This whole week I would think that it is safe to say that is nothing short of a miracle. We have been working as a zone to find and Elder Studyvin and I have been working on some other things to hasten the work in our areas as well. Such as asking for referrals from everyone and inviting everyone that is present to come and participate.
We actually have found two of the people we have put on date that way.
The story that I want to share is from what is currently going on is with one of the families we have on date. Back in January their mom, Rosario, was baptized and we have been working on her kids. Her husband hasn't been too fond of the church and everything, I would attribute it to him not sitting in and participating in the lessons, so we have only seen him a handful of times. We have been working closely with the kids and doing everything we can with the Ward to fellowship them and help them have a good time. Things have been going fairly well, which is most evident in the oldest daughter. Her name is Abril (which is April in Spanish). She has been a slow work in progress, yet one of the most fun to see. In the past month or two she has been doing a lot. She has been teaching some of her friends and cousins (she taught one of her friends how to pray right in front of us, and her mom told us of another time just recently of her taking one of the pamphlets and teaching her cousins). Now, as things have progressed, she has told us that she "really!! Really!! Wants to get baptized". We are going to work with them as much as we can and we hope that their dad will be able to open enough to sign over permission for them to be baptized. We will see how everything works out. I know it will work out. Just in a matter of time.
The West Maricopa zone, our zone, met our goal to find 55 new investigators for the month of March! Even though there was some area book errors that gave us a few extra, we still met our goal and reached 57 legitimate investigators. This new focus, on developing a greater faith to find and simply being out and about to find more people to teach, has led us to know having 18 people on date. Of which around 15 of those have a high likelihood of being baptized in this upcoming month of April. As with the rest of the mission, we are getting really excited. Throughout this past month I saw at least every three days a "Ya Tu Sabes" (Basically a celebration for success. E.g. Finding a new investigator or someone getting put on date.) and there were many days we'd get 3-4 in one night.
One of the small things that made a big change, that I would attribute our success to, would be the unison in the zone. We all got on board with the zone goal and we even had a challenged issued in both districts to pray for one another. This invitation was issued after the second week, which is a week where we fell behind. The next two weeks, we made up for the lost ground and came back strong. The power of prayer issued in unity for the success of the zone, yielded an amazing result. I am excited to take this excitement to have lunch with president Griffin, then take that energy and set an even higher goal for April. Including with more baptisms this month.
Elder Studyvin and I are finding continual success with the 6 investigators we have on date. We will probably drop one, but we are still finding more. One thing that I found that really helped is follow a simple process.
- Contact the individual and offer to share a short message for about 10min.
- Once inside, invite all to participate.
- Get to know them for 2min, complimenting them on a few things they have.
- Open with a prayer and share the video, inviting them to focus on how they feel and ponder the blessings they have received thanks to Christ.
- Ask them what they felt and what their thoughts were.
- Testify of Christ
- Ask to come by for 20min to share the message of Christ's restored gospel, which will build upon the beliefs that they hold dear of Christ.
- Leave them the Restoration pamphlet to prepare for the next lesson.
- Leave with a prayer.
This whole process, as we have improved and had a few go's at it, we have kept these visits to nearly the 10min mark we set. Not one has exceeded 15min. When we have returned and taught the restoration, we always invite them to baptism with a date. This has resulted in so many on date. All but one of these 6 are progressing really well.
I am super excited. I love serving the Lord in missionary work. There have been a few times where I have been doubtful or have been scared, but pushing through we have found much success.
1-4) Breakfast at Lazaro's (The burrito was the size of 3-4 of my fists. Soo good!). We went with Ruben to celebrate his B-day, which was like 2 weeks ago.
Elder Studyvin got sick
We handed out Mesa pageant cards for about 2 months (From Jan 25th to March 21st). We handed out a lot as an apartment. (My companionship won though, gotta love seeing the whole Ward there on Wednesday night for mutual ;)
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