Working hard

Me and my buddy Lego

Yet another great week! today actually marks my 300th day on a mission. Two more months and I'll have been out for a year. Crazy or what?

Elder Stephens and I have been visiting some places in our area that haven't been visited in a while. And we saw many miracles. People that live up in the "top of the mountain" tend to be super humble and really nice. Funny how that works.

We spent two separate days up there and we met so many great people that welcomed us right in, gave us some water, and willingly listened to the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Interestingly enough, some have never heard of Jesus Christ. So it is such a wonderful, happy experience to introduce my Savior and their's to them.

Zhou Dai Xuan's baptism

Our actual investigator pool is really thin. So many wonderful people, just not enough that are willing to keep the commandments of God. We knocked a certain door this week and I will never forget the feeling I got when half their family came to the door. Right away they saw our name tags, and they said "oh don't worry, we're already a part of a different church down the road." They did not want to hear anything we had to say. I immediately felt prompted to just bare my testimony about Jesus Christ and Thomas S. Monson. I really felt like Jeffery R. Holland. they still didn't want to listen to us, but I feel like the spirit began to creep into their hearts as they went inside.

Our area in Liji

More often than not do I see Satan's hands wrapped around people sooo tight. Most don't even know it. The chains of sin and temptation are soo thick, and the worst part is, they aren't willing to accept help.

One of our investigators, Gao Yu Chen, is really having a hard time coming to church. He's Soo close to being baptized, he just has to take that ONE last step. He'll get there! ZhouDai Xuan got baptized on wednesday! such a humble little friend. He got confirmed on sunday.

Life is good. Really good. Hope you guys all have a wonderful blessed week! Until next time.


Love,
Elder Chase Matua

Racing a 9-year-old. He was fast!

Giant spider - no good

Our zone with Lego

Monkeys, rain and more rain

AAAnd we had a great week! Tons of service, two exchanges, plenty of rain, and much growth. Gotta love the mission!

I got to go on exchanges with Elder Tang on Tuesday, and Elder Chand on Friday. They are both great leaders and awesome missionaries. I've learned a lot from both of them. It's cool to see all of the different styles of missionary work. Everybody has their own little touch on the work. Although there are different styles, it's all the same work, and it's ALL done in the same way: the Lord's way. Its awesome how He works.

Thursday we had the chance to do some service for feiyu (flying fish!). He lives WAY up in the mountains. His house is one of the coolest homes I've ever seen. He's pretty much a Taiwanese mountain man. Super nice. Really just lives straight off the land. We moved some rocks, trees, and different things for him. It was super fun.

Last night we had the opportunity to sing at a city banquet type deal. A bunch of the local churches got together to sing for some people that got injured in an explosion a couple of weeks ago in Taipei. It was a neat experience. It was some good exposure for us missionaries.

Sorry this email is a bit scattered. I think one of the coolest things I've learned was from the words of Jeffery R. Holland. I read a talk by him about missionary work. He was speaking to full time missionaries at the time, but I believe his words apply to us all. He was once asked, "Would you die for this Church." He said, "Of course, that's the easy part." He went on to explain that dying for the Church would be easy and that Heavenly Father doesn't need people who would die for the church. What He needs is people who will live for it! I thought that was pretty profound. We need to do all we can to live the gospel to its fullest. He needs His children to stand as witnesses of His Son. He needs us to be lights in this world that is quickly fading. And he knows we can all do it! He's provided for us ways to be lights.

Find a way this week to be a brighter light of Christ!


I love you all, have a blessed week
Elder Chase Matua

Service at the home of Flying Fish....

...the most Polynesian Taiwanese guy I know

Showing my Samoan coconut husking skills

Serving is always fun

Elder Kingston Matua - Returns home

Kingston returned home to us after serving an honorable full-time mission this past weekend. He was released from his full-time service as a missionary on Saturday, July 26, 2015 but says that he will always look for opportunities to serve the Lord for the rest of his life.

