Hualien, Taiwan

So I love being a missionary!! Yay. That's a good thing wouldn't you agree? Things have been going good down here in Hualien. I really believe this is one of the most prepared places in all of Taiwan. You have no Idea.

Fun things that went down this week:

We have 4 investigators preparing to be baptized next month! This is seriously so cool. It has been frustrating though because one has been trying for weeks but she had to get a second interview, and then she drank tea on saturday and is super busy on the weekends and has to be keeping all the commandments for at least a week. BUT that is not to diminish the progress she has made. She cut smoking cold turkey last week and has not gone back. She is awesome. I just love these people! Agh, I can't stop smiling :)

Another Investigator that is doing really well is Iris. She is so cool and seriously a huge miracle. She met the zone leaders at a night market and they invited her to come to English Class. She came to it that night and agreed to set up with us to learn about the Gospel. As time went on we realized that she is Golden as far as investigators go. I say this because the first baptismal date we set for her was June 6th. When we proposed that she looked at us funny and said "那麼久?" or in English "That long?"  So the next time we met with her we bumped it up to a time we thought was still reasonable and she was like is "Is anyone else getting baptized then?" We told her the baptism closest to her new date was on the 17th, a whole week sooner and she was like "lets do it then, so I can be baptized with someone else". So my mind is blown that I keep meeting all these awesome people. So many blessings.

As far as life goes I feel really bad for Elder Marchant, he is feeling the trunkiness for sure although he is working really hard to fight it. I want to know the best thing I can do to help a dying missionary if you have any suggestions in that regard but the thing is, I think he is a great companion. He wants to work hard and he is a hard worker! And I really admire how in tune with the spirit he is. Because of that one of the most amazing things I have seen in the field happened here. We were just visiting an RC when My companion had this super strong prompting that we should go to the Zhou families house. When we got there, we saw these white people in there meeting with him and we were super worried they were like another churches missionaries or something but when we got in it just so happened to be a returned missionary that Elder Marchant said was assistant way back before I got on the Island. His parents were the owners of DoTerra Oils! How crazy is that? AND they are from Smithfield originally. Sky View Alumni. Small world. Anyways, We ended up sitting down and they introduced us to the dad of the Zhou family who was not yet baptized. It was my first time meeting him and because of the situation and the spirit that was in that room when we met him Zhou Dx finally agreed to meet with the missionaries! It was a super cool experience.

I seriously feel like Heavenly Father has literally opened the windows of heaven and poured out enough blessings that I don't have room to receive any more. The people we meet are just coming to us, Hualien is so prepared it is ridiculous! We have 4 baptisms scheduled for next month. FOUR!!! I saw 1 in 6 months in my last area. I am learning and growing so much here. I love the people in Taiwan SO much. I love them I love them I love them. I am the happiest that I have ever been serving a mission and the more I have learned to lose myself and serving others the more that happiness has increased. I can scarcely stop smiling :)

I love hearing from you all!

 Take care and talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Heaps :)

We  GOT FOOD! Super awesome meal. Members bought us all this wonderful SEAFOOD!!! Sushi, Shark, Shark Fin, Jelly Fish, Mambo Fish, Wasabi, and then in addition to that there was Pigs Foot, Jumbo Shrimp, Guava Juice, and Mochi Balls! I was the only Elder there that liked seafood. Also the only missionary that liked the sushi, I ate a lot. That sushi platter was eaten 80 percent by me. Good Food...

Yangmei - March 1, 2015

Dear Friends and Family,

A lot went down this week. Ok, so maybe not as much as the previous week, but I finally have proof that I have gained weight! Ok again not really proof, more on that later. Just lots of random fun things. HERE WE GO!

Tuesday! This was our P-Day last week (As many of you know) and to celebrate our possible last transfer together Elder Jensen Elder Miller Elder Whitlock and I all decided to go hiking. Silly me I forgot to bring a change of clothes. It didn't really occur to me until we got there and everyone (including my companion) had some basketball shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers. It's ok though. I looked the best while we were up there! Hiking in Yangmei is loads of fun and it was a beautiful ride. We had another qingke at the end of the day and met with Kim, our golden investigator.

