August 28, 2016 The week dad ran away

This week was pretty sweet, a couple of reasons behind that the most important is the fact that my dad ran away (trainer is called dad, second infield comp is breaker,cuz he breaks your training habbits) then i personally call the killing elder a gladiator [too long of a story]) anyway dad ranaway to taidong ie the very farthest part of the mission and we are one area away from being the very furthest north mission. i really couldnt sit still during studies waiting to get a code to see what was gonna happen. then we got it after studies and my breaker is a bendi!!!!!!!!!! (native) he is super shuai!!!! and bomb and he is incredible with members and he is also an amazing teacher. we have had a few lessons together but mostly finding this bendi is so dope he literally never stops i've never been with a missionary like him, and ive been on some good amount of exchanges in my 2 transfers... its been a crazy week i have to be the one to make every decision and i reeally don't like it but it gets done either way. (quick note to elder facer- man i hate knowing the area more;) also you never wrote in my book) anyway so its been a lot of fun over here. and i realize if you have a bendi companion  it is so much easier to remember to always be speaking chinese. next awesome thing about elder zhuang (jew-awng) is that he has incredible drive to improve himself as well whenever possible he uses english to try to get better, it helps me a lot to remember to speak chinese more. 

Everything has been great lately. little stress about new comp is all gone! haha he is awesome! he sings a lot and we party all the time. also we get stopped by members, security guards, investigators, few other people, all telling us about us being on the news. we still use our giant pokeball! the other night we handed out over 300 english calss tracts in like 40 minutes, and the members are liking it more everytime! if you wanna see me speak some chinese for like 3 seconds look up taiwanese news about exchange students and a pokeball, thats really the only problem they said we were foreign exchange students. 

I am currently wearing that dope (Asian shirt) a member made and gave us the old fashion kung fu style one and basketball shorts cuz we are going to the beach and why not. also we now have 6 elders in the district again they are whitewash training in zhuwei and danshui is also training so two people yoounger than me! thats pretty cool this transfer we had 33 new missionaries and next we have another 23 coming in.... our mission has about 100 companionships... so doing the math about 60% of them will be training by next transfer this scares me a little but i think i am ok because I am pretty new still until next transfer anyway and ill probably move before my companion so its even less likely to whitewash train so i think im safe.... i hope.

God watches and he loves us a whole lot. i was reading the parable of the wheat and tares and i noticed when the servants asked to remove the tears the lord said not to because it would also pull up the wheat... as i pondered over this small portion i liked it more and more, the tears not only represent evil people but evil things in general in it ties back to 2nephi 2 verse 11 opposition and trials and evil is given that we can recognize the good and the happy things. i think the question "why does God let bad things happen?" is probably the silliest thing ever, thats why it is only ever asked when you are angry or upset or sad when all thinking is negative and not all that much thought out. "God doeth nothing save for the benefit of the world" "for He so loved the the world" God is working for you consider yourself currently to be a small rundown country home, the Lord to be the brand new owner and he will obviously want to fix you up. at first you can see where he is going even though it hurts you stand it because you see the end goal, tears down walls cuts things, adds new parts, changes the landscape and then you think awesome look how much better i am now, but then you continues on you are confused it should have been done but this hurts more, he puts more stress on you digs about adding boulders or trees, you think you almost cant bear it, and some people dont trust him they dont hold their own and crumble, but those that will trust in god soon realize that "your trials were but a small portion" "and thy reward is great" when you finally open your eyes and stop gritting your teeth you see that he has turned you into a glorious castle fit for your soul a son of god, a prince to this kingdom. God loves us, he loves me and he loves you. sometimes you dont know why and thats because you aren't god. just bear it boldly come unto christ trust him "learn of him" and he will help you bear up your burden,except that you cant know everything. I love you all jia you. keep going if you ever feel down email me i have good words for all of you.

LOVE KONG ZHANGLAO 

Last supper with Elder Facer

New companion is sleepy from working so hard. 

August 22, 2016 POKE-POCALYPSE

The week when there starts to every night be over 3 thousand people literally across your street in a small park. because of a game. Well as a missionary we took this very rare chance to turn it into a very effective finding time. The only problem is they are mostly not from beitou our area.  

