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?