All of the sudden, I hear crashing and booming of gongs and
Chinese drums filling my bedroom. I immediately think, “The Taiwanese army is
out to get me, RUN!” Then the room goes silent as Elder Boshard turns off the
alarm and turns to me and says in Chinese “Good morning!”
My groggy brain doesn’t quite register what exactly is going
on. One second I am under attack by the Huns, the next my unnervingly perky companion
is strapping on his tennis shoes. This pictures doesn’t make sense. Last time I
checked, aren’t you supposed to get in the shower after you wake up not put on
shoes? Maybe the tub is extremely dirty. I roll over and pretend I didn’t see
anything.
Now Elder Boshard is hovering over me and
asks, “Aren’t you going to go running today?”
“Do I have to?” is my reply.
“Well yes, we work out every morning to keep ourselves
physically fit.”
I don’t immediately strut out of bed and hop on over to my
sneakers, but begrudgingly respond with “ok…”
The next 30 minuets of my life are the most horrendous you
can imagine. Having grown up in Oregon, I do no understand what it means to go
running in 100% humidity. The muggy mid-September morning quickly taught me
that breathing in Taiwan entails not only moving oxygen in and out of my lungs, but gallons
and gallons of water as well. There were times I thoroughly believed this is
what drowning feels like. Running for 30 minuets straight, up and down stairs,
in and around cars is not my idea of fun. The whole time I kept thinking to
myself, “How can this skinny little guy run for SO long.” Elder Boshard, you
amazing me.
As I do I morning studies, everything feels so surreal. Am I
really in Taiwan? Is this really what missionary work looks like? What have I
got myself into? All of these thoughts go through my head as I study for the
people in our area that want to hear more about our church, or investigators.
These investigators are whom we as missionaries serve as much as possible. When
a missionary doesn’t have a good group of investigators to serve and teach, we
must go out and find others who are willing to listen to the restored gospel of
Jesus Christ. Despite feeling like everything is completely surreal, I focus
back on studying for these investigators that I haven’t even met.
Then Elder Boshard and I start our companionship study and
planning time. After we tell each other about what we had just studied, I ask
my companion who we will be teaching today. He lists of a handful of people,
but none of the lessons are confirmed. I guess our area doesn’t have a whole
lot of investigators right now.
The next think I know it is the middle of the afternoon and
Elder Boshard and I have nothing to do. Almost all of our lessons fell through
and even our backup plans didn’t pan out. Then my companion gets this
ridiculous grin on his face, looks at me, and exclaims he is going to teach me
how to add. “Ok Elder,” I think to myself, “you got me there. Pretty sure I
know that 2 + 2 does in fact equal 4. Next lesson.” But no, what I naively
understand to mean math in fact is the most grueling part of missionary work.
Adding, as my companion put it, is talking to as many people in as short amount
of time as possible. To successfully “add” someone you must do the following:
1.
Break the ice/ introduce yourself
2.
Share a short message about the Restored Gospel
3.
Set up a time to meet again
4.
Invite the investigator to be baptized
You read that correctly, number four is not wrong. I quickly
learn that missionaries invite people early and often to follow the example of
Jesus Christ and be baptized. As daunting as that sounded, Elder Boshard does a
great job of getting me excited to spread the gospel. At this point I am pumped
up to talk to some Taiwanese and baptize them.
And so like a modern-day crusader I pedal my way to an
intersection where there are hundreds of people stopped and waiting to hear a
message about Christ.
“Hi, my name is Elder Smith. Who are you”
“一些我聽不懂的中文。”
“Oh? So… I like Jesus Christ. Do you like Christ?”
“他繼續講我聽不懂的中文，但是我聽懂 Jesus Christ 這個子而已。”
“Hey! I believe in Christ too! I have a wonderful message about…”
The light turns green and my newfound friend goes off to work, or lunch,
or somewhere that isn’t here.
I have similar conversations with 10, 20, 100+ people that day. As I
talk to people on the street Elder Boshard talks to people on both the phone
and on the sidewalk. He seems so busy with not only finding new investigators
like me, but also managing the area and all of our appointments. The least I
can do I find one person that will meet with us. Just one.
After hours of contacting I was only able to have a descent conversation
with a handful of people, let alone add anyone. Head low and arms to the side I
have a hard time believing I did any good today. For the most part the people I
talked to seemed irritated to be talking to me. All I want to do is share a
message of eternal happiness with them, but every impression I give is of
stress and annoyance. Elder Boshard says something that I didn’t really listen
to and we ride together back home.
That night I can’t stop thinking about my lack of success. I just wanted
one add—to no avail. My companion tries to comfort me but I am too tiered to
care. We try planning but I can’t focus. My brain is turned off. I literally
fall asleep in my chair over my planner. “You should just go to bed right now”
suggests Elder Boshard.
All of the sudden, I wake up to the sound of Huns invading my sleep.
