So this week has been great! When is it not great?
As far as finding ASL people, the story is the same. Don't even worry, we'll find some brothers to teach this week.
But on the technology side, I've gotten a ton of work done this week! Our mission does a monthly Inspire devotional and a quarterly Why I Believe devotional. This time, they happened to coincide on the same weekend, so we've had a busy week!
In preparation for this event, I was asked to write two pieces of software: a QR code 'generator' and a website to find the nearest church. The QR code 'generator' functions more like a link shortener and redirect server so we can print one QR code and then update where the user ends up over time. I've slapped my code on the internet if you're curious
As for the find-a-church website, I reverse engineered how the church's meetinghouses locator works, and duplicated the API calls with a fancier, much nicer looking front-end. We're gonna put some testimonies from members and local church photos on it at some point, but the functionality works.
I got both those projects done this week, and President Merritt printed off a QR code from my new generator onto every single program we handed out at the events this weekend. From my rough logging, it looks like a few people used it to find a church near them. Can't wait to see people come unto Christ!
As for the actual live event, we only had a few little hiccups but overall went very well! And of course, we've learned how to do it better next time. During the stream, we had 75 people watching. I checked the stats this morning, and thousands of people have seen the recording since. So many of God's children have been touched!
And it doesn't end there! We're working with our Arabic and Spanish missionaries to re-stream the recording we have with voice overs in their language. That means we will have more reach in more languages. What a time to be alive!
Speaking of languages, we had our Vietnamese, non-deaf, member of our ASL branch have her temple recommend interview! I got to help run the Google Translate for the interview (it's too complicated apparently), and help her the questions. She was asked to bear her testimony of the Savior, and even though we couldn't understand her as she spoke into my phone we could feel the spirit.
Tham is an amazing example to me. She goes to a church she can't understand, yet still has such a strong testimony of Jesus Christ. She makes the sacrifice to get all the way from her home in Chula Vista to our building in University City, yet has no job. She is so generous with the tiniest amount of money she makes from selling cakes, all because she loves God. When I grow up, I want to be like Tham.
On that note, go and taste the fruit of the tree! The tree of life isn't going anywhere, only you can. I've seen people tasting that fruit here in San Diego, and I can promise you that you can only find true happiness through Jesus Christ!
-- Elder Coxson
By the way, if you want to go watch the live stream recording, you can enjoy their testimonies here
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