This week was just a blast. I
don't know, I'm just loving being a missionary now. Elder Nelson's talk from
last conference is true, joy, the truest form of happiness, comes not from your
situation, but from how close you are to Christ. And I've found as i continue
to strengthen my relationship with him, I get happier.
Now for the week
Tuesday I went on exchanges
with Elder Waldo and Elder Brown. Elder Waldo was Pappin's trainer and
Webster's companion right before me, and he was companions with Webster for 3
transfers too. So we had a lot of fun just talking about all the different experiences
we had with them. And Elder Brown was in the mtc with me. It's fun to be around
him again. But about 8 pm on Tuesday it just started pouring rain and we were
about an hour walk away from our apartment. So we just started going. By the
time we got back, we were absolutely drenched. But it's ok because we had a lot
of time to just talk and get to know each other.
Wednesday we had district
meeting and I got to give a training. I trained on how to teach simply, but
boldly. The simply part has to do with what you study. If you are studying to
the needs of your investigators and not your own needs, then there's no way you
can't teach simply. Because you studied exactly to what they need to hear. Then
the boldly part was a lot of fun. That has to do with the strength of your
testimony. If you don't have a strong testimony, you can't teach boldly because
you don't know how true the message and gospel is. I had them read D&C 99,
just substituting the name for their own. And also 3 nephi 5:13. With those two
I asked, if these are true, then why don't we act like they are. We are
servants of the lord and we have power with that. It was a really fun training
to give because I was just getting them excited to do the work. And then we
watched a little district, talked about it, and then jumped into some role
plays. Then that night we had a lesson with Davíd Angelo Opreza, who is one of
our most repentant investigators. His wife was working, but we got a really
good lesson with him. We set him to be baptized on the 25th of march. And then
after we ended he offered to give a kneeling prayer. I am super hopeful of him
and his wife getting baptized.
Thursday we had basically a
mission wide conference where two members of the missionary department to give
us a training. Which was super awesome. We got to watch The District 3, just a
little bit of it. I can't wait for the whole thing to come out. There was so
many really good ideas on it. They were teaching 10 lessons a day and every
single one they had a member present. But only a few of them was the member
actually in the same room as them. They used Skype to either Skype a member in
or to make a conference call with the investigator and the member. Basically
there's no excuse to not be able to teach a lesson based on how far it is from
us. I can't wait to start putting it in action. They also used Facebook and
messenger to make groups with an investigator and members in it to have contact
with them 100% of the time. The story they shared was the missionaries were in bed,
and then at about 11:30 one of their investigators was antied, and so she
hopped on the group chat and asked her questions. The members stayed up until
3:30 with her and the missionaries woke up with 300+ messages on their iPad and
the concern was already resolved. It turned a situation where you usually lose
an investigator to getting her one step closer to baptism. The district 3 was a
one month experiment with one district of 3 companionships, with 0 people on
baptismal dates. Then after one month, they had 13 convert baptisms. It's so
exciting!
Then nothing really happened
until Sunday, all of our appointments cancelled until then. But Sunday at
church we had 6 investigators there, 10 including the under 8 children. It was
so awesome. And all of them went to the second hour, but had to leave before
third. They all said they are coming next week! I can't wait to see what
happens with all of them. They all are actually showing they want to change and
repent. It's a nice change! Haha! Then we went to this rehabilitation center to
give a blessing to a less active's non-member sister who recently got in a car
accident. She said after that she wants to take the lessons! She's in the
Hermana's area but that's ok:)
That's it for my week! It was
a really good week to hit six months! Super busy! It totally does not feel like
I've been out for that long. I still have a long way to go, but I can see
growth in me and my testimony every single day. It's the best feeling to look
back and see how much I've changed the past six months.
Love you all!
Elder Williams
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