french people... i guess June 26, 2016

so this was a good week! i have started to just focus in, I am adjusting and am getting more comfortable talking to every man beast and child i see, i have learned that usually when we dont talk to people its not because we think they dont need our message or something like that (ie everyone needs it) but its because we fear the judgements of man more than the judgements of god; and that is something you would do well to not do... for example look through entire book of mormon. this week something i am working on improving is my enthusiasm because i am happy, but lets be honest everyone that knows me when i am actually just in that good mood and nothing phases me, and i can just do whatever for as long as i want, and im singing dancing and just well just being dumb thats what i am learning to have always and i found the easiest way to do that is to do a little excited scream as we are riding bikes then start singing hymns and just enjoy the bike ride.

btw sorry i missed it but happy fathers day! everyone make sure your dad knows what they have done for you and how much you love them, and how much they mean to you! My dad is the bomb! he has talk me so much as i have grown up with him! he has taught me the value of work, and of strength in service, he has taught me to be independent but also to know how to accept help, he has taught me humility and love, he has taught me more lessons then i could ever list he has molded a big part of my life, and is a big reason that since i was 5 years old i have wanted to go on a mission, he has told me stories of the land down under, and also the mystical place he used to live called idaho, and the stories of his family, he has counselded me, and has prepared me, has given advice, and has allowed me to learn, has allowed me to make mistakes, and has allowed me to become who i am. I am eternally grateful for you, and love you beyond words dad, and i am so lucky that i will see you for eternity. and that is why i am here. to help others ave the same hope and joy i have, to be with family for eternity, and to not only grow old together but to forever love each other and continue to imrpove and learn. Fathers are like basically the bomb, so maybe we should just like love em and stuff:) I love you papa bear.

Now to start the events of the week, we have hit the whole liquid death stage, its like liquid nitrogen but opposite, so instead of it instantly freezing stuff its melts the skin off. i have found the best way to describe this heat

is to say this, its hotter then a juvenile pegasus flying through the left side of the sun with a gimp wing doing barrels rolls, while preforming in a trapese circus, with a open and runing microwave oven, while firmly hold scalding hot coco in your hand. But i love it so much! hahaha so this week is pretty bomb we have Joyce getting baptized on saturday that will be my first and she has been investigating a long time, so this is super exciting! she is so awesome! so that sets a nice tone for everything this week. me and Elder Facer have started working better together we have been finding 7-8 new investigators weekly! which is pretty good:) Let me tell you we literally see miracles daily in taiwan. and i garuntee many people will tell you its luck or what a coincidence, or maybe they just say you are trying to make yourself feel good, well let me tell you a story of a time god fulfilled his promise (whatsoever you ask if it be in faith will be given you) well me and elder facer were on the far side of our area, we were just trying to grab a quick lesson with someone before we left, but we weren't having any luck, i stopped in my tracks and realized how long it had been since we prayed, so we prayed, i said it, and i asked god to help us find 2 new investigators, by placing prepared people in our path and help us know where and who they are. well we started going we turned the corner, and i started talking to a dad, who quickly turned me away, i turn around and my companion is alking to a 16 year old and 11 year older sister and brother, they were about to walk away and i walked over and together we kept their attentiopn as we began to share a short lesson with them, they committed to meet with us again, and we prayed with them and taught them how and had them pray, ironically ZACHARY WINKEL listen to this the sister in august is going to sau palo, for excahnge student, im hoping we can baptize her before that but if not, i know she might not go to your mission but i am sending you a pregame refferral. so we had 2 new investigators not even 5 minutes after we closed our prayer we were talking with them. awesome. GO GOD he answeers prayers its amazing, so for P day we went to taipei 101 and walked around of course we left on sunny death arrived in torrential rain so we didnt go to the top, but it was still fun, this week we are going to some sort of exhibit with our district. but the title this week is because we set up with 2 french people that dont speak any chinese but both have decent english, they are both here for studies, and one of them is 23 and already has a masters degree and is going for another here as well as a phd, hes crazy smart! but yeah we set up to teach them a little bit and hopefully good stuff happens from that! thats all the title is:) i gave myself a haircut this week what does everyone think!? and we had more cue bing (tswa bing) which is select 4 things of fruit or jello stuff or flavor and they put it in our on a giant thing of finely shaved ice and pore brown sugar flavor all over it! so good!!!!!!! btw how do you know taipei 101 is tall, you legit have to bend down under 15 foot covered raised walk ways to see the top.... dope! and it reminds me of avatar last airbender earth kingdom buildings. we went on exchanges this week with elder francis and colletti colletti i graduated with good to see him but i was with elder francis, he dies in 2 weeks, but we learned a lot together and that was a lot of fun thats about it for this week! love you all

