Note the time and location to the right of when Jeff will be speaking in sacrament meeting.
This week our teaching pool got thinned out a little bit again. We had quite a few people that we had been teaching these last few weeks, but we dropped a few/were dropped by a few. The one that needed the plumbing done has dropped us for now until she gets things straightened out at her house. Another one that we had been teaching for several months, we finally dropped, because she was just not willing to leave behind her Catholic beliefs. That family was a hard one to drop, because we had been teaching them for such a long time.
We are still teaching [Recent Convert's] brother. He is still progressing really well, he has read a lot in the Book of Mormon, and has come to church twice. He has a baptismal date for the 11th of Feb. and it looks like he's going to make it.
I went on exchanges with the zone leaders this week. I went to their area, so I got to take a break for a while from having to be in charge.
I can't really thing of anything else too exciting that happened this week.
Did the sister get her plumbing fixed and did she get situated in her trailer?
Not quite yet, it's moving along slowly. we taught her on Tuesday, and it was quite the situation. She doesn't have power or water in the house, and she was having a hard time getting the power set up. one of the members came with us to a lesson and told her a few things to get the power set up, and it looks like it was going to work. She was just having problems with getting the electricity inspected. We haven't really been able to teach her that much this week, I think we'll still just have to wait until she gets everything fixed with the trailer before we can start teaching her. But once we start teaching her, she should be able to get baptized within a couple of weeks.
We've been teaching [recent convert's] brother. He's been doing really well. He came to church, he's been reading in the book of mormon (He's already to about chapter 8 of the book of mormon) and he has a baptismal date for the 11th of february, and I'm about 100% sure that he'll get baptized that day.
This week for district meeting Pres. Cotterall came to our district mtg. I thought that origionally he was going to teach the district meeting, but then I got a voicmal a couple of days before saying that I had to teach the district meeting. So it was a little intimidating with him there as well as the zone leaders. But overall it went well.
This week we had a really good week. We have a lot of people that we are beginning to teach (we find them just right when it's time to leave...figures...). I told you about Alma, the one the moved recently and can now come to church. We haven't been able to teach her quite yet, because she's still getting situated in her new house, but she did come to church. she's working on getting the plumbing done in the house so that she can move in all the way, so were going to see if we can find someone that can help her with that, because i don't think we will be able to teach her untill she gets that all straightened out.
[New convert] (the one that got baptized recently) has a brother, that we began teaching recently. We taught him for the second time yesterday, and it looks like everything should go well for him. He did the reading assignment, and said that he would come to church this Sunday.
On Sunday we taught the sister of one of the members. She showed us where she lived and introduced us to her and we taught her. It was kind of interesting though, because we had eaten dinner with a member before hand, but then we went with the member and followed the member that gave us the referral to the house. When we got there, they were eating dinner, so we had to eat some pasta, a tamale, and some pan [bread]. I didn't want to say no, because that's offensive and we wanted to gain their trust so that she would be more receptive to what we taught. So we ate it, but I was stuffed. But the lesson went well, and I talked to the member the next day, and she said that her sister liked what we taught.
There were also a few old investigators that we found in the area book that we got up with this week, and are probably going to start teaching. so we'll see how it goes with that.
On new years eve, we didn't really do too much. had some lessons that we taught, and then we got back home, planned, and went to bed.
So I just talked to you a few days ago, so I don't have too much to say. However in these last few days (2 days) there have been soo many things coming out of the woodwork, that it's amazing. We have three or four member referrals that we should be teaching within this next week or two, and we had a really awesome miracle last night.
There was an investigator that we stopped teaching just when I got here, because she got a job and didn't have time to visit with us or go to church. She was on track for baptism and had been taught everthing. it wasn't that she just lost interest, but more of that she literally couldn't come to church, she had to work to survive, so we dropped her for a while, but we have been trying to stay in contact with her and we stop by every once in a while when we are near her house. last night we stopped by and she was there. She told us that she is going to move today to another house in the same city, so we're going to help her move tonight. The trailer that she is going to live in was given to her, so she doesn't have to pay rent anymore because it's her house. so she quit her job, and has another job lined up that should allow her to be able to come to church again, and she said that she would be at church this sunday and she still wants to be baptized!
So, other than that not too much has happened since Sunday. I got the package. Thank you!!
We had a fairly good week this week, we are still teaching [sister investigator], and it's about the same situation with her, were still trying to help her come to know that the Book of Mormon is true. She's keeping the majority of her commitments, but is having difficulties leaving behind her old beliefs.
