"I Want to Learn More!"

We went on exchanges with the other sisters in our apartment.  It was so much fun!  We visited with members in our ward and also found a new investigator.  She was a referral from our Ward Mission Leader in the Spanish Ward.  He works in a welding shop in front of her house.  During his lunch breaks he reads the Book of Mormon and because of that, our new investigator would start up conversations with him about the church, and now she's interested in learning more.

Trying to Hit Our Goals!

We can honestly say we did everything this week to hit our goals.  On Saturday night, we were confident that we'd have at least two investigators at church.  We had been preparing almost everybody we met from the beginning of the week for Sunday, we prayed every day that we'd be able to reach that goal, and we even stressed a lot this week the importance of having members present during our lessons. 

This Sunday was really important because in order to be baptized in the month of July, someone had to come to church this week.  Sunday came.  We had a family lined up, ready to come.  We prayed and fasted...and they didn't come.  We called them, went to their house, had members call them....no luck.  We then turned and put our faith in a miracle person showing up to church with a member.  As sacrament meeting started in our last ward, no one showed up.  Needless to say, it was kind of depressing.  We put our hearts, souls, and faith in hitting that goal. 

Back in the day - you know, like maybe a couple transfers ago - I would have gotten down because of that, but yesterday, instead of pitying our unsuccessful day, we got up and went right to work, trying to find and prepare people for church next week.  It was great to see how much we've changed since the beginning of our missions.

A Baptism...Out of Our Area...Is Still a Baptism!

On Saturday, we ran into our investigator who had just moved a couple of weeks ago.  She informed us that she had already made contact with the missionaries there and is preparing to be baptized in the VERY near future.  Yay! :)  That made us so happy.

Are You Personally Converted?

We made transfer goals as a companionship this week.  We have a goal to speak Spanish 24/7 this entire transfer! Wish us luck!  I'm more excited about it than my companion.

We have a bit of bad news.  One of our investigators had to move, so she is no longer in our area.  We told her to let us know when she knew her address so we could send other missionaries to her house.  We were kind of bummed because we had put so much energy into helping her get baptized, but the ward members,  through their example, have helped us see the importance of just trusting in God's timing and plan for us and those around us.  She'll get baptized soon!

Other than that, our week went fantastic!  We had zone conference this week.  I was asked to give my testimony during it. I talked about how the biggest convert in the mission should be ourselves and although that has been said so many times, it is probably the best lesson any missionary can learn.

During zone conference, the recurring theme was that how much we learn on our missions (or even in life in general) depends on how we serve.  Our President kept saying that the mission is not about us, rather it is about everyone, but us (it sounds less-confusing and cooler in Spanish).  He said that when we do everything we can to make this mission about serving others and less about serving ourselves, then we learn the most.   In turn, the mission becomes about us.  It kind of sounds like a paradox, but it is really true.  As we turn out and serve others - especially during the times when we would really rather help ourselves - we grow tremendously and we actually end up helping ourselves more than anyone else.

With that principle in the back of our minds, my companion and I went off to work.   Immediately, we had just a no good, very rotten day.  It was pretty bad.  We got yelled at by multiple people all right in a row.  By 8:30 p.m. both of us were pretty upset at just about everything.  Having gone through all our plans that day, we rode our bikes back in the direction of our car.  We were both so frustrated that as we passed some people in the street, we didn't even stop to talk to them (I know, it's bad and we felt even worse as we passed by).  Finally, when we were almost to our car, we saw a cute little family.  We both decided we had had enough of this pity party we created for ourselves, so we stopped and had nice little conversation with them.  They gave us some referrals, and we were on our way.  Immediately, we felt so much better.  The contention that we had felt disappeared by the time we made it to our car.

Man, it's been a good week......

Miracle Baptism!

So this week, we had a baptism!   We had been working with an investigator for quite some time (since before I got out here!).  He did not want to be baptized until he was in college (a good year and a half away) and no matter what we did or sad, he would not change his mind.

Then, our district leader suggested we let him interview him The interview lasted over an hour, and he felt the Spirit and decided he wanted to be baptized   :D :D :D yay!