Wednesday we didn't seem to get a whole lot done but my companion bemusedly pointed out that as we were biking near one of the highschools some student that was with her boyfriend saw me bike past them and turned and smacked her boyfriend pointing at me and shouting "he is so shuai(handsome)!!! do you see how shuai he is?" The way he described it I am surprised I didn't notice but apparently it was pretty funny. Aside from that we just had English Party that night.

Thursday we took a member with us and went out to all of our investigators that hate setting times to meet but always have time. We had a lot of fun with the member (Leon) and we got in quite a few lessons that afternoon. We had a couple meetings that were just extra spiritual and I really enjoyed the time we had to work. That night we got to meet with Kim again! That was amazing. He will go on mormon.org between our appointments and learn stuff himself. Well after resolving the last concern he had before deciding to be baptized we set a baptismal interview date with him. As we were leaving I gave Brother You(like in yo-yo) the ward mission leader, who had helped us teach kim, a great big hug. He then stopped looked at me with christ like love and touched my shoulder saying,"ni bian pang le" or in modern english translation "you've gotten fat"... I think that means he loves me if he is willing to be that open about it? Regardless I got a good laugh out of that one. Here is my first evidence that I have gained weight.

Friday we just planned for next week and talked to people. One cool experience was being out finding and as we started to go home I had a prompting to turn around and go back to a place where we had already knocked a previous day and didn't get an answer. When we got there there was this great guy just waiting for his family. We had a great talk with him and gave him a book of mormon. He actually wasn't very interested in religion but he really liked what our message contained. It was a neat experience and I was glad that I listened.

Saturday was pretty chill. We let an investigator cut our hair for our service project (she wanted to take before and after pictures so that she could use us as haircut models) and went to visit one of our less active members. Elder Whitlock got sick at the end of the night though so we didn't really get to do anything after dinner. He is better now it was just some serious side pains I guess.

Yesterday was a miracle for sure. Kim had his baptismal interview and passed and we had a few investigators at church. I felt really bad for Elder Whitlock though! We met this high school girl who TOTALLY fell in love with him. Like he was the only reason she would come to church and everytime someone would try to talk to her she would like grab his harm and try to bury her face into his side if she was next to him. We both went to lengths to keep them separated.  Aside from that we talked to Kim and set the plans for his baptism. Then as I was talking to Effie one of the girls in the ward about when her mission call came she stopped and looked at me and said. "ni bian pang le". The ward mission leader was right behind her and he started laughing super hard. I wonder if they were in on it together. They have both always liked to tease me. Anyway, this is how you can all know that I became fat over the new year.

Really this week was just so busy. I am mentally drained right now so I am going to enjoy the rest of my P-Day and RELAX. Hmm.. That will be nice. Y'all take care now!

Love Elder Heaps.

December 1st

Dear Family,

First off, thank you mom for organizing my email for me! It added about 5 minutes to my emailing time!

Monday: My companion is awesome and showed me this GREAT place next to the mission office in Taipei. There I bought my new favorite tie. It says "Families are forever" in chinese! AND it has dragons on it :). I then realized when we got home that I really need to be better at managing my mission money. I had enough food to survive. I just had to have a peanut butter sandwich for more than lunch the last Two days of November. This month I set up a budgeting plan for myself including my grocery list and Travel. I spent way over 500 kuai on travel last month! Very few missionaries have to take the train as often as we do. To Americans it is cheap but I get sick of spending a minimum of 84 kuai a week and an extra 42 to 112 for trips to the stake center and the mission office. But It is better than riding my bike so I won't complain! :)

