Well, I have a lot of good things to report on this week, and a few not so good things. We will start off with the good first. Monday night we met with Maggie W, and taught her the Plan of Salvation, she had had questions about the kingdoms, and so we were able to walk her through it. We hit a lot on the Atonement, and how much God loves us. She is in a delicate spot right now, and needed that assurance. Her parents were a great help with the lesson, sharing their own insights, and testimonies.
Tuesdays mission tour was a neat experience. Elder Richards talking about teaching the pure and simple doctrine gave me a new focus in my studies. This last week I have taken time to summarize the essential truth from each point in the lessons. I have also been doing that with my patriarchal blessing, looking at what it is talking about, and praying about how I can obtain the blessing. I have received a lot of personal revelation as I have done so. It has been really cool to see just how willing our Father in Heaven is to teach and instruct us. After the mission tour was over we went and knocked on some doors. We knocked on only five before our dinner, and the last door we knocked on we were able to give away a Book of Mormon, and get a follow-up appointment for this week. We had one of our teaching opportunities fall through that night, so we were able to attend the open house planning meeting. Our building was just redone, and they are having an open house in October. It was going to be on the 12th, but they moved it back a week to the 19th so I'll miss it.
Wednesday's exciting moment was our weekly coordination meeting, we are changing the way we run it, to make it more like a district meeting, and we put that into effect this week. We are starting with a basic agenda; business items, accounting, a spiritual thought, and a training and practice. For our first training and practice we taught about extending invitations, and this next week we are going to start going through the lessons to help them know how to teach. Our goal is to get our ward missionaries involved, and have them teach collectively as much as we do. The ward missionaries are really excited about it, and happy that they are going to receive training on what to do.
Thursday we had an exchange with Elders Burton and McMullin. I was with Elder McMullin in my area. We were able to teach Don, the restoration, and we were also able to set up lessons with a new family, the Aghos, they are less active, and were very receptive to having us in their home. Just before dinner we knocked on a few more doors, and we were able to give away another Book of Mormon, and get a follow up visit. We were also able to set up lessons with the Larsen family.
Friday we spent the morning doing service with the Walkers, and afterwards brother Walker told me to be careful around Maggie, because she likes me too much. After that conversation Elder Barrow wouldn't even talk to me for a couple hours. We went and saw the Olsens, and after that he warmed up. The Olsens are always an uplifting couple to visit. He is coming back into activity, and she was baptized a couple years ago. We are going to start reading the Book of Mormon with him, to help him 1, get in the habit, and 2, be able to quit drinking. That night we taught sister West, which he had told me earlier in the week he didn't want to teach her. The lesson didn't turn out very well I don't think. He kind of blew through it, skipped points, and I tried to reteach things that he missed, but couldn't get all of it without just entirely starting over. Part of the purpose in teaching members is to gain their confidence in your teaching ability, and I'm not sure if that lesson accomplished that design.
Saturday we were supposed to help re-roof a member's house, but instead Elder Barrow slept in until 12, and I had gotten, up, but ended up falling back asleep as well. It started off the day on a bad note. The Spirit wasn't there, and I found myself getting angry at Elder Barrow. We ended up getting into an argument, which of course did nothing but make things worse. I apologized, and asked for forgiveness, and he did the same. We are on much better terms now, but I feel that our work for that day suffered a lot. That night we were supposed to have a missionary fireside, but it hadn't been announced very well, so we are going to reschedule it, instead we just talked with our bishop about the wards vision. He has been receiving a lot of revelation, and is going to start doing a lot more things to help accomplish this vision of splitting the ward.
Sunday in our ward council we revisited the ward mission process, or the focus 5. We went through and thought about who to invite, and I explained how the program is supposed to work, and then we made assignment for invitations. By the end of the day we had three people invited to take the lessons, and they all said yes. It was a big success. Maggie came to church, and her parents were so happy to see her there. It was rewarding to see a family being brought together again. There is still a long way to go, but things are moving in the right direction. Maggie agreed to take the rest of the discussions, and we are going to start teaching tonight, hopefully Summer is able to sit in as well. This could lead to a baptism, we are pretty excited. I talked with her a little about what Bill said, and she was pretty upfront about it. I told her that there is no way I am doing anything as a missionary, and that if she really wanted she could wait a couple months, and we'd talk about it, but right now I'm not going there. I never expected something like that to happen on my mission, and I hope that she keeps her end of the deal and waits. If she doesn't, and keeps flirting, I am going to ask to be transferred.
Elder Barrow has been really depressed recently as well, I have been able to see it in his moodiness, and irritability, that is one of the causes of our fight. I talked about it with him, and he doesn't have any plan for changing it, he is just going to "deal with it". I don't like seeing him that way, because I know that a mission is going to be torture if you are depressed. He thinks that he isn't where he is supposed to be serving, and that maybe he should be serving spanish instead. I'm not sure what you want to do, but he is going to talk to president tonight. We are working on loving each other, and I hope that in my next report I will be able to report a success with that. I want to love my companion, not argue with him.