His mission has taught him many things. He left a young boy and returned a man. We are so grateful to all of those who uttered silent or vocal prayers on his behalf. We are extremely thankful to those who sponsored him monetarily or through in-kind donations, sending him gifts. letters and emails. We are humbled by the outpouring of love shown by the wonderful people of Hawaii who watched over him, fed him and showered him with the special aloha spirit. Most importantly, we are eternally grateful to our Heavenly Father for watching over him and bringing him home safely.

We love you all!

The Matua's

Final Aloha!

Pretty good week!

We our first official lesson with a family that we have been trying to see for a very long time. They had some great questions and we had some great conversation. We also finished up the lessons with another investigator so now we just keep with her until her baptism date comes around. She is super solid and has been active in coming to church and other activities for the last three months.

We had some good media referrals come in lately. We got to meet some really nice people who show some great potential. It has been very hot here so everyone is just trying to stay cool. Sadly the best way to do that is off limits for us so we just get to look at the beautiful ocean every day, but its all good. Everything is going great over here.

Love you all so much! Thank you for all the love and support while I have been here in Hawaii. Thank you so much to all the family that bombed we with letters. It is always nice to get the nice refreshing love from the little ones. Even though most of them aren't to little anymore.

I love the gospel with all my heart. The fullness of the gospel has truly been restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is there as the most valuable gift and tool that our Heavenly Father has given us. We can all become better by recognizing it and taking advantage of it fully. We have the word of God through the Book of Mormon, Bible, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. Nothing is too hard with the Lord on our side.

Love you all again. Hopefully this email makes up for the bad one last week. Some of you gave me some trouble for that so I wanted to do better. I'll tell all my stories when I get home. I guess I'm like mom, better with my speaking and not so much the writing. Not sure if that is a good thing or not haha! I guess I will be coming from 90 degrees hot and humid to 100 degrees hot and dry.


Love,
Elder Kingston Matua

Typhoon season, service, Pres Jergensen

My crazy Zone

Another crazy week for the books!

I don't even know where to start. At the begining of the week, everyone kept telling us to go home because there was a HUGE typhoon coming. Thanks to a lot of prayers, it went around our area and hardly effected us. We did get tons of rain, just not big typhoon level rain. I was actually kind of sad. I was really excited to be in
my first typhoon.

Heading to Hualien to meeet
Pres. Jergensen

Wednesday we did some fun service for a lady in our ward. She owns a big chunk of land and she always has the missionaries come over and do some service for her. We pulled some weeds for her, but it felt more like we were cutting down a forrest. It was pretty fun. Plus we were doing it in the rain, so that's cool. Earlier that day we also had Zone meeting which was good. Contuining to get the good shepard feel going. We have some super inspired leaders that help us out down here.

Thursday we had the chance to travel up to hualien to meet our new mission president, President Jergensen. What a spiritual giant he is. I'm not really sure why I didn't get any pictures with him. next time. He's super tall, and just the kindest man ever. He also brought his twin 15yr old sons with him. They're pretty funny. I'm super excited to be serving with President Jergensen.

Me, Aiono and Miner

On Saturday we went up to LuYe again. Many great people, many of them struggling with their testimonies. There are too many ways satan uses to shake our testimonies. I hate it. The Solution is sooo simple. Stick to the basics!

The rest of the week was great. Our ward is trying hard to help others come unto Christ. It is super awesome to see missionary work as such a huge focus. The work here in Taiwan is moving forward!

I'm grateful to have the influence of the Atonement in my life. I'm grateful that I have a knowledge of my Redeemer. It's still not perfect, but it gets me through each and every day. I've been developing such a personal relationship with my father in Heaven and it's so amazing. My prayers are becoming more and more specific and they are more and more comforting to me. I pray for you daily.

Love you all and hope you have a blessed week!


Love
Elder Chase Matua

Doing service after the typhoon

Gum boots game is too strong

The Pacific Connection

In traditional Aboriginal dance clothes

This guy (middle) was SO funny

I found another 'friend' while we were walking in the dark