spiritual thought, pray always, read always, and do the little things it makes a big difference read the first like 10 chapters in Alma if you want proof of what happens when you stop the little things how fast the devil can work especially the first chapter!

i love you all jaiyou

June 19, 2016 I dont even know what to title this

My chinese is still bad, i still am so lost, and im always happy! sometimes, i do want to go home, sometimes i want to just sleep, and sometimes you get a really bad stomach cleaning 2 days, in which your stomach is constantly hurting and you go in and out of the bathroom roughly 10 times a day, but you still go ride your bike through completely sweaty death, and find some people to invite to english and to invite to hear your message. ironically that thing about the sickness is the last two days and a little today hopefully its over after today.

Anyway this week was pretty cool one thing on saturday some guy set up at the park across the street and hooked up his flute to giant speakers, and was jamming all day, it was pretty cool the few times we were actually around to hear it. and saturday and sunday i had that thing with my stomach me and my companion had to go sit at home for an hour and study while the danger passed! haha not exciting. so we have been having some stuff happen lately like some super young investigator in his 20's tried to pull a move on one of our older ones she is almost 50, btw marriage doesn't really exist until like mid 40's as a minimum. so that was fun, resulted in niether coming to church that sunday out of fear and embarrassment.... wooo but we had a really cool temple tour, and ended up with sister armstrong (the girl from my MTC district) as our guide that was cool, its wierd about every 5 days i see one of them so far, and its wierd how much happens and so we need to catch up and laugh a little about our bad chinese. 

last P day we went up to the boardwalk in danshui, and acted like tourists a little as we explored and my life is complete there are these things which is basically a crape muffin filled with special puddings, they are my life, they are called hong dou bings, or nai you bings, or basically (pudding type) bing, a bing is like a pastry basically. and they are amazing, and then later that week my companion and i went on exchanges with danshui elders. so i went up there. and Elder Gray was my companion, he was like for lunch we will try cuo bing, which is a giant plate of finely shaved ice (i forgot to picture) then on the bottom choose 4 things, and they put brown sugar syrup on top. well luckily Elder gray was experienced he told me to get 3 things on bottom and put sweetened condesnsed milk on top as well. its amazing, and large and cheap, and delicious.

also i have seen snails the size of a baseball, lizards chill everywhere, cockroaches that are 2 inches long are small or medium sized. and it has not taken me long to adjust to just seeing these things everywhere, i mean like in home, at homes, in stores, and its just nothing, sometimes people kill the roaches but thats about it. oh and spiders are just enjoyably everywhere, i saw a large one eating a snake a little while ago. also fun fact people do stupid things on the road and expect you to be sorry, i see mopeds will throw on their blinker and just chill like that for like 3 turns then get mad when you expect them to turn so you turn as well.... thats just a few times, most times its just stupid high speed passes and squeezing into tiny places basically the road is just hunger games.

a lot of our lessons have been falling through, but we have also been getting qinged (invited to food) a lot which is cool, and delicious, there was this thing that was red bean, and terro and i just really liked that, i am still adjusting to most other bean desserts they have a very different idea. but ice creams and stuff delicious! anyway we had a zone conference and that was really cool, i saw some other district members, and i just met a few cool people, btw there is a pic of me with 2 other elders, that is my trainer and his trainer, here for some reason trainers are known as dads, to other missionaries, so thats my dad and grandpa. 

spiritual thought: Jacob 6:12

literally though.