Tuesday was good! My companion and I learned definition of godspeed! We had a member appointment on Tuesday night and they were going to feed us. They lived in the sisters area. We had to ride our bikes for and hour going downhill to find their house and so we started with them at about 6:40 at night. We stayed our hour and had a 30 minute lesson after because they invited an investigator! Then at 8:10 we realized that we had a lesson back at the train station uphill in a park by our house. It was scheduled for 8:30 Erm... How does one go uphill THREE TIMES as fast going downhill and make it to their lesson on time? I will tell you right now. We had ANGELS pushing us. There is no other explanation. We made it all the way back to Puxin in 25 minutes. We were 5 minutes late. The best part? Our investigator was 10 minutes late. WE were five minutes EARLY for the lesson. You may begin applauding. Oh also we found out that this Investigator, Wang Jenson, is moving to New York this month so he will not be meeting his baptismal date on the 13th... He will be on January 24th instead! He is so great. AND he is the only person all day that noticed my new tie. He is so great.

Wednesday: Ok you can stop applauding now. Wednesday was ok. One of the people we set a baptismal date with gave us a fake phone number so we had to drop him because we had no way to contact him. He also did not show up to the lesson we planned with him. Jesus loves him anyways... We did meet with our guy who is set for Christmas though. We need him to come to church every week this month to be Eligible. PRAY FOR HIM!! His name is Wang Shang Quan. We want that white Christmas and another soul brought into the fold!!!

Thursday: All of our appointments cancelled. I will just say now that the week overall had over 10 planned lesson's cancel or just not show up. Thursday kind of sucked. Let's forget that it happened. OH also, that excommunicated member that we are working with... The other Elders in our district ran into him on Thursday night and can you guess what he was doing? It involved a cigarette tossed to the side of the road at lightning speed and a can of "grape juice". Pray for Brother Karch too. Its a good thing he cancelled the next day's lesson with us that night. I would have burned his ears off at that lesson.

Friday. I DID burn someone's ears off on Friday. I also had a bowl of true chinese hot and sour soup! Mmmmm.... But the only lesson that we had planned on Friday was with the Brother Li that we talked with about authority. In the lesson he said that in his prayer Jesus told him the he was special and didn't need to be baptized with proper authority and that his first one made him ok. I wasn't mean... I just didn't hold back. It was kind of a "who do you think you are?" and I very directly told him that he was WRONG in the most loving way I possibly could. Elder Nelson said that it was great. He actually just let me take control that lesson and we were both super bold with the guy. I was totally into this lesson and the spirit was there. He said Jesus said he didn't need to, then he said he just didn't feel ready. I told him if he would use some effort that we could help him be ready by next month. Then he said he didn't want to because he liked tea. He was backtracking A LOT. He talked himself into a ditch and finally at the very end he said "I have been investigating the church for 8 years and you think you can have me baptized next month?" I totally didn't understand but I said yes anyways. Elder Nelson laughed, Then said a lot of things that I didn't understand either. Then Brother Li finally said "I'll go talk to Jesus about it". Elder Nelson later told me that the man looked like he was in shock in awe the whole time. I was kind of surprised with our forwardness... We really made an impact on the guy.

Saturday: All of our lessons cancelled again. We did finding all day and my companion talked to a man on the street who actually new how to Joke... When my companion said he was from mars the guy responded, Oh really? I am from Saturn! We must be neighbors! That was about it for Saturday though. OH WAIT! That brother Li we talked to on Friday called us tonight and told us that after really thinking about what we said that we wasn't going to come to church anymore and that he wanted to stop meeting with us for a little while. I guess we may have been a little overbearing... BUT the sisters did ask me to do a baptism for them on Sunday.

Sunday: SURPRISE I got to baptize someone! Right after church we performed the Ordinance. She was a Filipino so I got to do it English and it was just Cool. I want to experience that many more times out here in the field, but maybe with my own investigators :) This week I also might end My training! If me or my companion moves Ill be sure to tell you all next week.

