Zone Activity was so much fun!!! I think the sisters really enjoyed it. We went to a park and just hung out, roasted hotdogs, ate lots of food, made smores (many of the internationals had never had smores before!), had a silly string war, spray painted t-shirts, had glow sticks, took lots of pictures, had a spiritual thought about refiners fires, and drove home. We had a few crazy things happen like sisters came about 2 hours late and were lost for about 30 minutes and would not listen to our directions, but they eventually got there! :) Also a random guy showed up and the sisters fed him and started teaching him. He joined us for just about everything and it was really awkward... and we don't think he is a real investigator because he has given his information to other sisters before by another name... weird. But overall it was so much fun, relaxing, and spiritual. :) I will send you some pictures from it.
Sister Thacker and I saw some amazing miracles this week!! We got 3 new investigators from 1 tour on Friday! 3 on 1 tour!! It was one of the very best tours that I have ever taken on my mission! It was our flagpole tour (our assigned tour that we offer week on the hour) and those tours are usually really hard to get new investigators from because there are many different types of people who show up for the tour and they have different ranges of interest level. Well... Sister Thacker and I originally spaced that we had the tour! We thought that the tour was at 6 and not at 5! We got a call from West Gate who asked us if we were coming to take our tour so we ran over and got there a little late, but we were able to take the tour! We started out with 14 people on our tour and we ended with just 4 people. We first took them all up to the Christus Statue in the North Visitor Center. Then we went to the Handcart monument and then to the Assembly Hall. A father and her daughter referred to us and another woman as well! They also accepted local missionaries which means that they will be able to get fellowship at church and be able to progress faster and get baptized! They can't get baptized unless they meet with the local missionaries. Also on Friday I had a woman call in for a Finding Faith in Christ DVD and as we got talking I told her about the Book of Mormon and how it has strengthened my faith in Jesus Christ and that I knew that it could do the same for her. She asked me for 3 copies of the Book of Mormon- one for her, one for her daughter, and one for her husband! We are now teaching a family!! So exciting!! Also on Friday, Sister Thacker got a call from a member who referred his friend John. On Saturday Sister Thacker contacted John and he is another new investigator!!! He really really wants to have the Holy Ghost in his life. Hopefully the missionaries will contact him soon so he can get baptized!!
We also had a Zone Teaching Center pump up. This means that for 2 hours, we all were in the teaching center and we worked on contacting our referrals and potential investigators. Two companionships actually found out that some people had been baptized!! We had 4 baptisms in our zone this week!! That is so awesome!! We also had a Zone meeting on Monday that also went very well. We had everyone in the zone roleplay the restoration in 1 minute. They had to stop where ever they were in the lesson when they reached their minute mark. It really amazed the sisters and helped them to see why it is important to teach simply. Then we had a little demonstration. Many sisters in our zone have a hard time understanding the importance of developing teaching skills specifically "How to begin teaching" (PMG chapter 10 developing teaching skills). These things are vital when we begin to teach people because it helps them to begin to trust us and also it helps us to establish our purpose with them. It lets them know that we see them getting baptized and how the gospel will help them. We had some little hostess cakes which we started handing out to sisters to eat. We nicely handed the cupcakes to the sisters and then we shoved one in a sisters face (Sister Polanco). Everyone started laughing and was shocked. We explained to them that the gospel is like the cake. We can't shove it in people's faces because then they will not want it. That is why we do HTBT and why we develop teaching skills so they will want the cake. The Sisters really got the demonstration. We also made a companionship study plan for our zone for this week so the sisters can learn to have productive companionship study and build unity. I am so excited to see the sisters grow and become better teachers!!! They are so great and Sister Thacker and I feel that this will help them to become even better teachers and missionaries.
Relief Society was really good this week as well. Sister Rodgers from the Relief Society General Board came and spoke to us. she talked about the importance of living up to our privileges not our potential. 3 Nephi 2:12 "Therefore, all the Lamanites who had become converted unto the Lord did unite with their brethren, the Nephites, and were compelled, for the safety of their lives and their women and their children, to take up arms against those Gadianton robbers, yea, and also to maintain their rights, and the privileges of their church and of their worship, and their freedom and their liberty." She also told us the story of Nehemiah From the Old Testament, He was rebuilding Jeureselum and so many people were trying to distract them from their task of rebuilding the city. The city had been destroyed and Nehemiah was leading the people in helping them to rebuild it. Nehemiah 2:2-3 He was doing an important work so he told them that he could not come down. We can learn a lot from Nehemiah's example about not letting the world distract us from what the Lord has asked us to do. Don't get distracted from the Lord's work!
By the way, I thought I would share one of my favorite scriptures with you. Isaiah 41:10
"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." Also "How Firm a Foundation" is my favorite hymn.
Love Always,
Sister Stephen
No comments:
Post a Comment