June 12 2016 uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Hey everyone, life is getting better as i start to get to know the area, i am constantly sore in places i have no idea why, i am always tired, and completely whipped, but its really easy to be happy, and really easy to be mad, the biggest challenge right now, is one trying to learn chinese and two i just wanna forget everything else and focus, you would not believe how unbelievably long the days are when you aren't focused, but then the days you are focused fly by and are much more successful, there is literally such a thin line between success and failure, and success isn't just about the numbers, though usually those shoot up on forgetton days too. but honestly most the time it feels like ill be here for eternity, and it is the worst feeling and i know how to get rid of it, because one day i was just utterly focused and it just disapppeared like everything bad here just left likei dont know how to constantly keep it so thats what im working on for me.

anyway heres the week, i biked up a mountain, that sucked but the view was awesome, me and Elder Facer just chilled at a miao there, and looked over the valley (you'll see the pic) we also had a pretty good chance to just ya know go to meetings and i studied for 6 hours while he did leader stuff, but i also hung with some very old missionaries, and it was super fun! they die this transfer! 

We went on Zone Leader exchanges i was with Elder Hammond, we went to shi lin, (has one of the most popular night markets) lots of toursits but it was so fun like we just partied and worked alll day!! and it was so fun! i learned a lot in those 24 hours, also it was Elder Hammond and Facer year mark so we went to kao rou (all you can eat meet and ice cream and drink and salad) excpet the cool part is they bring the meet and these small like dutch oven things and you cook it yourself right in front of you!! and just cook what you want, and order what you want next, with a bunch of spices to choose! i put everyone to shame, and didnt even eat til full.... oh and Elder facer was with Elder Aiono, a 300 pound muscled to the bone poly, still put him down too hahaha, i can pound food! im proud of myself. 

for last Pday we went to a place call zhuzihu (jew zi who) which is known for flowers is what we found out after a bus ride up... we still tired to go hiking in church clothes, it stopped at a large dam oh well. 

yeah we just biked a lot and my area has too many hills;) and mission rule especially with typhoon season coming the wind is always against you.

spiritual thought: i have realized God is very clever with time, when looking forward you feel small and useless, and maybe even unready, as you look back its hard to remember the bad, usually gfood things come up. but when fovusing on the here and now you see a lot to do. so let me give you a good quote from 2 places, the first the martian "just get to work and solve one problem, then after that solve the next, and if you solve enough problems you get to go home" (i.e. God's home) "forget yourself and get to work" -Hinkley just start make a priority and a goal, then get to work getting to that! there are a lot of things you'll never be ready for and ill be honest its not that hard to be ready for a mission... physically, ill be honest soreness doesn't bother me, and niether does tiredness thats something that i figured out didnt really matter during wrestling, BTW wrestling is the best physical preparation for a misssion. but the challenge of a mission is to be mentally and spiritually prepared, i have never felt God so much, but there must be opposition in alll things, I have never felt Satan so ,much either! choose which side you feed. 2nd Nephi 24: 12-16 this scripture oughta help you choose. 

Wo Ai Ni Men, thanks for everything I love You all!

Love Elder Conover Kong zhanglao

Ps daoqi, please tell sister wood that she is still well known here and that she never gave me her email! but tell her everyone here says she was an absoluetly bomb missionary! and she left a good rep.

Taiwan.....the first week!

Well the first week has been so fun! and crazy and ridiculous, and fun, and long, and wierd, and ting bu dong, and many other things. we showed up at around 7 pm got some food met the AP and pres and wife, went to bed, woke up went to the mission dedicatory prayer sight and grand hotel, (pics coming) we had new missionary meetins, and met our trainers and as it was pouring rain like most of you have never seen unless you have been to taiwan, we walk with our luggage to trains to get to our area my area is called bei tou a little way north of taibei the equivalent of the suburbs, except for the fact that there are only aparatment buildings and we are in one of the biggest tourist areas, streets are a joke here, hello to previous districts good warning on the street laws dont really exist you just respect or die... jk jk jk there are stop lights that more or less mean something, and no joke all bikes and mopeds go to front and you go fast and straight and out the way. you bike with the traffic, and you are within a foot maybe if your lucky a foot and a half of every car/bus /truch that passes. 