It is so easy to say I don't feel like I am growing that much. I still feel lazy, I know that we have a lot to improve on, I think everyday that I could be the best missionary out here only to stop and wonder how I slipped through the Cracks to make it into the mission that they only send the best too. I'm no Eagle Scout or 4.0 student, I'm no musical prodigy or an Albert Einstein, I haven't walked on the moon I'm just some white kid from cache valley trying to sound asian so that the people will look past how foreign I am to listen to a message that I know is true. But that IS why I am here. To share. We all need to share. A testimony freely shared is one that grows and flourishes. A testimony not exercised and selfishly held withers and dies. Using something is the best way to ensure it's growth. I hope we can all use what we have the right way.

I KNOW this church is true. It has to be. There is nothing more life giving than the true and simple doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the book of Mormon and divine guidance through prayer. I know that prayers are answered in the Lord's own time. Patience is a virtue that I am still developing for sure. I certainly had very little when I entered the MTC. But I truly am seeing lives change. I can't wait to see these people take and apply what we teach them.

I love you all. Take care, Be safe, Make good choices and HAVE FUN.

Until Next Week,

Love Ben :)

1st baptism   

Taipei 101 89th Floor

Taipei 101 - 3rd tallest building in the world

Elder Nelson and Elder Heaps

He Made It!!!!!

We found out Thursday that Ben would be leaving for Taiwan on Friday.  He is there and loving it!!

OCTOBER 05, 2014

I am anxious to tell you all that I am FINALLY HERE IN TAIWAN!!!!!! This is seriously the best experience of my life and I flipping love it here! How is it out there in Utah, or America in general. I wouldn't know because I am NOT there! AWW I loved that letter!!! It is 12:21 right now (in the afternoon) and so I can start writing back very soon after I get you letters! Isn't that just loads of fun?? :)

Ok, so I would like to say sorry that I did not call from Japan. Their payphones are different and I cannot read or understand Japanese in anyway shape or form. The only words I know are Conicheewah, Toyota, Nintendo, Godzilla, Pokemon, and Domo origoto Mr. Roboto. I prefer Chinese which is equally confusing but already partially Learned!!! So with that Storm in Japan. We just BARELY missed it. Barely. So we got out right on time and landed in Taiwan at 9:45 P.M. Passed through customs, and were greeted by two very happy old people and the APs. They threw us all on a big bus shuttled us over to the Temple Visitors lodging area. While we were loading the bus I noticed a few people taking pictures of the fresh load of white people with their luggage and couldn't help but laugh. This is where I am supposed to be.

Yesterday we went to church and I understood like three words. (That's three more words than I would have understood without going to the MTC!) Afterwards we went to this place called Daan Park and did our first proselyting activity. 31 missionaries in a large park sharing the gospel with anything that has two legs. It was definitely a sight to see! I talked with a tourist, 5 old guys (who told me I looked asian, asked me if mom was Chinese, made me guess their age, guessed my age to be 25, told me they were Buddhist and not interested in the gospel, and told me my Chinese was very good but laughed when I didn't understand them) a kid playing basketball, a group of kids having a jam session with their guitars in the park and gave one a Book of Mormon, and a guy playing a violin, pooper scooper, and harmonica all at the same time. I got 3 peoples contact info (the one man band, the tourist(american going to school here), and the guitar kid). It was way super fun and my companion helped a lot when we were with the basketball kid and the guitar players.

We don't have permanent comps yet and have not been assigned to our areas. Right now I am temporarily with Elder Griffin who was in the MTC and St. George with me and I just barely payed for my bike. I finish orientation tomorrow. This morning we got up and went for a run. We went to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial which was the biggest and most beautiful building I have ever seen. One day I think I will go back there on a P-Day and (which is monday for me sunday night to you.) do taiqi with the old people in the park!

This place rocks!

Love,

Elder Heaps.

First Assignment - St. George

St. George is Beautiful!!!  

