Week 48

你好!

Well, to begin the week off, we had a nice big earthquake, which was super interested. It actually happened last Monday during studies, and President Day sent an email out telling everyone it was a 6.6 earthquake, which was pretty big. Along with starting the week with an earthquake, we also had a pretty amazing meal. We went out to eat at an amazing restaurant, and I got a huge western pizza, which was amazing. Recently we have been eating really cheap, so that pizza was just so amazing. But even with that, the week just got even better.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had the opportunity to meet with Elder Gong of the Seventy and his wife. At the Tuesday night devotional, we actually got to eat banana splits, which my companion and I ate a ton. After that, Elder Gong talked to us about the atonement and the importance of the Sacrament, which was super interesting. We read a lot of scriptures together and then had a bit of a testimony meeting, which gave us all a lot to ponder and to be grateful for. On Wednesday, Elder Gong talked to us a lot about the Book of Mormon and working with our investigators. At the end of all of it, he shared his testimony in two basic sentences, which I thought was really interesting. The two sentences were: "No evil man could have written the Book of Mormon, and no good man would have written it to deceive others," and "He paid a debt He didn't owe because we had a debt we couldn't pay." Both of these really got me thinking about the Book of Mormon and also Jesus Christ's Atonement for us.

As for the rest of the week, it mainly consisted of finding because all of our lessons kept falling through. Either people would cancel or just not show up to the appointments, so we were getting to spend a lot of time just trying to find new people to share the gospel with. Before I get into some of the cool contacting experiences, I just wanted to share about one of our golden investigators that we do have that I mentioned last week. This last week was the third time we were able to meet with Esther, and it went amazing. She has read all the way to 1 Nephi 11 and is loving how much easier the Book of Mormon is to read in comparison to the Bible. The second time we met with her, we covered the Priesthood a ton, so that this last time, we were able to cover Baptism with an even larger emphasis. And to make things even better, we ended up have three amazing members come to the lesson as well. Two of them were planned, but the third was just because she was suppose to be helping the other elders, but they got stood up so we thought she could join us as well. As for the lesson itself, it really went amazing. The three members were able to help answer all of her questions and even relate to her because they were all from a similar religious background before joining this church, which helped answer a lot of questions for her as well. So, this next week, we are really looking forward to be able to answer more of her questions and also help her prepare for the baptismal date that we were able to set together!

As for finding this week, we were seeing blessings right and left, which was super cool. Sadly, none of them turned into set ups or anything, but we really felt like we were planting a lot of seeds, not only in the Taiwanese hearts, but some Westerner's hearts as well, which was super cool. One of the thing Elder Gong talked to us about with the Book of Mormon, was also how we contact people. He posed the question, "When you contact people, do you talk at them, talk to them or talk with them. He promised us if we talked with at least 20 people as a companionship a day, that we will find that our investigator pool will truly grow and that we will be able to find more success in our areas. Putting that into a larger effect this week, we really saw the blessings from it. Instead of being the ones bringing up the gospel, they were the ones bringing it up. We had over half of the people tell us that they had actually been contacted by Mormon missionaries up to 10 years ago, but just never had the opportunity to learn much more. We were able to actually find out what people's true concerns were and be able to testify of how the Book of Mormon can help them find answers to those concerns, and so many more, which was truly a miracle in our eyes. And the craziest, we actually had someone come up and contact us, asking us about the church, which is also super rare, but truly a blessing. So, even though we weren't able to have as many set up lessons as we would have liked, we were able to plant a ton of seeds which we are hoping that with enough time will sprout into something more.

As to end the week, we also went to a fireside, which was super successful. We had an investigator and one of our less actives we have been working with come, which was amazing. Both of them seemed to really enjoy the activity and even mentioned to us about finding out about some of the other activities that the church has planned, so we are really going to be working on having them find some more friends in the ward too.

As for the week as a whole, it really was a blast and such a blessing to be able to serve the people here in Taiwan.  Well, time today is pretty much up, thanks for all the emails and prayers! Have a great week!

我愛妳們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S. Sorry this week's letter was a little shorter.  I will try to have more photos ready for next week as well :)