Recognition from a ward member!

28 August 2013

"Dear Jones Family,

My name is Jodie Gardner.  Your missionary, Elder Jones, is serving in our ward.  :)

I just wanted to take a quick moment to tell you how much we love having Elder Jones here.  He is such a great young man and he is doing a great job as a missionary.  We are really thankful for the opportunity to get to know him

Have a fantastic day!

Jodie Gardner"

27 August 2013

Yesterday we had an all day service project with an investigator that the sisters had.  This week went pretty good.   Billy the guy who I said we were meeting last Monday is really really legit.   We painted a room on his house and while doing that talked with him.  We talked a lot about different things in the Gospel and he asked a few questions.  Last Saturday we went to help some more with yard work.  We brought the Brockport Elders along too and we talked a little bit more.  The house that he is moving into that we are helping out with is in need of some renovating and so he's pretty busy with that and this week he is on vacation, but he says that he plans on coming to church this next Sunday which is really good.  We also have this one lady that me and Elder Kelly tracted into in Churchville the second or third day that I arrived here.  She was really friendly and we had a great conversation with her and she also knew this one member in the ward that she was close with but had been out of contact with him for about 20 years.   So we got her phone number and had him call her up on the phone and apparently the conversation went really well and the member gave us a good rep and from the conversation he said that we should go and stop by her again which we plan on doing this week.  We also want to plan a return appointment with her too and bring the member along for the lesson as member present lessons are always really good.  That was mostly it that were the major things.    But yeah I'm apparently allergic to some kind of cats I think as I just left a lesson with an investigator and I'm suffering pretty bad.  That's all for this week.  

Spiritual thought 

I study the scriptures everyday because through them I learn more and more about my savior Jesus Christ and my faith grows stronger and stronger the more I read.

Never had so much success!

"For with God nothing shall be impossible." -- Luke 1:37

19 August 2013

Wow this week has definitely been really amazing especially Friday.  I have lots to explain so this will probably be a pretty lengthy so hold on with me.  When I was sick last week I took the time to plug every single member  that lives with in the ward boundaries into my GPS and while it took a lot of patience and was incredibly tedious I got all of them in and divided them between red pins meaning inactive,  blue pins meaning active,  and green pins meaning part member families or families that have inactive members in them.   I also went through the area book and sheets and sheets of potential investigators and plugged those in as treasure chest icons.  So that took  several hours to do.  But it has turned out to be incredibly effective.  

On Monday after Pday we had nothing to do so we decided go see this red pin called the Masons.  We dropped by and they let us in and we had a great conversation with them and while there Brother Mason saw that my trousers had a little hole on the knee cap in them.  He said we could stop by anytime and he would fix them.  (And yes the story of how I got a hole is pretty long but let’s just say that I jumped off the back of a moving minivan and didn't land how I would have liked to have landed).   So we will definitely take him up on that offer.   Then on Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Johnston and we went and saw some potential investigators from 2008.  We had success with one guy called Bob.  The next day we went and had a lesson with him and it was very very interesting.  He said that he was an agnostic Jew whatever that is.  He would dominate the conversation and the only effective way that we could teach him was if we asked him the questions.  So yeah he's very interesting.  Me and Elder Johnston also found a few more less active families to work with thanks to my GPS pointing them out to us.  We are going to help this one less active family called the Matheus move out on the 31st.   We also talked to this one less active guy called Brother Kennet who is on our home teaching list and he seems to be offended with people at church but was happy to talk to us.  We will keep working with him.  

Me and Elder Johnston then had a really neat experience happen to us.   When we were about to drive back for the day and see people on the way back,  Elder Johnston said that he had a prompting to go and see this one really promising looking former investigator.  This investigator though lived pretty far out and we were already a couple of days over on miles.  But I was like Elder Johnston you didn't get that feeling for nothing so let’s go.  So we went all the way out there and we find out that he's not home.   I was like okay there's got to be a reason why we are out here.  Across the street I saw there's this lady who was bent over and looked like she was struggling with mulching her yard.  I'm like let’s go offer to help.  So Elder Johnston set his scriptures down on the car and we went over to help.  She was a really nice lady but said that she didn't need any help and that she was Catholic.  So we went back to the car kind of disheartened.  We then saw this one less active red pin that was close by and we decide to go and see her.   As we drove on the person behind us started flashing and honking and waving at us.  We stopped the car and she pulled up and said that our scriptures are on the back of the car. Elder Johnston had forgotten to take his scriptures off the back of the car!  She drove off and Elder Johnston went out and got them and then I realized that that lady said scriptures.  Puzzled we continued to go the less actives house and we found out that that less actives was the same lady.  She opened instantly up to us and we were able to teach her a lesson, and get her phone number and she said we could come back. The Lord really does work in amazing ways and if we follow his promptings something good will happen because of it.    

And then on Saturday I had the best tracting experience so far on my mission.  We were going to go and help someone move and so the other Elders came down to Spencerport to blitz our area.  So to give Elder Moulton and Elder Johnston a break from each other (they aren't getting along very well with each other) I went with Elder Johnston again.  We decided to walk instead of use the car since we have no miles and we must have walked 8 miles or so.  It was horrible.   But we walked to the library to do some facebook proselyting and by the time we got there we realized it was closed.  So we decided to tract the area around the library instead.  We only knocked on a few doors and we got two new investigators named Doug and Billy. Billy looks super golden in that everything in his life is lining up for receiving the gospel.  We found him sitting down on his porch smoking a cigarette and went over and talked with him,  He was raised jehovahs witness and so could sympathize with us about going out and knocking on doors.  He has become dissatisfied with them and said he didn't understand why there were so many versions of the Bible and why there were so many different interpretations of it.  He saw us holding a Book of Mormon and actually asked for one so he could read it.  He is moving into Spencerport from the nearby area of Greece and needs some help with remodeling his house.   We offered to help and he was behind thrilled.  He said that he would have to pay us and we were like no just feed us instead and he was like yeah I'll do that.  We are going over tonight to go and see him and hopefully go into a more detailed lesson of the restoration.  This guy is super legit.  And then the other guy is awesome too.  We  taught him the restoration on his door step.  First time I have done that through tracting since Freedom. He said we could come back but that he has a busy schedule so it might be harder to find him home. We do have his phone number though.  

When the other Elders went tracting they were able to find three more families which is insane.  Never have I ever out of the thousands of homes I knocked in Fairport had so much success in the few homes I knocked in Spencerport.  People are really laid back, friendly and not busy here and actually at home.  It's really nice.  Also the ward is so willing to work with us and puts missionary work as its first priority which is really nice.  I hope I get to stay in Spencerport for a long time :)  

Anyway that's it.  We pretty much tripled our number of investigators which is awesome.  I think what might be playing a big role is that the ward is doing this missionary fasting calendar where members fast for our investigators everyday.  It's an awesome idea and the members also get thinking of their role in missionary work.  

Elders Moulton, Jones, and Johnston

at Holley Falls ~

Holley Falls is in the town of Holley

which is between the towns of

Brockport and Albion