POKE-POCALYPSE

So it happens our area has the very most poke stops in the smallest area in all taipei excpet 101 but the reason so many people come to our stop is we have a very rare pokemon named dragonite. People literally move in herds they stop traffic, clog roads, everything, literally the cops are here every night

POKE-POCALYPSE

 directing traffic, being careful, the news is there often(more coming about the news). lets just say we are pretty much golden over here in beitou and whats more its every night a whole crowd of new people that haven't seen us. Well we decided to call our whole zone in, consisting of about 14 or 16 missionaries to use this effectively. we painted over 40 eggs like pokeballs, we made a giant pokeball out of an old basketball, we got an english banner, got members, filled over 50 waterballoons and had ourselves a real life pokemon GO how many can you catch egg toss we called it "POKE-Dan(egg in chinese) GOTTA HATCH 'EM ALL" we were unbelievably proud of that name #ELDERFACER we had missionaries grabbing people selfies with the giant poke ball egg/waterbaloon toss, and a whole lot of sweaty fun! iIn the end we basically nailed it. I cant explain how much set up and build up it took because there was many txts calls, explainings and stuff but it started something great!!!!

We are about to go golfing with a nonmember so im excited! hopefully we dunk him soon:) but the other cool thing and the reasaon no monday Pday is Elder Evans from general 70 game to talk to us! that was so cool!! he gave a huge and amazing speach his wife enlightened us! also they announced that we dont have to wear suit jackets between MAY and OCTOBER!!!!!! wwwwwwwwwwwwwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it is unbeliveably good news!!!! we get to not burn to death!!!!!! 

Probably last thing i want to say is that me and Elder Facer may or may not have been on national news... mostly because we are dope we were walking around with our pokeball near the park trying to touch the outskirts a little, when up the hill ran a large heard of trainers, me and elder facer went directly to the middle of the herd and went the other way, i with the ball, he with a stack of english tracks. i held the ball high and yelled "jia you, pokemon GO jia you jia you" "shui ge jia you" "woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" which was followed by the parting of the seas and laughter pictures selfies, enjoyment, and lots of people hearing about english, we walked all the way through and found it was time to go home, when we got to the bottom of the hill there was a large camera and elder facer and i looked at each other and he said lets go talk to them and i said ok, the second they saw us they

quickly pointed the camera and asked us questions hahahaha as we were walking over i was still yelling wan an to everyone hahaha. then we went home yelling and talking to everyone. when we woke up the next morning our RC congradulated us for making the news through a txt, and as we left for exercise our security gaurd was laughing saying good job "hen shuai" and then we decided we would hold the next district meeting on how to be famous thats the story of how i became famous.

LOVE KONG ZHANGLAO

PS we started this thing called selfies for salvation take a selfie for a street contact

Hand made shirts as a gift from a member. 

Poke-apocalypse 

Night time poke-apocalypse

Poke prep for park games 

August 14, 2016 Pop goes the... tire... twice

We had some dope adventures this week, including some exchanges and some parties, our ward has been bomb lately giving us referrals and having activities its been a party around here for us. we have been preparing 7 people to recieve baptism in the next 2 weeks but it looks like only 2 or 3 will make it, but that is all good we still got plenty of time. they are all amazing just some dont have the time to get to where they want to be. right now we are getting excited we have 2 super awesome investigators that have just been champions, they haven't had a problem accepting and keeping word of wisdom or chastity which is a miracle in and of itself hopefully it continues!! hahaha i love those guys!!!!

also this week david archuletta is in taiwan to help us celebrate we got a special mission conference to listen to him speak and sing. he is dope. he has a great voice, sometimes when you just got music rolling you forget people actually sing these songs, then you can see them perform them its incredible. yes he sang glorious, yes it was glorious. yes he shared mission stories, yes they are as incredible as ever. 

this week ironically the title doesn't involve me hehehe poor companion has hit it flat twice this week once was this morning as we were biking up and exploring the mountains for exercise, he had to run home, he got more exercise then me🐒😋 we found the thermal valley, also known as hell valley, how about that name. in honor of the stupid pokemon GO game, the hotsrpings would have brought rest to us had we not been on a mission and unable to enter. basically the dang boulder was in the way and we haven't found the HM strength to move it yet. but soon enough. 

MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALL ELSE this week i made a very good choice and bought a large sword, it has provided much fun already. and noone cares in fact they like it when you ride around on a bike with sword in hand. most people even at a public train area actually wanted to see me biao ming or present for them hahaha it was dope!!!!! im excited!!

also earlier this week we biked up a mountain and then hiked a small way through a large graveyard for exercise it was sick. i discovered a few things, taiwan blows too much money on graves, taiwan looks like the valley of peace in kung fu panda, me and my comp have similar senses of humor, at the top of mountains there arent very big leaves very often though they are pretty much everywhere else, banana spiders are basically like the bat signal for spider man, cuz they chill everywhere and blot out the sun in a very scary manner, and lastly prepare better for a hike elder facer....

love you guys!!! KONG ZHANG LAO OUT!!!!!!

ps we also found a lightsaber in our apartment.

August 8, 2016 There and back again an Elder's Tale

Well to start this week off, it started as you might expect in a small taiwanese apartment, we arose about 6:00 in the morning and prepared to exercise that we could remain healthy, a light jog later brought us to a bit older run down middleschool exercise area, as the Amas(grandmas yes they do like being called ama) strolled about and were doing their taiqi we began our time there, the next thrity minutes were simple enough, go ham all day er'y day. and then it was a simple walk down a large staircase to the welcome mart(ding hao) bought a light breakfast of 2 packs of juabings for the week (chinese pancake) and some mango icecream(i learned mondays is icecream sale day) then we returned and prepared for the day, studied, then readied ourselves to join wu di xiong (dx) for a momentous trip to danshui. the zoneleaders had planned to meet us in thirty minutes we ate together for lunch. then recieved a call that the zoneleaders were quite late. just as many 19-20 year old boys are. we began our journey a brisk pace along the river up to danshui, with many twists and turns in which all manner of large bugs and small critters must've creeped but we simply peddled along. we arrived at the boardwalk area, many tourists were about none looked unexcited, we got some snacks looked about for the ZL to arrive but recieved a call that they had gone to the beach on the northern tip. we mounted back up and set off at a brisk pace, for we are missionaries, and an RC and its not very polite to be late. 20 minutes (pretend days) later arrived at the beach. we journeyed across a large desoltaion of sand and rock, for we desired the very tip not the gentle inlet of delicious sand. we soon came to the tip that had many tide pools, with no clear path to follow there were many LOTR references to golem as he lead the hobbits through the large bog. mostly me of course but everyone laughed. after we arrived at the edge we stood about as conquerers of the journey but had not yet accomplished our design as to achieve the accompaniment of the ZL for they had gone ahead. and simply up to the inlet to the beach. as we were about to head back to find the object of our design our poor RC took a small tumple backards onto a bit rocky shallow part into the ocean. we quickly pulled him up and began to return to the safety of the sandy expanse, (i enjoyed this rocky part for they were no small rocks and it was like an obstacle course) we finally returned and cleaned up wu dx and then met the ZL who quickly had to run for they had angered a deep beast of the dark. possibilty of being LATE (damsel in distress scream) we had a nice gentle ride home with but a few souveniers of our journey, after all we were just missionaries no one could ever need as much as was hoarded in that beach. (end seen i aint no JR Tolkien but that is my tale of P day bike ride) it was pretty bomb.

after that we had zonemeeting good trainings there. i have passed of the first phase in language training and very close to phase 2 which means characters soon! woooooo then we had exchanges in the which me and Elder Hammond had some crazy miracles in finding people and setting some baptism dates on the street! then we finally had time to be in our area and do work, we have a taxi driver investigator who is pure gold he has a kareoke machine in his taxi, and offers us free rides every where! and he loves the gospel he is working so hard to get baptized on the 27 th he is awesome!!!! then we had a ward activity in which we had like 8 investigators come it was so awesome!!!!! thats like unheard of!!! and 2 are a couple that also have 2 kids we are hoping to bring a new family in here!!! then church the next day we had 7 investigators come!!! we were blown away miracles have been dropping into our lap lately for these progressing people!!!!then sunday night we had a fireside that we had 3 RC's come to one spoke! and then we had 2 of our best inv. come and it was super good i got to see some people from the MTC again as well as elder colletti from highschool, and i saw elder turner from ELA he is doing great! aside from that this week was pretty bomb i have pictures coming!!!