Tuesdays mission tour was a neat experience. Elder Richards talking about teaching the pure and simple doctrine gave me a new focus in my studies. This last week I have taken time to summarize the essential truth from each point in the lessons. I have also been doing that with my patriarchal blessing, looking at what it is talking about, and praying about how I can obtain the blessing. I have received a lot of personal revelation as I have done so. It has been really cool to see just how willing our Father in Heaven is to teach and instruct us. After the mission tour was over we went and knocked on some doors. We knocked on only five before our dinner, and the last door we knocked on we were able to give away a Book of Mormon, and get a follow-up appointment for this week. We had one of our teaching opportunities fall through that night, so we were able to attend the open house planning meeting. Our building was just redone, and they are having an open house in October. It was going to be on the 12th, but they moved it back a week to the 19th so I'll miss it.
Wednesday's exciting moment was our weekly coordination meeting, we are changing the way we run it, to make it more like a district meeting, and we put that into effect this week. We are starting with a basic agenda; business items, accounting, a spiritual thought, and a training and practice. For our first training and practice we taught about extending invitations, and this next week we are going to start going through the lessons to help them know how to teach. Our goal is to get our ward missionaries involved, and have them teach collectively as much as we do. The ward missionaries are really excited about it, and happy that they are going to receive training on what to do.
Thursday we had an exchange with Elders Burton and McMullin. I was with Elder McMullin in my area. We were able to teach Don, the restoration, and we were also able to set up lessons with a new family, the Aghos, they are less active, and were very receptive to having us in their home. Just before dinner we knocked on a few more doors, and we were able to give away another Book of Mormon, and get a follow up visit. We were also able to set up lessons with the Larsen family.
Friday we spent the morning doing service with the Walkers, and afterwards brother Walker told me to be careful around Maggie, because she likes me too much. After that conversation Elder Barrow wouldn't even talk to me for a couple hours. We went and saw the Olsens, and after that he warmed up. The Olsens are always an uplifting couple to visit. He is coming back into activity, and she was baptized a couple years ago. We are going to start reading the Book of Mormon with him, to help him 1, get in the habit, and 2, be able to quit drinking. That night we taught sister West, which he had told me earlier in the week he didn't want to teach her. The lesson didn't turn out very well I don't think. He kind of blew through it, skipped points, and I tried to reteach things that he missed, but couldn't get all of it without just entirely starting over. Part of the purpose in teaching members is to gain their confidence in your teaching ability, and I'm not sure if that lesson accomplished that design.
Saturday we were supposed to help re-roof a member's house, but instead Elder Barrow slept in until 12, and I had gotten, up, but ended up falling back asleep as well. It started off the day on a bad note. The Spirit wasn't there, and I found myself getting angry at Elder Barrow. We ended up getting into an argument, which of course did nothing but make things worse. I apologized, and asked for forgiveness, and he did the same. We are on much better terms now, but I feel that our work for that day suffered a lot. That night we were supposed to have a missionary fireside, but it hadn't been announced very well, so we are going to reschedule it, instead we just talked with our bishop about the wards vision. He has been receiving a lot of revelation, and is going to start doing a lot more things to help accomplish this vision of splitting the ward.
Sunday in our ward council we revisited the ward mission process, or the focus 5. We went through and thought about who to invite, and I explained how the program is supposed to work, and then we made assignment for invitations. By the end of the day we had three people invited to take the lessons, and they all said yes. It was a big success. Maggie came to church, and her parents were so happy to see her there. It was rewarding to see a family being brought together again. There is still a long way to go, but things are moving in the right direction. Maggie agreed to take the rest of the discussions, and we are going to start teaching tonight, hopefully Summer is able to sit in as well. This could lead to a baptism, we are pretty excited. I talked with her a little about what Bill said, and she was pretty upfront about it. I told her that there is no way I am doing anything as a missionary, and that if she really wanted she could wait a couple months, and we'd talk about it, but right now I'm not going there. I never expected something like that to happen on my mission, and I hope that she keeps her end of the deal and waits. If she doesn't, and keeps flirting, I am going to ask to be transferred.
Elder Barrow has been really depressed recently as well, I have been able to see it in his moodiness, and irritability, that is one of the causes of our fight. I talked about it with him, and he doesn't have any plan for changing it, he is just going to "deal with it". I don't like seeing him that way, because I know that a mission is going to be torture if you are depressed. He thinks that he isn't where he is supposed to be serving, and that maybe he should be serving spanish instead. I'm not sure what you want to do, but he is going to talk to president tonight. We are working on loving each other, and I hope that in my next report I will be able to report a success with that. I want to love my companion, not argue with him.
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