October 7, 2013

Dear folks,

Conference was really good, we got to watch it at a members house as well so it was pretty nice. There is a lot of stuff changing now, and a lot of things that will change here at the start of next year.  The Lord is definitely hastening his work. 

This week has gone by pretty well. We had a lot of meetings to go to that were pretty interesting. We had a Zone Conference with a couple other Zones and President H outlined something called the "Willing and Brief" invitation which we are super excited about. As of late, membership participation in the work hasn't been as good as we would like it to be but this new invitation really simplifies member missionary work and makes it pretty easy to do. You should ask the missionaries there if they have heard of it yet and if they haven't, I would be happy to send them a copy of it, it really is a fantastic program.

Basically, it just invites members to ask their friends and family if they "would be WILLING to listen to a BRIEF presentation about (Insert Gospel Topic)? The presentation will be given by two (Insert Positive Adjective) missionaries and can be given in your own home if you would like."

It's pretty simple and has been very effective in the area's it's been tried in and we are excited about it. Our Stake President has approved us taking the 3rd our in an up coming Sunday to do a presentation about it.

Elder Hh and I are still getting a long great. We made a decision to try to be as obedient as we can and as a result we ended up handing over a lot of our investigators to the other set of missionaries in our ward because technically they were not in our area. That really hit us hard, but we have put a lot more effort into talking to everyone we meet. President promised that we would be blessed for it, so we are doing our best. Also, this "Willing and Brief" invitation should bring a lot more success as well, especially with the youth in the ward, which are absolutely fantastic at doing member missionary work.

Other than that, General Conference was great, we enjoyed it. It definitely hammered in missionary work a lot. We also enjoyed the Priesthood session when President Monson hammered in the importance of home teaching. How good a ward is at doing home teaching is really the best indicator of how well a ward is going to do missionary work. If they can't even visit their own members, they probably will not reach out to non-members. Home teaching really is an inspired program, and it is something I plan on making a priority when I get home.

I hope you guys have a good week.

Here are some pictures that Elder Jacob is in, that were posted on the mission blog this last week... Can you find him? (I'll give you a hint... he's the handsome one ;) hee hee)

 

 

The rest of the family argued with me on this image, they didn't recognize him because his hair is so light, short and he's so tan. But I would know my child anywhere. Do you recognize him? 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30, 2013

Dear Folks,

I saw the pictures, those are ridiculously huge pumpkins. I'm glad the garden is doing well. I hope things go well with your doctor stuff. Did something happen to Joy or is it just as a precaution? I hope she is ok and that things get figured out I'm glad things are going pretty well up there. Sure, I can take the cook book, it would be pretty helpful to have. I will try, so far I haven't been able to figure out how to send pictures home because they are apparently too big, I will try to though, I don't have my camera with me today. Elder Hh is from Texas. He has been out for about 9 months. We get along pretty well and are staying busy.

Sorry I didn't write last week, not much has happened. We have been working hard on getting more investigators, but that is proving to be difficult. The ward isn't super helpful with it, so we spend a lot of time street contacting and tracting now. Most of the people we are working with on a regular basis are less-actives. All the investigators we have are struggling to overcome some sort of addiction or another and all the ones we have that could be baptized are struggling with their families being vehemently against it, which is pretty frustrating. Nothing much has really happened in the last couple weeks, it's pretty much been the same old same old. We have been talking to a lot of people on the streets, though, that seems to be the most effective thing at the moment. Most people either ignore you or tell you to go away but if someone lets you start to talk, the spirit always testifies to them in some way and they usually start to ask questions, but most of the time it usually only goes that far but you never know what seeds you planted because of it.

I love you and hope you guys have a good week.