Kong Zhang Lao is happily ever after 

The End.

At the beach

Epic bike ride

This is really hat they use for a broom

Melons longer than my arm

More epic bike ride 

Sea urchin

August 1, 2016 Baby Gangster and the crew

whats happenin fam, uh thug lyfe, ya dog this week was real cool, we was all feedin sheep and helpin people, and just chillin dog. ya know. then we just like had some sweet success rollin in lately as we have been working day in day out for new people and for our dates to be movin dog. (Nevermind i cant do that anymore.) Me and elder Facer met a guy this week that said his name was BG (baby gangster) poki (poe-kai) he was telling us how he loved rap music and hip hop, he had pretty good english and he said he learned it by listening to rappers.... HAHAHAHA we decided it would be best to get hip with it and tried matching how he was talking, he thought he just met some more fam haha we discussed rappers with him and after telling him of krispy kreme (if you dont know who that is youtube it) (its worth the time) then we moved to gospel stuff and said a prayer with him, and we said amen he ended the prayer with "ya thug lyfe" and i forgot to mention when we said hello he waved us over and was like yeah west side(west side sign included) and then he was like y'all feedin sheep, thats awesome man, keep findin sheep dog yeah. and he said he was gonna come to english class and drop rhymes with us there. After that we asked what he believed in and he said he was part of Tupac's religion sayin we gotta be careful of illuminati and stuff so that was probably the highlight. 

Any way this week was bomb, we have been pretty good at keeping contact We have had a lot of new investigators lately and we have been setting a lot of baptismal dates. we have obviously met some good people, and lots of fun there! we have been getting into a real rhythm with teaching our lessons have been inproving and i have been more help! I have felt chinese coming along, and then i start to talk to another person and i remember i've only been in taiwan for 2 months and my chinese is very low level. hahaha i love it so much! the best is laughing with people about it! that has been one of my biggest tools is just laughing with people about not being able to understand them! laughter is a strong force friends! always laugh, make others laugh, enjoy what you have and rely on the lord for what you dont have:) 

we have been having a guy come to church lately that has a lot of faith but no time, so its hard to meet with him, but he comes to church and literally just loves it we finally had the firt lesson with him and set a date with him, he is so excited! we have this other lady that after teaching the plan to her asked if we could meet her every week for l unch, and she comes to church brings friends, and brings friends to lessons. she is so cool! this week and last week we had 5 investigators at church which has been an insane blessing! we have made plans to leep that climbing but literally the lord has just been answering prayers all day for us! and he answers yours, everytime just give him time, his time is different than yours. 

last week we went to a giant museum that has a bunch of stuff. I dont know what its called but we called it gu gong which i think is just chinese for meusum idk oh well, it had a bunch of jade and steel from ancient places, unfortunately the cooler big attractions are in taizhong, which is the jade cabbage a very famous amazing thing, which also has a gen conf talk about it so... you know. and then giant painting  scrolls that are like 10 feet long but we still had fun! this week is gonna be a giant bike ride.

spiritual thought 3 nephi 26-33 God loves the earth that we tread down enough to make it glorious and beautiful, how much do you think he loves you, how much do think he does for you, how well do you think he has made you? you are a very precious child unto him, and he will protect and keep you. God works from within, and trust me the world's eyes are worthless dont look upon worldly beauty but upon the godliness of others.

Love you guys, TONS see you next week on "Taiwan by Elder Conover(that new missionary guy)"

BG (baby gangster) 

Yay for Nutella

Typical breakfast...meat stuffed bread

Internet bar

Lunch at KFC the Chizza (chicken with pizza toppings on it)