left me even more impressed with your dedication and with the strength of your testimonies. I am grateful for the service you give every day to the Lord."


I would send you guys some pictures that I've taken with my sweet new camera ;) but the place that we are e-mailing at doesn't have usb ports on the computers. sorry.

I got the letter you sent thanks pops.

I have been on my mission for almost 9 months now.
That's like makin a whole baby. Wow.

I think its cool you guys are doing a more service oriented Christmas this year.

Yes Sisi I have a journal and just this last week I made a goal to write in it every single day. Its because I was reading in the rule book for missionaries under the section talking about how to use your time, and it says to write in it everyday. So I started doing that a few days ago. And I need to be a lot better at it.

Ok I have to write my president's letter now and pick up my new companion at the train station. I'm not sure if he has emailed yet and if he hasn't I'm going to take him to a place that I can email pictures at.

Love you guys. ----Elder gui
桂长老
桂俊杰

Dec 5, 2010

Its so weird that its almost Christmas! But here, nothing is really Christmas-y. Except for at 7/11. Anyway.
Last week we went to an Island that is in my area. pretty cool. Elder Lai is from xing zhu. Or something like that. Its north of Taizhong.

This last week we were really freaked out because our recent convert stopped answering his phone. But then on Saturday he finally called us and said sorry he didn't answer his phone. He was in Japan all week and didn't tell us. Any way. Oh and yesterday after church a member that was baptized like 35 years ago, who is less active called us. He was just like "My brother just died. His body is all cold. What do I do?" It was kinda weird. Anyway I called President Bishop and told him the situation and he told us to help as much as we can. So we went over to this guy's house and when we pulled up, he came out smiling and was like "wo3 de didi si3 le" my little brother died. But he was smiling and after he said that he kinda laughed and was like "he is really dead! his body is all cold when you touch it." Then he asked us if we wanted to touch his brothers dead body. I was like "OK!!" so we went and touched this old dead guys body. We also called the bishop and some other people to come help. His brother wasn't a member. When we sat down with him, he was like "My brother would be with God right now if he had been baptized, huh?" Anyway. We left shortly after that.

YAY Happy Birthday Sisi! That sounds like fun. Wow Sisi is 15... weird.

Thank you Kami for making me laugh. haha

Mother it is ok that you guys didn't email last week. That's our fault for going early. It doesn't really feel like Christmas here either. But I cant wait for Christmas because the whole mission gets together and does something fun. I'm going to miss Christmas at home...
No, no more requests from me!

Last week my companion bought the camera that I am planning on getting, so the pictures that I send you guys are from that camera.

Last week I went on two exchanges. One with Zhou zhang lao again, and one with my Trainer, Elder Doyon. Who is my Zone leader right now. So it was pretty cool. But apparently it was the first time that a junior companion has lead a Zone leader around in the Junior companion's area. So I had to be the senior companion for my trainer for 24 hours. Pretty cool. We got a lot done and dropped in some people who now have goals to get baptized on Christmas day. Not bad.
Lately we have been struggling to find new investigators. But yesterday we got someone to church! yay! He is a little weird but that's ok I still love him.
anyway I have to write my presidents letter now, so if I remember something or anything, I will email you guys.

See ya in two years,
桂长老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

ok sorry I forgot to tell you guys...... I was just kidding about touching the dead guy. He really died and his brother really asked us if we wanted to touch him. But we said no. sorry for not clearing that up haha

This is a photo of me and "the faithful old guy" I told you about