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| Elder Ogden and Elder Brady at a "cute little noodle place" |
Transcription of Recording:
Hello everyone! So, it's Tuesday today, but we just had a really cool experience tonight that I wanted to record while it's still fresh.
We were coming home, on the way home from kind of a crazy night. We had been running around everywhere, had a couple of pretty good lessons with people. We had just been stood up by a guy that we have been trying to get set up [with a time to visit] for a long time. He's an RC (recent convert) who's had some problems and we've been helping him, but he's been really hard to get a hold of. We met him on the street today, just randomly, he pulled up next to us and was like, "Hey, pull over!" We were talking to him--it's been a while since I've seen him--and he's like, "Oh ya, I can meet tonight at 8:30." But then, he didn't show up and we were like, oh no.
But, it was okay because we still had to plan for English class anyway. So, we went to do that and right as we pulled up to the 7-11 that we were going to, a guy walked over to us and was like, "Hey! How long have you guys been learning Chinese?" Elder Brady said, "Since this June." [The guy] said, "What?! You're Chinese is already that good?" Which is like the basic stuff that we hear from pretty much everyone that comments on our Chinese.
We were just talking to him and he said, "Ya, I just saw you guys and thought of my sister who's in Australia right now and how hard it's been for her to adjust to the new culture and I wanted to ask you guys how you're doing and what it's like for you guys." He was really interested to know why we were in Taiwan, like why we would choose to come here and do this. We just talked about how actually simple the life of a missionary is. He said, "Wow, that actually sounds really nice. It sounds pretty great, but also super hard." We were like, "Ya. Ya, you could say that."
So, we were just talking to him and he said, "Hey, can I buy you a drink?" He was drinking some beer and said, "Hey, can I buy you a drink? Do you guys like drink beer?" We said, "Uh, no, we can drink milk." So, he bought us milk. We just cracked open a cold one with the boys, kind of. We were just drinking our milk and he's drinking his beer and we were just talking outside a 7-11.
It was super good. He's a soldier, he was telling us about his family and what he does. He started talking about music and was like, "Does your church have music?" and we said, "Ya! Ya it does!" And then suddenly he just said, "Oh, I had a friend pass away in a car accident recently." We were like, that's sudden, but wow, that really sucks. So suddenly it just turned into kind of a heart to heart conversation about how hard it's been to have his really good friend pass away. We talked about how we've had family members and loved ones pass away and how everyone experiences that kind of grief at some point in their lives--everyone has to face that. [We talked about] how the knowledge we have of the plan of salvation has helped us find peace and really feel God's love and really feel that it's actually true--it's not just something that we tell ourselves to make us feel good.
He said, "Really?" So, he's way interested in that. He was just basically saying, "Wow, I've been thinking of all these questions." He just started talking about things that you just hear in like the most stereotypical "golden investigator" story that people tell from their missions. He was just listing all these things he's been thinking about and we were like, "Wow, ya. You've come to the right place!"
It was just a testimony to me that we are guided by the Spirit even when we don't know it and even when we're not doing anything particularly amazing. Even he said that he felt like something had arranged things just right so we could meet at that time. That's just the kind of thing that makes being a missionary awesome.
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| English class board |
Other than that this week went pretty well. We were stood up by quite a few people, which is never fun. It hasn't happened to me in a long time where we get cancelled on by a sizable number of people, but it happened this week. That wasn't super fun for Elder Brady to have to experience that, but overall the week went really well.
Probably the biggest thing was that 辛伯伯- xin beibei got baptized on Saturday, which is always great to see someone take that step. It was great to hear his testimony and just hear how, as he was preparing, he was feeling more and more the Spirit letting him know that getting baptized was what he needed to do. When he did it, he felt like he just "saw a light" and felt--even though he was already a great guy and already following Jesus Christ--I mean, he's like 87 years old and he lives alone. Like, what's he going to do that's super bad/wrong, but he still just felt new and clean and felt like a better person. He felt like his potential just expanded exponentially, which is...that's the purpose of baptism. That's the purpose of following Jesus Christ--to achieve our potential.
Other than that...this week we had a zone council where we talked a lot about "power lessons" which is where we take all the doctrine from a lesson in Preach My Gospel and we teach it very quickly and simply--in less than 5 minutes. The key is to make it simple and not just be spouting random stuff that they don't understand, but to teach it really simply and help them understand the basics of the doctrine. That's powerful and it helps us to use our time most effectively and not have lessons drag on forever and still have plenty of time to answer their questions and address their actual needs instead of just trying to guess...in what we emphasize...That's been really cool to try. We're working on that this week.
We're excited for this coming week. We're excited to see what we can improve in what we, ourselves can change, and what things we can control and not get so caught up on the things that we can't control. 'Cause that's never fun. So, ya! I hope you guys have a great week! That's pretty much my week. :)
-Elder Ogden
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| "I spent way too much money on this." |
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