Hitting Some "Electric Word", Then Hitting it Again

"Eating Thai food for Elder Steffan's year mark on island."

Hello everyone!

So about the subject, in Chinese the word for phone is "電話"-pronounced dyen hwa, which means "electric word",  literally, and to make a call is "打(個 )電話"-da (guh) dyen hwa, or "hit (an) electric word". And that's what we did this week. A lot. 

This week President Peterson had invited us to call all of the English class referrals our area has received since our English class website started, which for us was well over a hundred, so that's what we did with every amount of free time we had. For some background on that, Elder Steffen is a programmer, and in January he and some other programmers were approved to build an English class website which we could post links to on Facebook, and there, people with interest could get information about our free English class and even indicate if they had interest in learning about Jesus Christ.  Then, their information would be automatically sent to the area in which they live through a Facebook messenger "bot", and from there we could call them, answer their questions, invite them to English class, and to learn about the gospel. 

It has been an amazing source to find people who actually have enough interest to come to us. Inevitably, some people don't answer when first contacted or end up not having time at the moment, so the past two weeks we were invited to go through and call all the people who had signed up and find a definitive answer of whether or not they actually had interest. Because of that, we found a lady who is very cool and very willing to come to English class and also learn about the gospel, and she's shared that she already likes the feelings she gets when she prays, so we're hopeful she'll take it seriously and want to learn the truth of what we share with her.

This week we also had many more opportunities to talk to people we met as we were out and about, and for the first time I started feeling really comfortable in connecting with people and finding something meaningful to them I could share with them.

This week I was reading some more in the Book of Mormon, (like the book within the book that Mormon actually wrote) and I'm appalled as ever at the things he and his son had to go through. At that time, because of pride and seeking after riches and to be lifted up above their brethren, both the people who fought against Christ and the majority of the people who claimed to follow him became evil beyond imagining, to the point where a whole civilization was destroyed. It's honestly a pretty depressing part to read, but what gives me comfort is the fact that even when everything around them is dark, even when all their efforts to save their people both from being destroyed physically and cutting themselves off from their Heavenly Father are in vain, Mormon and Moroni still use their freedom of choice to stand for what they know is true. They still choose to love and believe and do what they know is right. And because of that, they are able to be calm and at peace as they face the challenges that come their way. I know that we too, have the freedom to choose to be a true disciple of Christ and treat others the way a true disciple of Christ would. And when we do that, there's nothing we need to be afraid of.

Well, I'm out of things to say haha, hope my email isn't too depressing.  If anyone has questions about my life in Taiwan or life as a missionary, please let me know so I can spice my emails up with things people are actually interested in!

Love you all!
Elder 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

Thai food

"Brown sugar milk with pearls (not worth it.)"