Flying was probably one of the coolest experiences of my life. I was seriously so excited and I just loved the sensation of the take off and being above the clouds! When we got off at the St. George airport we were greeted by two very friendly old people. President and Sister Center all gave us warm hugs and handshakes and bought McDonalds as they shuttled us to the mission office. They had us write a hand written letter home so my parents will have my address here. We met our trainers (we were all put into threesomes) and were assigned our areas.

The elders with our Favorite teacher's husband,
who is also the guy from 'The District' video's
that we had to watch.

My area is in St. George right on the other side of the Hill with the big D on it. We have a really nice home and two showers plus an air mattress for me. Not 10 minutes after I finished unpacking we went to Del Taco which was a 2 minute walk from our home to get lunch. This is where the first miracle of my mission happened.  A man grabbed my shoulder and offered his hand to shake mine greeting me by name without looking at my name tag. He said that he recognized me from pictures he had seen. Do you want to guess what his name is? It was Elder Jensen(one of my best friends from the MTC)'s Dad!!! He bought our lunch for us and asked if he could take a selfie with me to send to his boy Thom. It was so cool and he was such a nice guy. I have said this several times, What are the odds?

My companions' names are Elders Meeks and Christensen. They are pretty chill and they and the zone leaders partied it up with me for the rest of the P-Day. We did mini golf which the guy insisted we do for free, we did lazer which we weren't charged for, and we hung out with Chaz (a man from Nephi who was converted by one of my companions last year) who took us to Buffalo wild wings for dinner. He insisted on paying. I cannot believe how much the people here love missionaries!

Later that night we had a family home evening lesson at 7:15 with the ward mission leader, Brother Tippets, accompanying us and then spent the rest of the night visiting less actives and the ward clerk. We went back to the apartment and planned and then had the rest of the night to ourselves for study and getting ready for bed.

I slept well! Today we went to a gym where they let us work out for free, and then had study for 4 hours this morning. Now I am here writing you all!

I love you all so much! I know that this church is true and that god provides opportunities for all of us to see miracles. He loves us and I know that there is a reason for everything that happens.

<3 Elder Heaps

Also, Jensen's family looked up the our number and called us and insisted on taking us to lunch on Friday to Elder Jensen's favorite restaurant in town! So my companions are grateful, yet trying to figure out why this family is so obsessed with me... Haha

---Just a side note that Elder Jensen has been sent to the Ogden, UT North mission.  We are not sure where he has been assigned, but we are hoping he will be close by so we can meet him also.

Letter Received on August 4, 2014

A little Sky View Reunion

 SO this week has been rather eventful. We had Elder Groeberg (the one from the other side of heaven) come speak to us for a devotional, I found chocolate cinnamon bears in the bookstore here, I sprained my ankle playing basketball (don't worry we still won because I threw the ball when I landed on the guys foot, and my teammate caught it and drained a three pointer before I even had a chance to limp off the court. nothing is broken and I am already running on it again after 3  days and a priesthood blessing.), and I got my first MTC haircut! So much happens in one week!!!! Also I LOVED my first fast Sunday here. I had the spirit so strong with me it was ridiculous and my Testimony grew immensely in several different areas. Also I couldn't cry when I read that story mom sent me because I was all dried out from watching the Joseph Smith movie last night. It came so powerfully to me it                                                                                      was ridiculous!

Recently I have been praying for charity. I think it is working because I haven't had the desire to strangle anyone for the past week. Except for once. Things have been rather eventful in my district including the fact that since nobody can seem to take their additional study time seriously we had several teachers tell our instructor that we are the worst district in the mandarin section of our building. It is NOT my fault that all the other districts come over to our classroom to screw off. The night previous to our instructors asking us about our behaviors during study time, Elder Jensen brought a broomstick into the room and played stick pull with everyone and then tried to get it all the way around him without letting go. Elders from other classrooms were flirting with our sisters and it was so loud I could not even hear my own thoughts. Next thing I know my companion is at the chalk board trying to figure out the physics of the stick pull game and then I end up sucked into the whole thing 5 minutes before it is time to return to the residency. It was loud, the spirit was gone, and I just cannot figure out why the lord trusts and army of 18 year old boys to do his work sometimes.

