Jordan: 2/13/2012

Well, this week was a lot better than the last one. The work really started picking up in our area. So that was really nice. The best part of this week is that we had Zone Conference this wednesday. It was AWESOME! In all my other zone conferences, we just talked about the boring part of missionary work (planning), but this time, we taked about the fun part (teaching). I´m not trying to talk bad about planning; it´s 100% essential to be a good successful missionary, but it´s definately the more boring part of missionary work. But this zone conference, it was about 90% focused in teaching and 10% planning. We talked a lot about the importance of not only teaching to peoples needs, because sometimes as missionaries, we only teach to needs and to try to answer peoples questions. For example, you find a couple that´s not married so every lesson all we talk about is getting married and the blessings of marriage. But we talked about how if we only do that, our investigators are never going to learn the doctrine and the doctrine is really what converts, along with the spirit. So we talked and practiced how to teach every doctinal principle in Lesson 1 (the Restoration) focused on someone´s need or doubt, like marriage, or why should i get baptized again, and things like that. It was really really awesome. I learned a lot about how to teach better. We also learned how to contact people better, and actually teach during a contact. That´s something that i´ve really been trying to do. And since i´ve been trying to do that, the work has been picking up.

I also realized how blessed i really am. My Patrical Blessing (i know i butchered the spelling, but i think you get the message) says that i´ve been blessed with the ability to teach. I didn´t realize how blessed i really was until i saw about 40 other missionaries teach. We did this activity with everyone about defining gospel words, like Restoration, priesthood, baptism, endure to the end, exaltation, etc. And we passed a microphone around and everyone had to define a work. And some of the missionaries had no idea how to define words simply. And i just realized that i´ve been really blessed to really know how to makes things simple enough to be able to understand.

my investigators... Freddy Portillo (the guy that read the BoM already). we taught him last night. He´s reading the BoM like crazy, but he wants to be able to prove that the BoM is true. He says that he has to read it and compare it to the Bible, because if it contradicts the bible, then it can´t be true. and i personally think that he doesn´t have the faith that God really can answer his prayer that the BoM is true. I don´t think he believes that God will answer his question, but he said he´d pray and ask, so we´ll see what happens when we see him next.

We found a guy this week named Andres. he´s golden. We were teaching lesson 1 and i was teaching about what a prophet is. and while i was teaching that, i felt that i should invite him to be baptized. But i said to myself, no it´s too soon. It won´t make sense. So i taught on. Then, i was talking about Christ´s life, and i felt like i should invite him again. But i held off again. Then my comp taught about the Restoration and Joseph Smith. and when he stopped, i invited him to be baptized and he accepted. he is just super awesome. We´ll see how everything goes.

Also, my story about the drunk guy with a gun... i didn´t really think that would strike you all as funny. i thought it would scare you. I thought it was funny, but at the same time, im super worried for the people that he was mad at. Hopefully nothing happened.

John- too bad about Matt Gamble. I´ll be praying for him. One thing that might help... Read Mosiah 3 with him when you talk with him again. It´s 100% focused in Jesus Christ. And it´s POWERFUL. We read it with an invest the other day that we´ve been struggling with and it seemed to completely change him. It was such a great lesson. I don´t know, just a thought. Just keep the faith, pray a lot, and work as hard as you possibly can and God will work a miracle. Oh yeah
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mom- sounds like a pretty busy week. I hope you like working a few more hours every week. That should be good. I still haven´t heard anything about my package, but i´ll let you know when i find out.

Dad- glad the car didn´t turn out too bad. your cm vs. inches joke was pretty funny. (the metric system is so much better, by the way, other than degrees Celcius. that´s the worst.

Austin- that´s super awesome that you took that girl to the Dance. You´re a better man than me. I hope you had a blast.

Natasha- too bad about you basketball team. Hope you do better next time around.

Shaylee- is your mouth alright? Mom told me about the worst story i´ve ever heard about your mouth. I hope it´s alright.

 

Well, this is the true Church. I have no doubt. Christ is our Savior. He live and loves us. He Atoned for our sins. We will live with him again. I know that Joseph Smith really saw Him and His Father. He was called as a modern day Prophet. Thomas S. Monson is our living prophet. If we follow his counsel, we´ll never go wrong. The Book of Mormon is the greatest book ever written. I love it. It truly is the word of God. I love reading it. It´s changing my life everyday. I love you all. I know that we will be an eternal family, if we keep the commandments always.
Love ya,
Elder Jordan Schouten