Short story long: the lord blessed us with 5 new investigators in a
drought of investigators in the zone. I rebuked my leaders for
rebuking me unjustly and based on false doctrine and earned their
respect for standing true to the principles of the gospel doctrine. My
investigators had a good time at church being spiritually and
temporally fed.
Funny times: Elder Robertson and I on our exchange had a funny moment.
I was tired of the same old conversations on the street so I set out
to teach the law of chastity. I stopped a group of 3 guys and had a
small 12-minute lesson with them on the street and taught them the
doctrine, gave them a pamphlet, but unfortunately no return
appointment. It was hilarious but also spirit filled. He didn't think
it could be done, but through the Lord, all things can be done
Frustrating times: we went to ward council and like always they blamed
everything on the missionaries and someone openly said they don't
want to talk to our investigators. Elder mora and I are planning a
culture change and we are going to be uber prepared this next week
ward council and we are going to hold them accountable for their
transgressions.
Long story long: starting off at the beginning of the week, we had
zone conference on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun seeing elder chu again
and my old district, catching up and following up on investigators I
left behind. Zone conference is always an amazing spiritual experience
along with really informative and instructional on what we could be
doing to improve our missionary work. We always play a game called
"MIND THE GAP" which is just a program to help you learn the PMG
points of teaching the lessons. I accidently rebuked my AP for messing
up on the gap point in front of the three zones attending (but he did
rebuke me first trying to correct my already correct GAP point), I
felt bad and apologized later on. But I earned some respect for
memorizing the GAP points and standing true to the truth. The day was
used up by them with other missionary meetings in Britannia. Wednesday
we ground hard in street contacting, with little avail. We were doing
12 weeks at the end of the day(a training aid for new missionaries
that last their first two transfers, or 12 weeks), we were waiting for
an appointment with an investigator that didn't confirm their
appointment and had a history of not showing up. When we were doing
that a woman, name Hudanar walked up to us with the visiting center
sisters and asked us to teach her. To my surprise in the first time in
my life, I was speechless. In asking only a few questions a few months
she had already been taught everything and actually was about to be
baptized but due to some family pressures dropped out. She
investigated a few other churches but circled back around because
this was the only church she found peace in. We read and taught her
from the Book of Mormon and she became a new investigator, she
actually came to church as well but that is further down in the email.
Thursday we went on exchanges and I was with elder Robertson, an
English man who has lived in Germany for most of his accountable life.
We had a very ambitious day planned ahead of us when we stopped this
man on the street named Tom. He like every Common English citizen in
their twenties is more atheist than agnostic. We talked about god and
his purpose and plan for us. The conversation went nowhere, but like
PMG say "rarely of ever should you have a conversation without leaving
a commitment" so we invited him to meet with us with little
expectation to get an appointment. But to our surprise, he wanted to
meet just 2 hours later. We set the appointment and reset our plans,
planned for him and were ready to go. He came and we attempted to
teach him, again he disagreed with every point of doctrine and he
denied the existence of god. The spirit was there as elder Robertson
and I boldly testified about god and his love for us. We didn't ask
for a return appointment or anything really, but he asked if we could
meet again and bring his friend as well. So we are meeting him again
today actually. That will be an interesting one. Moving on to Friday,
we were able to meet with this girl elder mora and I stopped at the
beginning of the transfer, an English student who doubles as a model.
We never expected to meet her or teach her, she was very interested in
the formation of the church. We originally planned for the plan of
salvation, but I was prompted due to her interest to change and talk
about the restoration of the restored gospel through Joseph smith and
elaborate more on the importance of the Book of Mormon. She was
delightful and we are meeting her again this Wednesday. On Saturday we
were given a list of 12 people who are now less active or inactive in
the church, so we set out to track them down. We were given this
assignment because of the nature of the ward, people just come in for
short periods of time and aren't able to willing to tell the ward
where to send the records. We traveled and knocked on each of their
doors, and none of them were home. But it was informative to know if
someone lives there or they don't which we were able to acquire from
their neighbors ( If I'm traveling to you flat which is an hour away
I'm knocking your neighbors flat). Elder Mora, was born and raised in
Britannia, which means he has never knocked a door in his life. We
were in a neighborhood on the outskirts of London, and I thought why
not give him that experience ( we don't knock doors because to be
honest, YSA doesn't own flats, houses, or anything really; so it isn't an
effective use of time. But we had some time and I wanted to see him do
it. We knock a door according to how the spirit guided elder mora, and
a YSA guy opened and we had a good conversation about doctrine. Then
he invites us in ( I've only been invited in once before this), and we
talk about the need of a modern day prophet to guide us through times
of tribulation. He became a new investigator. He also wanted to play
need for speed with us but we politely declined. Sunday our friend
Hudanar ( hope you haven't forgotten her at this point) came to church!
She had a very good time seeing old friends, and she is very confident
and introduced herself to everyone! She almost left early bc she was
very hungry, but another investigator of the church brought a bunch of
sushi for the missionaries. So we are sushi in the kitchen with her
and another investigator named Angus. It was kind of fun just us
hanging out eating sushi during the intermission between classes, our
district leader tried to rebuke me over it. But she was actually going
to go home and eat, so when I said that There was sushi she had no
excuse to leave. I feel bad for rebuking him over that actually😂.
That was my week and I hope you survived to get this far
No comments:
Post a Comment