James letter 8-19-13

This last week was a great one, and I feel that things are going to get even better as we do a few things to change our work, and as the members in our ward get behind us. We spent most of our time this week working with less active and part member families in our ward, there are a lot of them. We went through the ward list and selected families to go see, both active and not, and went out. As a result we were able to get in with a couple less actives that we had not been able to previously. 

Tuesday we had our weekly splits with the ward, and while Elder Barrow went out with brother Branchard to teach the Barletts, I went with brother Palmer to see his home teaching families. Our first visit was very productive. We caught the family in the middle of a birthday party, and found out that they had actually moved, and were just there for the party. They invited us in and shared the cake. They asked me about my mission and I was able to share with them some of my stories from my time in downtown Portland. They got a kick out of them. The members son and his wife were there, and neither of them were members, I think we left a good impression on them. We were also able to see the West family, part of whom are less active. Elder Barrow and I had decided that we were going to start teaching active members, so they have experiences to share with their friends when inviting, it is also less threatening when you are invited to someone elses lessons, and its not focused on you. We were able to set up an appointment with sister West, the active member, and we hope that as we teach her we will be able to reach her family as well. 

Wednesday we had brother Blanchard come with us to see Dirk. It was a great visit, the two of them hit it right off. They talked about their military experiences, and then brother Blanchard invited him to take the lessons, and have his wife sit in. It was a perfect invitation, born of love, and it flowed naturally. That is that way it should be done. Dirk agreed to take the lessons, but he doesn't want to invite his wife until she has their baby in October, because she is under a lot of stress. We also set up an appointment with the McMurays. The best part of the day though is when we stopped by the Walkers. Their daughter was there, and she is going through a really hard time right now. We were able to listen to her, and then she started asking us a bunch of questions about the church. She had told us a little while ago she wasn't interested, and then she had a sudden interest. We answered her questions, and as we talked the Walkers nonmember granddaughter, who also has expressed disinterested, listened in. 

Thursday we met with Don. We taught him the Gospel, and we drew a diagram of how it works to help his memory. He is wanting to go to the temple, but is a long way from that. He doesn't have a very good foundation yet, but it will come. We also had our correlation meeting, and made plans for an upcoming missionary fireside. We are going to run it like a district meeting, where we train them on using mormon.org to share the gospel, and then have them practice. We are also going to start running our correlation like a district meeting as well, so that we can train our ward missionaries how to find and teach. We are getting a lot of ward missionaries called, and we are going to train them just like we are trained, so that they can do everything we can do. 

Friday our district meeting was focused on using the areabook to find people to teach. It was a good refresher on how to use all of the tools at our disposal. We were able to stop by the Mayhew family, and get in and teach a message about the Book of Mormon. They are a part member family, and she said that her husband is warming up to the church. We don't have a set return with them, but are going to follow up in a few weeks. 

Saturday at our dinner we asked who they knew that we could teach. They listed off a bunch of names, and then said that they had invited them before, and they said no. He then talked about how we needed to take care of who we have before we get anymore, and that if we do that the Lord will take care of us. It reminded me of a nondenominational christian, who believes that you don't have to do anything to get the reward. We wrote down all the names he said, and after dinner we went to see one of them. They let us right in, and we got to know them. When we left they gave us homemade jam to take home, and invited us back. It was cool to see that peoples hearts change, and they are ready at different times. If we hadn't stopped by though, we may never have known that they were ready, because the members wouldn't try again. No matter how many times they have been invited before, they may choose now to accept, even though they have rejected it in the past. 

Sunday during sacrament I was reading through the D&C, and in section 11:24 I found a cool scripture. It says Build upon my rock, which is my gospel. I thought about that, and how I could do that, and then I had set it as a vision for myself with the first four steps of the gospel as pillars, and things under those as tactics to accomplish those. I now have a detailed plan on how to live the Gospel. Our bishop gave a talk, and he was talking about vision, and he announced to the ward the Lord's vision to split the ward in two years, and what we need to do to accomplish it. He also called two new ward missionaries, with several more on the way. Things here are moving, and pretty soon all of the members are going to get it, and the work will explode. It is only a matter of time. 

Love Elder Schultz