Dear Elders and Sisters,
I am very pleased with some trends that are happening in the
mission. Over the past two months we have seen a steady increase in new
investigators and investigators with baptismal dates. These are two key areas
that need to improve if we are to accomplish our goal of 60 baptisms per month.
Many of you have mentioned in your letters that you have been praying and
pondering about what you personally can do to help reach this goal. Thanks for
your faith and prayers and for your diligent work. In order to improve, we need
to do some things differently: if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll
keep getting what we’ve been getting.
We have designated this week as a focused week of finding
new investigators. You were each given an invitation to study chapter nine of
PMG during the training that I conducted during interviews. I hope that by now
we have already spent some time considering methods that inspired us. Perhaps
we had forgotten about them or in the past had overlooked them, didn’t particularly
like them, or didn't feel very confident about them. We must resist the
temptation to just say “well...that’s just the way I am” (see Elder Donald
Halstrom’s talk in the April General Conference). Let us plead with our Father
in Heaven for increased capacity to do what we need to do in order to find
those whom He has prepared. It is not so much about Him putting them in our
path because He has already done so and they are there. It is about us following
the Spirit and doing what we need to in order to find them and invite them. We
are the hunters and the fisherman that the Lord was talking about in Jeremiah
16:16.
Let us also help each other this week. It is our desire that
EACH companionship in the mission share in this great harvest. As districts and
zones, let us watch over one another and give of ourselves to those who may
need a helping hand. We hope and pray, as a result of our faith and works this
week, that EVERY companionship will have additional people to teach and work
with. Let us do all that we can to ensure that NO companionship is left behind
as we go forth this week.
I will close today with a quote from one of your
letters from last week:
This week I had a
really cool experience. There was one morning in personal study when I shared
about Christ going out to the fisherman and telling them to throw their nets
back in the water even though they hadn't caught anything all day. I shared
with [my companion] how this was just like contacting on the streets. At night,
when we have been rejected all day, and there is that last person that on the
way home that you don't really want to talk to because you’re tired, and just
tired of being rejected. Well the day that I shared that, we were riding home
and we had just gotten out of a rough lesson and were headed home. I was tired
and ready to go to bed. We got to a light and I was sitting there, and with a
few seconds left a lady and her child pulled up in front of me on their bikes.
I wasn't going to talk to them but I knew I needed to, so I just pulled up and
said hello and this lady was awesome. She had so much interest and I ended up
talking to her for about fifteen minutes and she wanted to come to church and
just is so prepared! …I ended up having that super cool experience because I
acted on what I had learned.”
Let’s
call down the powers of heaven this week!
Mentor
of Champions
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