Transfer 3 Week 4

各位家人朋友們，大家好！(gèwèi jiārén péngyǒumen, dàjiāhǎo!- Hello dear family and friends)


On Monday, we had the zone leaders up from Taidong for Pday and it was a nice day of relaxing and board games and volleyball, then that night we helped a member move a bunch of really cool paintings and got a referral too!

Tuesday was a great district meeting and we met with a guy we found last week named "big bear".  He's way cool and teared up a little thinking about how we have a perfect and loving Father in Heaven who wants to take an active role in our lives.  That lesson had the spirit so strong and he understood way well and we're excited to continue helping him come to know his Father in Heaven and his Savior!

On Wednesday, we taught a family we "knocked into" (MMDes here...I'm assuming this means that they found them by knocking doors) about the restoration and the wife was super awesome, always asking questions and really trying to understand.  She thinks very critically and isn't content to just take everyone's word for everything, so she was way willing to keep the invitation to find out for herself if it's true by reading the Book of Mormon and asking God!

On Thursday, I went on exchanges with Elder Kelemen, the zone leader in Taidong, which was crazy! We saw a LOT of miracles, and somehow things actually went according to plan which NEVER happens haha.

We went to a college campus and I had a rough time waking around talking to people because I'd just get psyched out and have no idea what to say and it would get awkward. Then, during language, a guy self-contacted us and we taught him about prayer and overcoming weaknesses and he's a new investigator. Then another guy came to talk with us and set up [a time] to learn more. Then another girl set up after Kelemen asked her a Chinese question. It was definitely a rare but welcome day of blessings, and I really learned about just becoming friends with the people I talk to, which I've never been good at.

Friday, we rode back from Taidong, did weekly planning, and then had our coordination meeting and did some street finding. 

Saturday was an interesting day.  We got stood up a lot and had a lesson with a guy who seemed to suddenly not care about the message at all, and also a guy started flirting with Elder Vincent, so that's been interesting to figure out tactfully...

Funny story:  So 潘安再世(pānānzàishì) is a Chinese idiom which means "pan an (a man from Chinese history famous for being ridiculously handsome) is on the earth again". You say it when you see a really handsome guy, and because it's an idiom when a white guy says it, Taiwanese people always freak out because it's a really funny thing to say and they think your Chinese is way better than it is .   We were waiting for our baptismal date investigator to get to a lesson.  When he walked in I said, "the shuai ge (handsome boy) is here! Pānānzàishì!" And he and the member there just DIED it was so funny to see their reaction haha.

For my spiritual thought this week, I wanted to share a little about the story of Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. After going around being scrubs, causing trouble, and trying to destroy the church and stuff, the Lord decided they needed a little bit of a nudge towards their potential, so he sent an angel to give them a bit of a kick in the pants. After this harrowing experience and the tough process of repentance that followed, they were later described like this:

"Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.And thus did the Spirit of the Lord work upon them, for they were the very vilest of sinners. And the Lord saw fit in his infinite mercy to spare them."

As I read that, I realized that's the kind of love I need to have for these people; what we all need to have for each other. I'm grateful that our Heavenly Father has a plan for us to be able to return to him and live with our families forever, and escape that "endless torment" of staying the way we are, stuck in a rut of mediocrity, rather than becoming what He knows we can be and having the happiness He wants us to have. I know that if we--day by day-- make the decision to follow Him, even if we can only change one thing at a time, as long as we're headed in the right direction, everything will work out ok and He will make up the rest!
Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Joshua Ogden
Missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
武忠樂長老
耶穌基督後期聖徒教會的傳教士