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| My companion Sister Poulson and I on a P-day |
My companion
and I became the second set of sisters in this ward (so there are
now 4 sisters here). This past week, we broke up the area into two
halves, with them keeping their old investigators and with us starting
fresh. We met with our ward mission leader and bishop this past week,
both of whom expressed excitement for my greenie "fire," but who said
that the ward mission process just doesn't work and that the ward isn't
functioning very well as far as missionary work goes. So, we took the
names of people they told us to visit plus the old potential
investigators written in our area book (not many) and went to work
seeking them out. Our area is one of the wealthiest in the nation and,
perhaps partially because of that, are NOT very receptive.
Because we had some less-than
warm encounters, it was a little intimidating to go talk to people after
a bit. We were walking up to a house and Sister Poulson said, "Ok, this
time you testify of the Book of Mormon" which was in my hand. He didn't
really want to talk to us, but I still held up the Book and said that I
knew that it was another testimony of Jesus Christ and the cornerstone
of our religion, and that he could get closer to God by reading it than
by any other book. Something like that. He didn't want to talk to us and
I don't think I changed his life. In a way, that's what was powerful
for me: his level of interest or receptiveness didn't change my
testimony or the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It was great.
I studied
about patience and charity for personal study the next morning, because I
realized that is something I kind of needed if I wanted to develop
happy friendly relationships within the ward. We
almost cornered the elders quorum president, Brother Wall that day, and he threw
out the name of a family who hadn't been to church in years, the _____. They were well known in the community because he was a loved ____, so his sudden somewhat antagonistic feelings towards
the church is still surprising to a lot of people. Right after talking
with Brother Wall, we called him up. They invited us over!
Also, Brother Bartelt, our
ward mission leader, half-heartedly said to visit Brother _____ and
his family, the previous ward missionary who also suddenly stopped going
to church. We called him and he invited us over! We announced this in
PEC yesterday and I think everyone was pretty surprised. Brother Bartelt
told us that after PEC, the bishop cornered him and said, "We've
got to get the ward mission process amped up for those girls!" The big
broadcast was all about that, so that further motivated Brother Bartelt.
We met with him again and he is ready to go. He's still not really sure
how to go about it, but we have more names and are moving forward!
The Sunday broadcast was all
about the above ward mission involvement. If I do not go home with
anything else from my mission, I will come home being a good ward
missionary! Having members who invite their friends to hear the message
changes everything and is so much more effective. Member involvement is
crucial. Get working on the people you know who are not members or less
active!
We gave a tour to a Young Women's group last week. It was so fun. We had them with us for about an
hour and had had no time to plan or anything, but the Spirit just takes
over and works through us, gives us the things we should say right when
we need it, like it says in the Doctrine and Covenants. I just have learned to be worthy
and prepared to have the Spirit by doing everything I should, and then
Heavenly Father does the rest. Plus, we have a lot of good displays and
little film clips.
Life is good. Some of us VC Sisters went to the coast and shopping
today for pday. It was so weird being at the mall! I really had to
control myself from dancing to the music they play haha. It was a weird
feeling.
Love,
Seester Shmoots
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