Hello Family and Friends,
Man this week was a busy week. We had a bunch a bunch of new investigators. 14 to be exact and 3 of them are families. Things here in Manvel are going well. We are getting our goal of 20 sitdowns and 70 oyms every week, and this week we had 25 sitdowns and 15 of them were investigator lessons. It was awesome!
The thing that I have learned this week is the importance of the members in the work. We had a great week for teaching but none of the people we taught this week came to church. You want to know why? We had 1 member lesson. Yes, I know it takes two to tango, and we need to do better with the inviting members part. But I have learned the importance of members in the work. When you invite a member to come and teach with you, the investigator gets to see that people of our religion are normal. They get to hear of the wonderful testimonies and experiences that the members have and they will feel more comfortable coming to church. So, my challenge to anyone who reads this letter this week is to call the missionaries and tell them a day that you want to come out with them. It will be awesome and the members always say that they always feel like its a hassle to come out but when its done they feel good and enjoy the experiences that they had with the investigators.
We got a call from our district leader that there is a hurricane warning. Pretty crazy! I hope another one does not hit Galveston again. That wouldn't be good. We ate dinner at a member's house the other day and they asked how long I had been out and I told them 11 months. Pretty crazy! Almost over the hill. It doesn't feel like it has been that long, but when I look back at all the people and places I have met, I realize that it really has been a long time.
We had zone meeting this week and our mission president gave a really neat talk on discipleship at the end of the zone conference, and he said some really neat things. He said that the path to discipleship is a path that you cannot stay still on. You are always moving forward or backwards. He said that there are ways to know how you are doing on your path to discipleship. I didn't bring my notes with me but I will do my best to remember the key points.
First he said consider your personal study of the scriptures. Is it the time of the day where you feast on the words of Christ or is it a time where you merely read through the scriptures. Personal study should be when we dive deeply in the principles of the gospel and it should be a time of the day when the spirit is teaching us.
The second was to consider your obedience. And he talked about be obedient to the inforcible. Meaning, being obedient to the things that people won't always notice. But the things and promises that you have made with God. For instance, some examples I can think of are your thoughts, or lying. Just submitting everything to the Lord, submitting your will to the Lord because that is really the only thing we can truly give.
The third that I can remember is consecration (or perfect use of the Lord's time). He said that how are you using the Lord's time, how are your conversations with your companions; are they conversations that will bring the spirit or are they the opposite.
I know there is one more but I can't thing of it right now.
President has been talking a lot with me about my studies and has been trying to get me to take my studies to a new level and he has been giving me topics to study. One is taking on the name of Christ and he gave me Mosiah 5 and Alma 5 to read. Another topic was about D&C 11:30; I'm pretty sure that's the scripture. It's about becoming a son or daughter of God. So those are topics that I have been running with the past couple of months and it has helped me to have a great experience while studying.
Have a good week everyone. Next week, I think I will touch on the importance of sacrament meeting.
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