Friday, February 17, 2017

Hello everybody!
I enjoyed this week. It sure was a lot of fun! There was quite a bit of training involved as well. We had a world wide missionary broadcast for 2 hours, then an 8 hour zone conference on Friday. If you have not heard yet there was a couple big changes to missionary work throughout the world. 1st change was the missionary schedule. Before schedule was: 6:30-7:00 wake up, pray, exercise. 7-8 eat and get ready, 8-9 personal study, 9-10 companionship study.  10am-9pm proselyte with 2 hours for lunch and dinner. 9-9:30 plan, 9:30-10:30 get ready and go to bed. The new schedule is a lot more free and our choice when to do things but between 6:30-10:00 we must accomplish exercise 30 mins, personal study 1 hour, planning 30 minutes, then 10am-9:00pm you must accomplish proselyting, 30 minutes comp study, 30 min lunch and 1 hour dinner.   From 9-9:30 write in your journal, 9:30-10:30 get ready and go to bed.  Pdays also start at 8am and go till 6:pm rather than 10am-6pm. It is really neat. It gives a lot more options and choices as to how you use your schedule.
The second big change is we used to track 9 key indicators of:  baptism, confirmation, on date, at church, member present lessons, other lessons, progressing, referrals received and contacted, new investigators, and less active or recent convert lessons. Now we only track b+c, on date, church, and new investigators. It really is quite nice.
Laura Smith is continuing to do amazing. She is studying a lot and has been to church 3x now, please pray for her that she will receive a witness that these things are true! Also that Greg(boyfriend) will not hold her back but continue to press forward with her.
Our new investigator Eva is amazing. She is from Africa and is real elect! She has been reading and praying. We called to set up a time and set 2 appointments this week. She called back a couple minutes later and said she is coming to church Sunday and will bring a friend. SO COOL!
Hope you all have a great week. Love you all.
Good morning! I hope everybody's week has been as great as mine. I enjoyed it a lot. :)
This past week was a blast. So much is happenning so I will give a couple highlights:
1) Missionary work is taking a new focus at working with youth/young adults ages 14-25 as this age of people is still open minded and more sensitive to the spirit. They have many friends, and they are at an age where they are still deciding what to do in life and are looking for direction. One of the ways we are going to be doing this is through social media! What??? Thats right. Sharing the gospel through social media. Its pretty tough, all you need to do is take a picture or write a scripture or quote etc... and post it on your facebook. Or if you are really daring, you may take a picture with the missionaries and post it on Instagram. ;) I would challenge all of you to share the gospel in some way over s.m. this week. The gospel is important. It is true and it changes lives!
2) We had our first appt. with Eva after giving her a Book of Mormon a week ago. She is doing great! Guess what page she is on... 521. :D Holy Goodness thats a miracle! She has had it 1 1/2 weeks tops. She believes it to be true, committed herself to come to church this week and is wanting to be baptized. We will be extending a date to her this week.
3) Laura is still pressing forward and being incredible! She keeps all of her commitments and then asks for more. She has been diligently studying and praying and pondering. We had a lesson with her this past week and with President Welch and Sister Jones another night. Both lessons were powerful. I have no doubt she will receive a personal witness and soon be wanting to follow Christ into the waters of Baptism.
I hope you have a great week. Love you all!
This week was a blast! Our investigators we are working with are doing outstanding. Laura, Eva, Rasheen and Anna are all keeping their commitments and progressing. They are excited about and loving the gospel. It is so much fun. We also found a few new people to teach this week. One of which is a part member family from Camaroon. We may be playing soccer or speed ball with one of them later.
I just want to bear a quick testimony on the Book of Mormon. I know it is true and I know it contains the word of God. In it is contained the fullness of the Everlasting gospel. The only way to Eternal Life and lasting happiness in this life and the next. If we read it regularly, as commanded by God, and hearken to its teachings, Christ will change us to become as he is. I know it is true. I know it was translated by Joseph Smith who was and is a prophet called by God. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.