Hualien - Week 33 - English Class

Have I ever written about our free English class before on here? I don't think so, not really! It's because up until recently, our English class in Hualian was kinda struggling (for example, Sister Tu and I usually only had one student come to our kids class most weeks). But lately, Free English Class is on FIRE. Let me tell you why! 

First of all, what is our Free English Class, you might ask? It is the official service activity that every missionary in Taiwan is able to participate in every Wednesday night, and depending on the area, every Saturday morning. Hualian has English class on Saturday mornings too. Each missionary or missionary companionship has a role...either teaching a class or serving as the "front desk." Our classes are 1.5 hours long, the first hour being English and the last half hour being a Spiritual Share. Throughout Taiwan in the past, there has been many a new investigator found through students attending class, many people who have been able to meet with missionaries and later choose to accept baptism. What an amazing tool to find and teach the Lord's prepared children. Besides that incredible blessing, these classes are also just an amazing way to help people in Taiwan learn and practice their English! 

When I first got to Taiwan, our method to advertise class was passing out English tracts to those we contacted on the street and promoting a cute little video that was made a couple years ago. We would also sometimes go out in groups and do "English Finding" with our big English class flag. In the recent months, however, there were a couple missionaries in our mission who went to work and created a quality website where people can go on and sign up for a specific class (Advanced, Middle, Basic, Kids) in their neighborhood chapel. They can provide their names, numbers, Line IDs, and any comments or concerns they have. This transfer our English Unit in Hualian has adopted a system where each of us in our English Unit is to use Line or phone number to contact every new "referral" that we receive when someone signs up on the website. By directly calling these people we are able to let them know that we saw their signup and are excited for them to come to English class. This has proven to be an awesome practice! In the past couple of weeks we have met some awesome people who have come to English class because we called them and invited them again. My companionship alone has found two really solid new investigators from class.

The coolest part is how Facebook has become a useful tool in finding these people in the first place. Our English Unit Leader, another elder in Hualian, invited all of us a couple weeks ago to spend twenty minutes creating a well-crafted and aesthetically pleasing English class advertisement to post inside a FB Hualian group. I have been sending individual messages to those who liked my post and have found some people who want to attend class that way! Some of our missionaries' posts were really quite recognized and we've been getting floods of referrals. So. So. Cool. I am grateful that God has allowed us this privilege of utilizing technology to more effectively and efficiently find people to teach. It's a true miracle.

The other awesome thing we've begun to implement is inviting members to do our Spiritual Shares. Week after week of hearing us missionaries share about spiritual things is awesome and all, but our Mission President suggested that we try something new and invite a member to give the Spiritual Share. If a member shares their testimony and experiences with church, it might be easier for our students to relate to. So we took on the challenge and invited our Ward Mission Leader, Greg, to do the Share. He stood up and gave an elegant speech about how the Book of Mormon is like rice and the Bible is like vegetables and meat (or something like that) and how we need both of them to have a complete and delicious meal. And he really engaged the members of the class by asking questions and it was just all around so fun. Then he asked our students, who, by the raise of hand, wants a copy of the Book of Mormon. We can give one to each person, free of charge. People raised their hands! Even a lady who has been coming to class for months and never set up with us was finally intrigued enough to request her own copy of the Book of Mormon. So awesome.

So, so awesome. We are so excited. The Lord's work is moving forward. 

We continue to care for our investigators. We've had to push back a few baptismal dates for July and August, but everyone has their own timing and all we can do is our best to help them understand the Savior and his teachings, and invite them to make and keep commitments in order to follow Him. We love the people we are teaching. They're always on my mind and I'm just praying that we can help them come unto Christ.

I love you all so much and I invite you to use technology this week in a righteous way to share your testimony of Jesus Christ with someone you love! See ya next week.

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English class--look at all these wonderful mothers and children gathered to learn...

 P-day... eating at the Thai restaurant that President recommended...

 ...this looks so good, but it tasted like water... :-)