7-12-23
Wow. . .
Ok this week was one of the most legendary ever.
We were walking to the car Thursday morning and I see the most Indian looking Indian ever so I'm like, Well
I have to go over there.
So I go over and introduce ourselves and then pump out every Hindi word I know and she's just stunned. So stunned she responds in English
and tells us she didn't live there but my Hindi is very good. Then comes over to give us handshakes. I turn to see her trying to give one to Elder Searle who's literally holding a monster sausage link from the Tongan Elders and so the most awkward handshake followed.
But hey, she complimented my Hindi.
Also met a legend woman from India named Pushpa and we powered through the restoration and right after I recite the first vision she looks up at us and said "Joseph Smith had 2 men come answer his prayers just like how God sent you 2 to come answer my prayers"
Boom. Spirit hit me so hard I may have gotten a bruise. She told us she'd been praying to find a church to go to. She loves Jesus Christ so much and moving to America just a few months ago was really hard for her.
That's why God sent us to her.
Then we drove to San Jose and filmed Elder Searles Testimony in ASL. Wow. He did so incredibly well!
The whole drive there and back I was In a deep state of pondering. Considering my experience with repentance last week I really really just want to be better. I want to always have no desire to sin. So I just thought about new habits I can set up and who I am compared with who I want to be. It was enlightening fr fr.
On Sunday President and Sister Larsen surprised us by coming to ASL branch. 
.
Also, you know Tactile? Like Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan and signing in her hand? We have 2 Deaf Blind members and somebody has to tactile everything for them.
I know ASL, I'm also super strong. So of course the obvious choice for tactiling is me. Usually we switch off but nobody else was there. So I tactiled all of church. Oof. My mind and body and everything was just- dead. But President and Sister Larson gave really good "talks" (signs?)
Then we went to the Oakland Temple with our friend Emma for a temple tour. In the middle of the visitor center sisters lesson she turned to me and yelled "Elder Owens! I am ready!"
She talked about how the spirit is just always telling her to go to church and she wants to go to the temple every day! So cool.
Then I stole half the Hindi Book of Mormons (Books of Mormon?) the visitor center had. A musical director started signing really badly at us and tried to get us to Interpret for a musical we've already said no to 5 times. So we said no again. Then he asked again. We gave him our branch president's number and then he told both of us no.
Deaf people are just incredibly picky when it comes to Interpreters and there's over 100 people 14X more qualified than me. And if I did the Deaf Community would just get upset. So.
As much as I wanted to do it, it's better if we don't and I trust President Peterson. So. Then we were headed to the car and some guy yelled "Are you missionaries??"
We are, so we said yes. He starts tearing up and explains he’s been inactive his whole life and he needs to become active so we helped him get in contact with the bishop of the ward he's in and some missionaries in his area and said a prayer. Hope everything goes well.
Next is the coolest thing ever. Embark is a language learning app for missionaries, like Duolingo but geared towards missionary work. I recently sent them an email asking for a Hindi course and on Monday I received many emails and texts and friend requests all from Emark Team People asking me about my experiences learning Hindi and all sorts of stuff. So I got Elder Holladay involved and we were just answering questions all day long. Basically they are amazed at how far we’ve come and are working on a Hindi Course to release “asap.” So we’re working with the Embark team to write curriculum and stuff for Hindi! Also, we’ve been working so hard on the first vision and feel pretty comfortable reading it, we just need to practice practice practice. I can't wait to have it memorized lol.
All of these Hindi things led to Elder Holladay and I doing the first ever Hindi Exchange. We learned as many prayer words as we could and prayed in the best Hindi we could, and then just went out and did Indian work all day. I know we're doing the right thing because we only saw 1 white person the whole day. Every single contact we made was with indians. All the Indians who usually aren’t home were home. We read from the Book of Mormon in Hindi with such power and spirit–it was amazing and truly exhilarating. The Indians' surprise and joy to hear 2 white teenage boys speaking in Hindi is so wonderful! We found so many Indians just by using our like 3 phrases and a handful of words.
I know this is long and if you’re still reading I love you. But I wanna share a really powerful scripture before I close lol. I was reading section 1 of Doctrine and Covenants, verse 23 says : “That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers.”
The footnote on the word “weak” leads you to “strength” in the topical guide. I thought it was beautifully poetic and powerful that this kind of “weakness” being described is actually “strength” wow. This is also the verse Elder Rasband quotes in his talk “This Day” and as he read the phrase “weak and simple” he places his hand over his chest, as to imply that's him. So powerful. You can do the rest of the pondering yourself to learn all the things I did. Dont wanna give you all the answers. But there's at least 2 hours of personal study (so far) to do on this verse and the relationship between “weak and simple” and “strength” and Jesus Christ.
Love you all so much! Have an incredible week!
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