On Sunday, he texted us and told us he was too tired to go to church.  We told him that if he wanted to be baptized that day, he'd have to.   So he agreed willingly without much persistence on our part.  He came to church, all went smoothly. We saw him right before he left , and he's still excited and ready for his baptism at 5:45 so we can start at 6 to be done in time for Seminary Graduation at 7 --- we were on a really tight schedule.

So we go about doing missionary things for the rest of the afternoon.  We arrive back at the church at 5:30..  5:45 rolls around and people are showing up for the baptism.  Everything's great until a member, who was supposed to pick up our baptismal candidate, shows up. Our baptismal candidate is not with him.  The member told us he went to his house, but he was not answering the door or his phone.  We try to get a hold of him, but no luck.

So, we went with the member  to the  house at around 5:55 and start ringing the doorbell - a lot.  Nobody is answering. We kept thinking about the lesson we had had during zone meeting the day before: that if things aren't working out the way they should we have got to "do something about it" and make the miracle happen.

Long story short, we found out his door was unlocked, we found one of his neighbor friends, and his friend walked inside his house to his bedroom and woke him up - he had just been taking a nap.   He came outside still rubbing his eyes, saw us, grabbed his stuff for the baptism, then we all went back to the church arriving at about 6:25.  He quickly changed into his clothes, the baptism started at 6:35, it was over right at 7, and as soon as it was over everyone left to go to seminary graduation.  I was so tired by the end of that!

But, we had a baptism!!!! :)   It was truly a miracle, and - as do all miracles - it required a lot of effort and trust in God on our part.. There was a point where it just seemed like no matter what we did, we ran into a brick wall, but we kept trying, trusting that truly God wanted our investigator to receive the blessings of baptism. We followed the Spirit - and we saw the blessings!

It was truly a great week!

"Adversity is Necessary, Misery is Optional"

We had another great week!  We found more new investigators in these two weeks than I have found in my mission!  They have been fantastic!  We have seen so many little miracles and we have been blessed to work with wonderful less-active members who are willing to act, investigators who easily accept the invitations to pray about Joseph Smith and be baptized, and an absolutely fantastic ward that is sooooo mission minded, it doesn't seem possible.

Needless to say, I am very happy with where I am at right now.   I'm still learning so much every day!  Yesterday, my companion and I were able to go to a meeting where a general authority was present.  He said something that made me think a lot:

"Adversity is necessary, misery is optional...Our salvation is not dependent on whether or not someone loves us, but it is dependent on whether or not we loved them."

I know that no matter where we are in life, we always are given opportunities to make us happy.  It's up to us to take them and be grateful for what we have.

They're Finding Us!

Well, this week, it was a lot of fun!   We are trying to do what we as missionaries should be doing - finding and teaching new investigators, preparing them for baptism, the works....

BUT.........

The only people who really want to talk to us and spiritually progress right now are our less-active members who we didn't know existed until they came up and contacted us on the streets! They're also the only ones we can get to consistently come to church.  :)

I personally think it is a very good take on missionary work. Probably about 75% of the members in our area are less-active. The only problem is, we want to reach the goals we have set for  "investigators at church" and "members present at a lesson".

We're still working on a good balance between the two ;)

Well, this week was really successful when it comes to less-active work, and pretty okay when it comes to investigator work, so I say drop of awesome for us!

Lessons Learned!

Well, this week was really tiring, but really great!  My companion and I got this crazy idea to set really high goals for ourselves this week - higher than either one of us has hit in our entire missions!  Well, we worked our tails off, and ran into a ton of problems, and although we weren't able to hit all our goals, we learned some valuable lessons in the process.

1) It's hard to plan and balance time, but it's worth it!

Along with setting almost ridiculously high goals for ourselves, we also set goals to visit every one of our members and less-actives this week....and we have a lot.  We have to really be dedicated and focused on our goals because there is a lot of work to do and not very much time to do it.  One of the biggest reasons for not hitting our goals was because we didn't use our time as well as we could have.  But luckily we have this week to redo everything and fix the mistakes we made last week.  We already have appointments set with almost all of our members and we've identified others who are willing to meet with us and keep commitments!  Talk about golden members!

