This week has been such a fast week. We had a lot of meetings, but they were all so up lifting and inspiring. And then a full week of missionary work, which was absolutely amazing. As for my favorite part of the week though, it had to be the miracles along with General Conference.
To begin the week off, we were blessed with a huge miracle of finding the coolest family. They were four brothers, ages 18 (張合一), 16 (張光中), 14 (張光育) and 10 (張光信), and are all Christians but don't participate in any official church
Then Tuesday morning, we had Zone Meeting, which was amazing. Our Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders trained us on the importance of using scriptures in teaching and also the importance of helping our investigators find joy in the scriptures, because that will bring lasting conversion. The other big training was helping our investigators understand the first doctrine of the gospel, which is that we have a loving Heavenly Father, and we are his children. It was all super good, and super inspiring. As for big details on zone meeting, I don't full remember because I was translating for the two Taiwanese in the zone, but from what I remember and felt during the zone meeting, it was really an excellent meeting.
 |
| West Zone photo
Left to right
Elder Ribar, Elder Ploeg, Elder Reintjes, Elder Bellingham, Elder Richards, Elder Bud, Elder Lin, Me, Elder Petermann, Elder Tang
Sister Good, Sister Hendricks, Sister Li, Sister Davis
|
And then on Wednesday, it got better with zone interviews. I have come to really love meeting with President Jergensen. I know he has been called of God and is leading this mission through inspiration. As I was talking to him, I asked for advice on missionary work, and he took me for a spine with his comment. He said "Stop find," paused for a second, "Start teaching." When he said that, there was a big conflict in my mind, we have to find to teach. He then explained that as we let the members and English class do the finding for us, we will find the most success. So in other wards, find through the members. This comment really got me thinking and Elder Lin and I talked after wards and are taking a new action plan. We have made notes and bought chocolate candy for all the members and will be giving it to them over the next week. So, we will be working on building our relationship with the ward over the next few weeks.
As for one of the miracles we actually saw from working with members was actually meeting with a member referral on Friday night. 楊佩淇 (Lily) is a super cool girl that is currently living up in 林口 (Lin kou), which is a VERY long bike ride away. But, we were able to meet with her, and it was super cool to learn of her desires. She expressed that every time she is around her friend who is a member, she feels like her friend has way more peace and is always happy. She said that was why she was willing to meet, she wanted to learn how to have that happiness and peace in her life as well, which was a great start to meeting with her. So, that was a huge miracle from working with members of the past week. It also goes to show how much members can affect the people around them.
So, to end this week off, we had General Conference, which was so amazing. The coolest part was coming prepared to learn. I had prepared my questions, and within the Saturday morning I had found answers for all of them. So along with all my questions being answered, it was cool to see how everything this that we had learned connected up with the talks in General Conference. A few of the talks given went exactly with what we had learned from zone meeting, which was even cooler. The trainings were given before general conference even happened, and they were all connected, which was a big testimony builder of the speakers being inspired and also President Jergensen being inspired. I am so grateful for the inspiration of our leaders and for the guidance they are able to give us in living a happy and joyful life.
As for the last miracle, it was through contacting referrals. We received a referral a few weeks ago and it was a 古小姐 (Ms. Gu). We did not get much information about the referral, but that they had three little kids. We were finally able to set up a lesson with 古小姐 (Ms. Gu) and she said she would need to bring her kids with her because they were too small to leave a home alone. We said, "No problem," and were excited to meet them all. When they arrived, they caught us by surprise, they were all kids, but they were ages 12 (傅彥儒 Alex), 11 (傅彥霖 Derek), and 9 (傅顗榛 Melody). The coolest kids ever too. The coolest part was that they actually did a lot of research on our church, which meant they already knew a lot, meaning we had to explain a few points of doctrine, but the lesson was absolutely amazing! We have another solid new family that we will be working with over the next few weeks, which we are extremely excited about.
So, this entire week, was truly a blessing. Elder Lin and I were able to witness so many blessings and miracles happen and are so grateful for all the super that we get from home as well. Thank you so much for the emails and prayers!
我愛你們,
Love you,
柯長老
Elder Okeson
No comments:
Post a Comment