Will keep riding the momentum forward 

15 September 2014

Wow so this last week was pretty nuts like just crazy all around.  So Monday evening started off fantastic.  We taught a lesson and grabbed a young man to help us with it and taught a lady who has recently started coming back to church and her non-member 14 year old daughter.   We did our strategy of reading a chapter of the Book of Mormon together out loud and where each person reads two verses each and explains what those verses are saying.  This strategy works well for people that are shy and forces them to speak up. So we did that with them and read Alma 32:17 to the end of the chapter.  The mom is doing way good and is on spiritual fire.  The daughter is also doing well but lacks confidence and so we helped her be able to figure it out for herself instead of just simply explaining it for her.

The young man we brought is around 17 and I had a really good conversation with him solo on splits night about his plans for life and if he's going on a mission and he said that when he was younger he always knew he would go on a mission but now he says he isn't sure and he doesn't seem to be the most spiritually confident.  So anyways I invited him to keep praying about it as he still has his senior year to go.  We took him with us and he also had low confidence but towards the end his comments were very insightful so we will keep working with those three hopefully every week. We are meeting them again this evening.  

Tuesday went well we had some good appointments with people.  Then Wednesday was way strange.  We helped Sister Garlow stain her deck but that ended taking a lot longer then we realized but it looks way good. And then in the evening both of our appointments fell through back to back so that was rough. But we have since yesterday been able to reschedule them both. Actually Rodger was supposed to be for Wednesday but he wasn't there and his wife ignored us even though she is usually way nice.  I think they are struggling way hard with life right now. Thursday me and my companion were calling a few people on the directory again and there are several households with last name Wielke two of which live in our area one in the other elders area. We were warned by President Jones that they might be hostile and the other guys tried the one in their area and he was way rude and not interested and wouldn't listen.  So we gave one of the Wielke's in our area a call.  She wasn't too interested and was actually pretty mad so we have a bunch of people like that on the directory.  I'm glad I'm not the branch president and that I don't have to deal with that mess.  Friday we went to a funeral for a person who had died In the branch.  My first LDS funeral that I've gone to.  The speakers did a way good job and the spirit was felt. Saturday was exchanges and I got to go again to the other guys area.  Their area a few months ago was baptizing like crazy but now it's kind of going through a depression with their recent converts going inactive and moving.  So we tried one of them and he told us he wasn't interested. It was almost like tracting he was that closed off. Way weird. He was such a good guy but I think he's been getting antied hardcore. But then what's weird is that he actually called for a ride for church. Way strange.  But yea I’d say the other elders’s area is struggling because the guy that's been there for 9 months refuses to do real finding so their pool of people they are working with is stagnating. But me and Elder Bennett are making us read to try to do at least 10 contacts a day so we are tracting it up and we are actually getting a lot more people to work with through that and other means.  We’re also working more and more with members in their missionary duties.   And then Sunday we were able to finally meet with this one less active part member family who are way nice.  They actually live deep in our area but are on the Orchard Park directory for some reason so through the LDS tools app I was able to find them!  They have a lot of potential and we were able to teach the restoration to them.  But yea this week all in all was awesome.  We will keep riding the momentum forward.

Transfers are next week my last one before I go home.