2) We need to simply focus on the basics

Having so many solid appointments in a day means we're planning lessons like crazy.  Sometimes I think that the next day's lessons are supposed to make our members and investigators make huge, leaping strides in their spiritual progress, making daily planning stressful, long, and exhausting!  But one thing I realized this week as I was reading "Act in Doctrine" by Elder David A. Bednar, was that our individual lessons don't need to be life-changing moments, but rather they just need to bring the Spirit.  Lots of subtle, spirit-filled moments go farther than huge, elaborate discourses.

This changed completely the focus of our lessons and the commitments we are having our members and investigators keep.  This week, we created a small Book of Mormon reading chart for all of them.  Every time they read and pray together as a family, they just check off a box for the day.  It only goes for a week, so they won't get tired of it and we promised them all a prize on Sunday if they can read every single day.  The kids are super excited for the challenge!

3) It's more important to love the investigators than to worry if you're doing everything right.

I think this is a lesson I still have yet to learn!  Often, I am so worried about if I am teaching well or if I am doing every little thing possible to get these investigators to baptism that I forget that these are people with their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.  We should really be helping these people get baptized because we love them, not loving them because we want them baptized.  Keeping this in mind has helped us more easily shift our focus to what is most important in this work: bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of our brothers and sisters (Moses 1:39)

Four New Investigators!

We found four new investigators this week - and all of them have baptismal dates!  That's always the best feeling.  Now we need to follow up with them everyday and helping them continue to learn about the gospel.  Two of our new investigators are members of one family.  They already love us!  The first day we met them, the mom introduced us to her kids. She was very proud to tell us that she had taught her little toddler to say some things in English like "Thank you" and "Bye" and "Excuse me!"  It was pretty dang cute.

Weekly Report - March 3

This week was great because we each of our goals, with the exception of one . The only goal we did not hit was "investigators" at church . We had everything lined up for our investigator family to go , but their ride to church "fell through".  We were in another town at the singles ward , so by the time we even found out there was a problem , it was too late to do anything about it . We were not super- happy about it , but there 's always next week!

On the bright side , we decided to pass the house of a part member family and were told that the non-member of the family wanted to be baptized ! ! : D: D: D Actually, this is my favorite family EVERRRRR ! So I'm really , really, really excited! : D: D: D The baptismal date in later on in March. Oh yeah , and we're planning a wedding for them! : D Hahahaa I am sooooooooo excited!

Also, we found out that the way in which the missionaries will  present the gospel will change. We received training in the new way of teaching . The zone leaders told us that we would need to change a lot, but when it was presented to us, there was not much changed . It's super fun because now we have to figure out this new way of missionary work; every contact is a trial and error run! It makes life interesting! :)

We're teaching this individual who has some interesting stories to tell us about his life . To help introduce the Book of Mormon , we shared the story of Nephi going to get the plates . Man, he ate that story up! He absolutely loved it! Periodically we'd stop to ask him how he'd feel if he were in the same situation as Nephi and his brothers . The insights he was giving were so unique . When we told him about Laban throwing Laman out and trying to kill him , we asked him how he would feel and he starts saying  "it 's one thing to mess with me , but when It 's with my family , That crosses the line! " Long story short  he really, really, really liked it . Telling him about  Nephi killing Laban was a bit interesting haha ! The scriptures teach us valuable lessons so y'all better read them! ;)

I'll Come to Church!

We met this guy in the neighborhood.  He told us that he has stories about his life that we are just "too young to hear." After talking for awhile, he said he wanted to come to church, but then he didn't come.  He called us up apologizing over and over for not coming.  He said that the day before we met him, he had been talking to his friend saying that he wanted to get closer to God.  Cue nosotras!  We have a return appointment with him.

Praying for Direction From God!

We found some solid new investigators this week, all of which have baptismal dates.  They all have great desires to act, and they are all willing and ready to learn.  We now have more investigators than we've found in a long time!

One of the investigators told us that the night before she met us, she had been praying to know which direction God wanted her to go.  Then, we showed up.  She is looking for the right church.  We taught her the Restoration.  She is so willing!  I love it!