We have a new district leader. Elder Elliott is the new district leader. Elder Elliott was called up at random to bear his testimony during the mission conference Yesterday. Ha I love the kid but I am just barely starting to notice the influence I am starting to have on him. You would think I was the first person he ever spent time with that did something other than school... He is so smart! It makes me laugh because I think he is just so scatterbrained sometimes! So pretty much all the Elders in our entire zone love him. He kind of makes me think of Jon Barfuss. Did I tell you he turned down $1000 from his mom to take the girl of his choice to senior prom? Thank goodness I have brought him out of his shell and helped him to talk to people! It does prove distracting though, mainly because one day he got really excited about the two missionaries in our district going to Australia and proceeded to make a diagram on the chalkboard and explained to us how the Coriolis effect works.

Hosting was fun. The last of the 3 people I hosted was the only one that had a super hard time, but I was able to help him out and to feel welcome. We get to host again this week.

I love hearing about all of you so much! Mom: Good luck on your race! you will do so well :)

Dad: I appreciate your persistence in writing the letters on Sundays!

Brae: Don't be pouty! I love you no matter what goes in the letter ;)

Josh: Make good choices! Keep practicing hard bro! You are going to be awesome :) 

I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!

Love Elder Heaps

Letter from Ben - July 21, 2014

I think Ben would like a letter from someone besides me (from the sound of his letter.) His MTC address is:

Elder Benjamin Jeffrey Heaps
SEP10  TAIW-TAI
2007 N 900 E Unit  18
Provo UT 84602

July 9, 2014....Drop of Day

If you would like your letter delivered the day it is written you can send it through dearelder.com for free.

Hey everyone!! What is up? The MTC is AWESOME. From day one all the Elders have been way super nice and the spirit here is sooo strong. We started working on speaking chinese right after I was dropped off and I was surprised that two of the elders in my district knew as much (if not more) chinese than I did! My companion was one of them, his name is Elder Elliot and his dad is the organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

I'm grateful that he is my companion though because on our 3rd day here they dropped us in a room with a girl that spoke only chinese and acted like she couldn't understand english and was an "investigator" and we had to teach her about the gospel for a week! That was probably the most exciting ever because not only were elder elliot and I the most prepared companionship for EVERY LESSON, we got a baptismal commitment by our third day and convinced her to quit drinking tea! Don't get me wrong there are plenty of things we can't do in chinese! on the 4th day of teaching she asked about why Nephi could kill laban and then asked us a question about bad people and blowing up airplanes. She used sound effects and even drew a picture to help illustrate what she was trying to ask us. I assume she was saying this "If god said it was ok for Nephi to kill Laban because he was a bad person, why don't we shoot down all the planes full of bad people? Isn't that ok?" She then tried to explain how she lost her cat after we had taught her about praying and then she prayed and it came back. She actually started laughing because I kept saying "Shenme?" which means "What?" when ever she said the word cat even though I already knew what she was saying, so she started to do actions and meowing to help us understand that too. I had a lot of fun teaching her. It is kind of weird though because she is now our teacher and will speak like a sentence of english here and there now.

The spirit has been so strong here and I have seen tiny miracles happen everywhere already. It is so cool to be a missionary! I love our lessons and my teachers to! They are so awesome and I am learning a ton

Yesterday for our sunday night devotional we had T.C. Christensen come speak to all of us and he used clips from the movie 17 miracles to explain his points. Although I am saddened to say I have not yet met a general authority I am totally confident that I will meet one before I leave for Taiwan. I love and miss you all please write or email me! You can use this thing called Dear Elder.com  (My mom could tell you how to use it) where I get the letter the day you send it or you can email me or send a letter in the mail, again ask my mom for my address in the MTC if you need to.

Sincerely, ELDER HEAPS