Thursday, December 18, 2008

Hungry Phillapinos and Christmas Instruction

oday we are having our Mission Christmas Party so we are emailing a little earlier. That also means that I dont have very much time, so I will try and make it quick.

This week I had one of the most amazing experiences of my mission. I was on exchanges with Elder Stockamp and we had just finished a lesson so we decided to go contact. We contacted for about 45 minutes and didnt have any luck. Then we saw these 2 kids sitting down and they looked a little depressed so we headed over to talk with them. We introduced ourselves in Chinese and then they were like, "uhhh we don't speak chinese, can you speak english?" They were from the Phillipines and came to Taiwan for work. Their english was perfect. Anyways, we sat down and talked to them for about 10 minutes about why they are here and why we are here. They that it was really cool that we were missionaries. They were both Christian, anways. We come to find out that they haven't eaten since they got here and since all the banks are closed on the weekend they can't change their money. Not only that, but they cant speak a lick of chinese. I insisted that they let us take them out to eat. Even though I am sure they were super hungry they were very hard to drag to dinner, but as soon as they got food in front of them they gobbled it up. At dinner we all said a prayer together and talked a little bit about how Christ can help us in our times of need. We found out that the reason they had gone to hang out by this river was to try and find other Phillipinos that might help them trade money. They said they had been praying that they would find a way that it would all work out and then not to long after that they said Elder Stockamp and I came over and talked to them.

These poor kids were 19 and 22 and had never left the Phillipines. They came over to work on one of those freighters, but the company that hired them weren't going to take them back on the ship until Monday which was, at the time, still a day and a half away. Anyways, we bought them a big old gallon of fresh water, because the water here is contaminated, and some chips. These kids were awesome, just really humble and faithful to the Lord. Luckily, they did have a hotel room that their employeer had rented out for them. Anyways, we gave them the Church website, because that was all we had to give in english, everything else we have is in chinese. We encourage them when they get back to the Phillipines to talk to the missionaries.

It was really neat experience, because as the kid put it we were an answer to their prayers. And it just felt really good to do honest service for someone that really needed it.

Today is the mission christmas party. We are going to eat at these american/asian buffet. it should be really good. We also get to watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas performance which should be really cool.

Speaking of Christmas i got that package Mom. Thanks you guys for all your letters and packages. Anyways so i will be calling on your Christmas day in the evening. I will call at 9 am the day after christmas my time. so figure it out the time difference. i will also be emailing you some international calling card numbers because i have 2 left over and i cant use them here. so i will call you first and then tell you to call me back using those cards. It should be like 6pm christmas day when i call. its too early i cant do math, but i think its 6pm. we will have about one hour to chit chat. hahaha love yall

Elder Craig Anderson
Taiwan, Kaohsiung Mission

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