Hola Familia! Elder Lewis here,
This week has been pretty good. We have had a couple of cool
things going on. We have had a Multi-Zone conference, and then entrevistas
(interviews) with President. A couple highlights:
Familia Reyes, thank you for your prayers! They have an
active baptismal date now! So hopefully, on February 25th, we are
gonna have a baptism. well, two baptisms! They are really great people. Keep praying
for them if you would, it’s still quite a long road to the font, but with the
Lord’s help, these people are coming to church.
So then, we have had numerous capataciones (trainings) in
our multi zone conference and in other conferences about the relationship
between the missionaries and the members. An interesting statistic: here, if we
have 30 investigators by our own initiatives, by us knocking doors and
contacting in the street, if we have 30, 5 of them will have an active
baptismal date and 1 of them will be baptized. That’s a lot of work for just
one baptism. BUT… if we have 10 references, 5 will have baptismal dates and 1
will be baptized. We took this information and some other information about
implementing some other good goals to our Ward, and we had a meeting with the
bishopric on Tuesday night, where we presented this to them. It was interesting
because our Bishop has done business all over the world. He speaks really good
English, he has kinda been everywhere, So presenting this to him kind of
wracked my nerves a little, presenting in Spanish for the first time, but I
think I did pretty well. I presented about ¾ of it. He really liked it, so he
gave us 10 minutes in Ward Council and then also 10 minutes in the 3rd
hour of church to present it to the Ward. Now, it is moving into being an
active plan in the Ward. We have a plan of how many references we need from
every organization in the ward, and we are going to start training some of the
leaders the same way that we were trained and go house to house with them and
train them how to train their organizations to get references and to be
involved in this marvelous work.
Thomas S. Monson said: “this is the time for members to work
with missionaries.” Gordon B. Hinckley once presented the statistics of the
year and said: “492 new stakes. This is marvelous, but with the efforts of the
members and the missionaries, we could easily double that number. “ This is
exactly what we are doing in the mission. Last year we had 692 baptisms, this
year we are going to double that and do
1200. Now missionary work isn’t all about numbers, it’s about bringing souls
unto Christ. But these help us, they are tools, and it’s important to use those
to the best of our abilities. Before the mission, I don’t think that I would
have been able or interested in doing what we are doing. It’s pretty fun to set
goals, make a plan, and then work hard until you get it and set another one. We
don’t reach them all the time, but we keep trying.
We have started to teach this group of boys down on (?) its
kind of like an off street, and they kind of just hang out there. They are from
the ages of 14-18, and they are actually a lot more attentive than most of the "older and wiser" adults that we teach. They really listen. It’s really cool. We
have started teaching them, and its funny because they just hang out there,
most of them smoke actually, but they are really open to listening and they are
really sharp. The actually know quite a bit. The questions that we ask them
they can usually come back with the right answer, something that the adults
can’t do. Questions about the Bible, about the apostasy and such, they really
think about it. With them, we aren’t just teaching them, we went and played
soccer with them today, and I got my behind kicked, but it was fun. I had a
great time. There’s Moises, Irwin, Jose, Julio, Camilo, Michael, and some
others. Every night we go there it seems that we get more. Hopefully we will be
able to teach their families as well. We will see. We are also going to do an
English class with them. We asked them if they would be interested in an
English class for free and they said “Heck YA!”, So it’s really interesting and
different than I would have expected, I would have expected that they would
just want to hang out, but they really want to better themselves. Its
interesting because this 14 year old with his cigarette in his hand, he is
interested in the things of God, cosas de Dios, and in language. It’s really
different than I would have expected. But, ya, I think I am going to be
teaching an English class. We are organizing one at the church with a member
that speaks English that is trained to teach, but we might have to do two, and
I will be teaching that. My companion told me that he would rather have me
teaching because I am an American, and have almost perfect pronunciation. We
are really excited about them. Its really interesting because my companion, one
day, walked up to this group of boys, with gauges in their ears and cigarettes
in their mouths, I didn’t want to go up to them but he did, and we had our
first lesson right there! They really were interested. I hope that we can have
some boys come into the church here, but if not I hope we can do some good in
their lives.
On a spiritual note: This week we have been really working
with the members to help them be interested in missionary work. There’s a
scripture in D&C 123: I think verse 5, That there are people among all
parties, congregations, sects, that are looking for the truth but do not come
to it because they don’t know where to find it. Sometimes we are afraid of
sharing this message with another because they might be of another church and
we are afraid of offending them. But really, that person might be looking for
the truth. They might have holes in doctrine, or a feeling that they need
filled. That’s what this church does. This is the kingdom of God established on
the earth again! But how can we do that? Here are some things that my mission
president told us: 1. When talking with friends, or others that you want to
share this with, use Mormon words. What are Mormon words? Words that we don’t
hear outside of our church. Priesthood. Mutual. Young Men’s. Young Women’s.
Relief Society. Ward Activity. Things like that. 2.Those that ask “what is
that?”, you can explain what that is, and if they are interested, INVITE THEM! When someone asks you what you have been doing, TALK ABOUT
CHURCH! This opens the door and you can invite them. 3. Invite and 4. Follow
up. If you Invite them, make sure you help them get there, because they might
not do it on their own. Drop them a call and say “hey, are you still going to
come with me?” Don’t pester them, but really, when we realize how precious this
Gospel is, we can’t keep our mouths shut. We talk a lot about member missionary
work, but don’t do it just because people are telling you to do it. Really, If
you have this desire to share this, read in Preach My Gospel chapter 9. It
talks about why we do it and how to find people to teach, and how precious this
Gospel is and what it does for people and their families.
I hope you all have a great week. I love you, and I miss
you. Chao!
-Elder Lewis
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