Exchange Madness!

This week I went on two exchanges. One was with the Assistant to the President, Elder 林 Lin, and the other was with a missionary from my MTC District, Elder Ellison.

Going with Elder Lin was awesome. It was my first time in my entire mission serving with a native companion and it was a blast. There was a crazy thing that happened during the exchange though. Throughout our night of proselyting there was a foreigner who followed us for a couple hours and interrupted four of our contacts by running up to us, screaming at us, telling the person we were talking to to leave, and then cursing me out and telling me to go back to Utah. It was my first time to ever have anything like this happened to me before. In Taiwan everyone is so nice that you never really see things like this. It's is usually only foreigners that are rude to us but even they are never this rude. The yelling from him also included him sticking his finger in my face and even at points recording me and putting me on Snapchat. It was a very interesting experience. It didn't leave me and Elder 林 Lin angry or mad...It just left us sad for how mad and sad this guy was in his life. We wished we could help him! I don't know what it takes in someone's life to get them to the point where they out of nowhere start yelling at people to their face in public like that, but it can't be too happy of a story. We'll just have to continue praying for him!

My exchange with Elder Ellison was also super fun. To serve with someone who went to BYU with me before the mission and was also in my MTC District was a dream come true! He's so awesome, and is training a new missionary right now, Elder Brunette!!! During the exchange we had a lesson with a Mr. Wang. During the lesson we asked him if he's prayed before...He said, "No, but sometimes I'll 胡話(huhua) to the Lord". Which directly translates to "wild talk", but it essentially means "cry" to the Lord. After he told us this, he started doing some sort of chant that including raising he hands to the sky and saying, "Oh, Jesus....I love...JESUS!"... let's just say it was a fun exchange haha.

We had our interviews with President Petersen for the transfer this past week too. He's such an inspired man and is doing amazing things with the mission.

Elder Smith 施長老