so we came in and set my stuff down planned the day and went, (btw i walked off the plane and was more or less breathing a swimming pool) so sometimes you can walk outside and just stand there and you will get ridiculoudly sweaty literally standing and talking to people, and my area enjoys being built in the foothills at the base of the mountain, and even better extends up the mountain. I sit in at lessons and smile and pretend like i know stuff, and they laugh at me, i cant understand anything and i desire to blow up my head most days, because my neck decided it just wants to constantly dislike me, luckily the first counselor in the ward is some crazy type of chiropractor and that helped tremendously he was laughing during meetings cuz he thought i would be scared and thought i hadnt done something like it before.

we split beitou in half with the only sisters in our zone they are awesome and super nice. they have most houses in the area so our finding is a little bit more difficult but i liked what my trainer said, bei tou is only hard to find the people that actually live here if your lazy, most taiwan people dont travel too much, but this is a huge tourist area. also there are a lot of people that are "very sneaky" and take pictures that we just happen to be in, its funny cuz they think we dont notice. 

now the first week, so far i have felt useless, unhelpful, tired, broken, and desired to go home severly and one point, but i have also felt amazed, pushed, happy, strong, excited, needed. this week is rough, i've always been someone to pick things up fast and just roll with it, so far i feel like i have not learned any chinese, frustrating. i feel like i have found 0 people, useless. i have helped 0 investigators yaaaay. but then i just keep going, talking, trying, and working. i gave my testimony and introduced my self at sacrament yesterday, and everyone says "wow your chinese is so good, your doing awesome" and then i say ting bu dong (i dont understand) because they said it to quick and i dont know what they said😂😂😂 but the members are awesome! and very kind! we have had a ferw lessons, and i saw a baptism the other day from some other area, but in our district, re- met my friend joey colletti, and chandler turner. and i have had some fun with recent converts named guo jie mei and wu di xiong, guo is an old crazy lady and super funny! wu is a young college kid who is super smart.

spiritual thought, alma26:12 and 27 it applys to everything, just push through enjoy sucking sometyimes and enjoy not knowing, and just push through it will get better. i promisse, i know it to be true take it from me, who has to be in a country learning a very hard lamguage i heard that coming from english to chinese is actually harder then any other official language.... goooooooooooooooooo chinese

Kong Jie Long Zhang Lao

Leaving Provo

Arriving in Taiwan 

My apartment

The temple 

Taiwan.... Here he comes!

Here is Jason with his trainer Elder Facer. He is excited and ready for the challenge of doing the Lords work. 

Last week is Here!!!!

alright this week has actually been kinda sad around here but also dope!!!

Lets start off really fast with we lost Sister Langley she had to go home for 2 major surgeries(direct note to her we love you and i love you and we miss you greatly and cant wait to see you back out here and to continue to hear how you are doing!) She was a huge example to our whole district in strength and also in faith, i have never seen someone so intune with gods plan!

Now to avoid any crying from me personally to the fun stuff! We had a sports illustarted reporter come and sit in with our class, she was doing an artcile on BYU football and wanted to know more about missions, so they asked the supervising teacher for a recomendation for a good class to come to, and i guess we have impressed him with our motivation and drive to be as native and efficent as we can before leaving. he said we are the most chinese sounding district he has been with for a long time! so huge compliment there! we were super nervous! but when she came in she was just super impressed and she wanted to ask questions but she ended up just not knowing what to ask and just like trying to figure out how we are doing what we are doing. hahaha that made me feel really good! mostly she just was like "what are you nervous for" or "how in the world are you doing this?" classic mission questions!

Also side note there Elder Jensen needed a haircut before she came so we gpt special permission to cut his haur ourselves, the funniest thing Elder Earls ended up jacking up his sideburn! hahahaha a he was super self concious! it was funny! aside from that me and my com-panion still literally own four square if the line gets to long we simply actually try and make all the annoying people quit because we decide when someone lives and dies because everyone else isnt as good;) hahahahahaha

Love Kong Zhong Lao(elder conover)

Last photos at the MTC

Jason left the MTC for Taipei on May 31 here are some of his pics from all the friends made there.