Si this last week we started planning a family history seminar (in Spanish) for Jan. 21st. I have never really used family history as a finding idea, but I was reviewing the talk by Elder David A Bednar [click Elder Bednar's name to see the talk] from general conference where he talked about family history, and I also thought about grandma ruby's conversion, so I thought maybe it might be a good Idea. The plan is to have the members come and invite their friends, and we will also invite people that we find. in the class we will teach about why we do family history and how to do it. We just barely came up with the idea, but we decided that if we were going to do it, that we better start advertising right away, so we got a flyer put together this week and got a lot of plans put in place for it.
We had quite a surprise on Tuesday. Tuesday was transfers, and we thought that elder Jensen (the one that did the mini mission) was going to stay. But we got a call from the APs and the zone leaders on Tuesday afternoon while we were in a lesson. So we called them back, and they said that the new missionary was on his way and would be at our apartment in half an hour. so we hurried back to the apartment to wait for him, (because the English elders were out at an appointment and weren't answering their phone).
We had the Christmas zone conference this last week (you saw the video of it). it was good, the first half of the day, we had training on "the Doctrine of Christ" and then we did the singing. [Scroll down to see last week's post with the video]
Here is a video of Elder Compton and his zone singing for the Christmas zone conference. You can also see it by clicking here.
We had a fairly good week this week, it looks like the work is starting to pick up a little bit more. I may have mentioned the [investigator] family that we found a little while ago. They had been attending and experimenting with several different churches, but hadn't found the one the were looking for, so they decided to let us in and see what we had to say. We taught them the restoration, and did the normal things that you do when you teach a first lesson. Then we had a return appointment for this last Wednesday. When we went for the appointment at 8, they weren't there. so we went to visit some potentials, then the member we were with dropped us of at our house at about 8:20. so we made some phone calls, and then we took the car and went back, and they were there! so we taught them and had a really good lesson. they had read what we had left with them, and had some really good questions about what they had read, and they had also prayed about it, they didn't feel like they had received an answer, but they are going to keep praying about it.
We are also still teaching [Sister Investigator] and her son. She's moving along, she is fulfilling commitments (except for coming to church these last few weeks, but she should be coming this next week.) but she's having a hard time changing beliefs. She told us that she's been Catholic all of her life, and that to change and accept that you weren't in the true church all of that time would be really hard to do. Which I agree with, it would be really hard to do, but hopefully we could help her overcome that.
So it's been kind of weird, so since I've been training, [my companion] always asks me questions about how to say certain things in Spanish, and even asks me why I say certain things in Spanish. But its been hard to answer some of his questions about why certain things are said. It's not because I don't know how to say those things in Spanish, because I normally do know how to say it, but they are just things that sound right to me but I don't know the grammar behind all of it. for example if I were to say "I read the scripture" instead of "I'll read the scripture". You hear it and it just sounds bad, that's kind of how it's been. I know how to say it, but I don't know why you say it that way.
For dinner on Thursday, the relief society invited us to come to their christmas activity, that was just for the relief society. I'll be honest, it was a little strange going to a relief society activity, there's a reason that they don't invite the men to relief society activities. It was just wierd. There was a lot of food there, but everyone put just a tiny amount of food on their plates, while we were stacking our plates as high as we could. And the conversations were just awkward.
There isn't a whole lot that I have to talk about this week. It has been a little bit slow recently. We've really been struggling to find and to fill our teaching pool this last little while. Were still teaching the [investigator] family, and we made some pretty good progress with them. By talking with her this last week we were able to help her recognize when she had felt the spirit in her life, and even realize a little bit of feeling the spirit while she was reading the Book of Mormon. We were pretty excited about that, and we are going to eat dinner with them at a members house tonight, and then teach them. so we'll see how they progress, I'm really hopeful that they will progress.
Yesterday we had an awesome lesson. We taught a family named the [new investigator family]. It looks like they have a lot of potential, especially the wife, because she is looking for a church and has tried many different churches, but hasn't found the one she's been looking for. So they told us that the would give our church a try and see how it goes.
I know this is kind of random, but I'm getting better at making salsa. I tried it a while back, and it didn't go so well. But I asked a member to tell me how to make it, and she told me and then gave me the onion, garlic, and chile de arbol to make it. It turned out good, it could use some improvement still, but it's getting there. It was definitely hot, but I liked it.
Since it's winter time, it's starting to get dark sooner (by 5 or 6). so we have had a hard time finding daylight hours to look for people. and then in the evening we do our best to try and set up member visits to ask for referrals, or work in the area book to be as productive as possible, but it doesn't work too well to knock doors after dark, because they just get mad at you for knocking their door after night.
