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| "[The] beginnings of my [language] review system." (More info about this near the end of the post below.) |
大家好!(da4jia1hao3-hello big family)
Today we're hitting up a kaorou, which is an all-you-can-eat, do-it-yourself extravaganza of barbecued meat, so it's pretty intense and I'm excited.
That evening, I went to Fenglin again, this time with 邱長老-qiu1zhang3lao3, a native Taiwanese person who doesn't speak much English at all! It was a little intimidating, but not that bad. I don't know if he was actively speaking simpler Chinese or what, but I was able to understand pretty much everything he said (except for a few everyday words I haven't learned yet). It's amazing what speaking only Chinese for a day and having the gift of tongues has done for my language! I definitely still have a long way to go, but I couldn't be this comfortable without the Lord's help!
I also felt the most comfortable taking to people I've felt since I've been here, which was a lot of fun, especially since all of the appointments fell through so we got to do a couple hours of knocking in the rain! We were definitely 落湯雞-luòtāngjī, which is a Chinese idiom referring to a story about a chicken falling into a soup and getting DRENCHED beyond measure haha. It was a ton of fun though. We found some prepared people and I had a lot of practice; and I got to tell 邱長老 about American movies and Amazon.com. Then he told me about the rock music he listened to at home, it was quite the time!
Another fun experience in Fenglin was pretending to pick up rocks and throw them at wild dogs that were getting a little too close for comfort, [so we could] scare them off. That was pretty sweet haha.
The next morning on the way back to Hualian we met this guy from China who was super cool, even has the "Beijing huar" where they add an "ar" sound to the end of a lot of words it sounds kinda weird but cool at the same time. He was really nice, complimented my Chinese, and was pretty curious about what we do. I ended up feeling prompted to give him a Book of Mormon and invite him to church. I don't know if anything will come of it, because he goes home soon and we can't contact him, as missionaries, when he's there, so who knows what the Lord has in store for him, it was a way cool experience though! I emailed him and he ended up emailing back yesterday and saying he was in Taipei and couldn't come to church, but next time he was in Taiwan he would find the missionaries, so hopefully that ends up happening!
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| Hualian |
We have an investigator who is SO awesome. He's the one I was able to invite to baptism for my first time. He LOVES the Book of Mormon and is excited to learn more about the gospel, but his work keeps him SO busy and he barely gets any sleep. It's just really tough for him to find time to meet with us. One day he told us we could come visit him for an hour at work, so we rushed over to the place we thought he worked. We waited for him for about a half hour, then he called us wondering where we were, and it turns out he works at the OTHER building of that kind in Hualian, 15 minutes away! We booked it over there in 10 and managed to talk to him about how he's doing, and share a quick thought with him. I was able to share 1 Nephi 21:13-16 about how the Lord never forgets us, we just sometimes forget Him or He sometimes let's us face things on our own for a while so we can learn with him, and he said it really helped him out in the midst of his stressful work, so that was a great feeling
We've been "qinged" by a lot of members, which means they invite us over and feed us. It has ranged from amazing Taiwanese-American fusion to seafood sausages that were REALLY hard for me to choke down and not look like I was dying, but either way the members are so awesome and willing to try doing missionary work. We didn't have very much finding time this week, so we're hoping the many referrals we're getting will be fruitful.
This week has been a little bit frustrating because a lot of the investigators that we had really high hopes for, who seemed really excited, have been starting to kinda lose steam. It's frustrating because we know they are losing interest because they are not reading and praying and feeding their growing testimonies! It makes me sad because I've seen what can happen to their hearts and their lives if they keep their commitments, and it's hard to see them not achieving their potential.
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| "[Eating at] a member's house" |
We have found some more really cool people though, we had 3 people on Saturday get excited talking to us when they saw the name of Jesus Christ on our tags, and actively worked to find a time to meet with us and learn more, so we're excited to be able to meet with them!
For my spiritual thought this week, I want to share a quote from the new addition to Preach my Gospel that has been added to gospel library, "How do I Fulfill my Purpose?":
"Elder M. Russell Ballard has taught, 'Over the years, I have observed that those who accomplish the most in this world are those with a vision for their lives, with goals to keep them focused on their vision, and tactical plans for how to achieve them. Knowing where you are going and how you expect to get there can bring meaning, purpose, and accomplishment to life. . . . A goal is a destination or an end, while a plan is the route by which you get there. . . . A key to happiness lies in understanding what destinations truly matter—and then spending our time, effort, and attention on the things that constitute a sure way to arrive there.'"
The insert this comes from is specifically for missionaries, but there are so many principles that apply to member missionaries too! I love this quote because it really drives home the power of setting goals. That's one of the things I've been amazed by since I've been out here, is the principle that if you are jumping as high as you can, you will never be able to jump as high as if you have a standard to reach for, and I know that's true! The gospel is a pattern for constant improvement, and just like the brother of Jared had to come up with the stones, if we set goals for ourselves and a vision for our lives with inspiration from the Lord, when He touches them with His finger they can light our way to the promised land He has prepared for us!
I love you all! Have a great week!
加油！（jiāyóu)
Elder Ogden
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| "Secular words study guide!" |
Information about the "language review system" picture at the beginning of the post...
"Yeah, the flashcards are pretty intense. At the trainer/trainee follow-up, I passed off the gospel language study portion and got to move on to the "everyday track", so now I have those 3 giant boxes that contain about 2700 flashcards collectively, and then those words, plus 4000 more in the book, and I was as giddy as a schoolboy haha.
My companion taught me a review system he learned based on the Fibonacci numbers, where you memorize sets of however much you choose every day, then put that set in a cycle organized by numbered cards in the box where you review on the third day after learning a set, then the 5th, the 8th, etc. following Fibonacci until you get to 34. By that time, every day you're reviewing about 8 sets plus learning a new set and it gets pretty insane, but it's really thorough and it satisfies my nerdy perfectionism so I'm loving it haha."
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| "Buddha head (super good)" |
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| "Studying at McDonald's" |
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| "A morning market" |
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