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The title of this email is "qiji ru yu xia" which means "miracles like rain fall" , because this week was pretty dang good! The other Elders that just moved into our apartment had two people in their area just fall into members arms and then into theirs and wanted to be baptized as fast as possible, so this ward, along with these two ladies, are having a huge blessing this Saturday as they get baptized! We're excited or that.
As for Elder Brady and I, it seemed like every time we got really pumped up and trying to do our invites from our zone conference this week about being urgent and loving the people, we met someone super cool. There was one guy we talked to in a 711 who was just looking at his phone and grunting and didn't seem like he wanted to talk. We were like "we don't want to bother you, but we are here sharing a message that we know has made us and our families so happy, one about personally coming to know God and through Him achieving our potential and finding our talents. Can we find even 15 minutes to give you a chance to try it out?" He looked up and was like "sure, why not". Normally such fast set ups like that stand us up, but he showed up, and we had an awesome lesson! He said he had met missionaries a couple times before but it was always just fast at a stoplight so he had never set up a time to meet with them. He's a cool guy. He said he doesn't doubt that things we can't explain happen all the time, so Joseph Smith's experience wasn't that far-fetched [to him]. He thought it was cool that he can read the Book of Mormon and find out if it's true for himself.
This week we had a cool experience with our friend who is going through a really rough time. She had a lot of concerns with the doctrine because she doesn't understand it yet. She felt like some other beliefs she had looked into made more sense, but as she voiced her concerns, we did a simple explanation of the plan of salvation, sharing scriptures and testifying that we know these things through the power of the Holy Ghost. As we did that, all of the holes she thought were in the doctrine were actually just misunderstanding, and pretty much every hole she had seen in the philosophies she had heard had an answer in the pure and simple doctrine we were sharing. No debating. No arguing. Just two parties with open minds discussing what we have each learned from our experience, and she left with a desire to read the Book of Mormon and have a deeper understanding of truth. I left with a broader understanding of the beauties of other belief systems along with a stronger testimony that this doctrine really is complete, beautiful, and true, because it's not just the well-intentioned best efforts of man to explain the universe, it is actual revealed knowledge of the perfect plan a loving and real Father in Heaven has prepared for us. The gospel is pretty sick.
Well, those were some highlights from my week, hope everyone is doing well, Elder Brady is doing solid sometimes I feel like he's training me haha, but he's good about voicing his opinion and applying himself, I don't have to babysit him which is great!
I love you all,
Elder Ogden
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
Note from Missionary Mom Des: All of the pictures in this post were posted to the Facebook page for Taiwan Taipei missionaries and their families. They were taken at a meeting in September, but I haven't posted any of them yet, and since Elder Ogden has not had a chance to upload new pictures this week, I thought I would post these now. :)
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