Letters From The Field – Elder Tanner Bennett’s Mission Blog – Week 18

Elder Tanner Bennett was a guest on a previous episode of LDS MissionCast. He agreed to share his mission letters with the readers of our blog. So each week we will bring a letter from his mission. We will interview him at the conclusion of his mission as well. So stay tuned and stay connected to Tanner’s story each week on the LDS MissionCast Blog!

Wow what a week! Im exhausted.

This week has been one of the busiest of my whole mission. On Monday, I got my new companion, Elder Loe! He’s from Delta, Utah and a super cool guy. He likes to do stuff outdoors, loves to sing and performed in musicals and is just all around super cool. I like him.

So to the title of this email. The first half of our week was spent figuring out our lives. We made it 12 days straight with a new investigator every day and that was super cool, but just the logistics of our lives became insane and this week got only one about every other day after the transfer. I have moved up in the world and now teach our advanced English class while Elder Loe teaches the kids… 辛苦他。Anyways, this week was the last week of ghost month! What a cool experience! Ghost month is this month where the daoists believe the doors to death are opened and ghost walk the earth freely. Like Halloween, but much more freaky. Anyways, this last week marked the closing of the ghost doors and so 民雄 became one of the largest festivals in all Taiwan! The whole city became a night market, filled with concerts, dancing, performances, plays, burning their god statues, and just paramount INSANITY. they said about a million people came into minxiong this year which is UNVELIEVABLE. We met people there from as far away Ji Men (an island right next to china) and Taibei! Elder Loe and I were a little overwhelmed haha. However, with prayer and faith we were able to find some of the Lord’s prepared. We had to get creative, and made a sign, advertised for English, and had an awesome time! I bought some Japanese knives, a new bag, ate some good (and not so good) food (辛苦我肚子). We also had the opportunity to play some carnival games during our dinner hour and I creamed my companion in a shooting competition 10:4 haha.

Minxiong is known for their end of ghost month festival because they go ALL OUT. there are 3 super Daoist temples in a 1 block radius and they come together for festivities and it’s crazy… Some really weird stuff happens in there. We don’t go over there.

Some more information about ghost month that’s is interesting. People here have a lot of superstitions, and during ghost month it is even worse than usual. People will leave red envelopes full of cash on your bike or scooter or car and if you touch it, is an agreement to marry someone’s dead relative. If we saw one, we had to go and get a monk from a local temple to remove it. There’s a lot more I wish I had time to explain, but red envelopes have been our biggest problem haha.

All in all this week has been going well, the new companion, clean mansion, and life have been going well! We’ve been doing some awesome things lately, enjoying some good success with our investigators and seeing a lot of miracles being done in the work.

I’m so sorry for the short email this week, today has been insane. With Elder Loe coming in, all the members wanted to “qing” (buy us) food, so we had yet ANOTHER chidaobao today. After that, him and I hit Costco and now are at the dentist and I’m making him take care of his cavities haha.

I absolutely love this place. My spectacular family and friends I would just like to encourage you to this week to focus on prayer. As a missionary, prayer is PARAMOUNT. It is one of the most, if not THE MOST important elements to successful missionary work and our lives in general.

In 3 Nephi 18:18-21 Jesus Christ himself commands us to pray saying

“18 Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.

19 Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name;

20 And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.

21 Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.”

I can testify as I have prayed more earnestly, more frequently, more purposefully on behalf of myself, my family, loved ones and investigators, I have seen the hand of God more fully in my life. I have come to appreciate the incredible blessings of this gospel, and seen hearts changed, the spirit guide and blessings poured out on me and others. What do you need? What are your concerns? How do you find happiness? How can you have a fresh start, be free of guilt, be with your family forever? It starts here. I love prayer, it’s truly an amazing blessing God has gives to us, and I promise that as you and I continue to focus on this simple commandment, the windows of heaven will pour out blessing after blessing upon us all.

I love you all so much, I am praying for you all daily, and I can’t wait to see what next week will bring here in the blessed land of 民雄。

我愛你們很多，我知道這個福音是真實的。我每天看到神的影響在我生活。神活著，祂的兒子耶穌基督是我們的救主，我們的救贖主和通過祂的贖罪我們能夠跟我們家庭永遠在一起。

我愛你們很多！

加油↖(^ω^)↗

愛，

Elder Tanner Bennett

莨匠熊長老

PICTURES!

1 our hand made sign says “WHAT makes you happy?” We had people write on sticky notes and then would share Levis vision with the fruit that was desirable to make one happy, it was kinda awesome.