Hey fam!
Zacharias and I set new goals, some of which are higher than I've ever set before. But, we planned out how we're going to achieve and even pass those goals and continue improving week to week. I'm pretty excited :) hopefully you are too! I really worked hard yesterday and Saturday and in just those two days found 3 new investigators and contacted as many people as I ever had in one whole week. Did we find a lot of success tracting for like 2 whole hours on Saturday? No. But the Lord blesses us for working and trying our best. My last district meeting I taught with the Spirit (because I learned a lot too). I talked about how tracting and other less successful forms of missionary work are acts of faith. The Lord expects us to get out there and work. We may not be blessed directly while tracting, but because we put in our best efforts the Lord blesses us sometimes in other ways. We had no investigators despite attempts to get and contact referrals. And now that we finally spent a whole day working as hard as we could, 2 of those referrals finally contacted us back and met with us. One has a son that sat in and is also interested. Can I prove that us working caused that to happen? No. Would we be teaching those new individuals if we hadn't worked hard? I honestly doubt it. I could go on, but you get the picture. Anyways. I'm happy about it :) happy to work even though we don't always directly see success from our work.
Anyways! it's only been like 5 days but that's some of the main changes. One of the referral's name is Joanna. She met with missionaries once a while back and wanted to meet with missionaries again. We left her a restoration dvd as well as a Book of Mormon and have an appointment with her tomorrow. Should be goood :)
The other one's name is Bonnie. Shes from Jordan and is a friend of sister Bond who invited her to take the lessons and Bonnie accepted. We had a lesson with her yesterday at the Bonds and her 11 year old son was there and we have a return appointment with them that's also tomorrow! Hopefully her 14 year old son decides to sit in too. That would be sweet! Tuesday is going to be one busy day!
We helped a family move into the ward on Thursday and had dinner at the Bishop's. He made a soup that was just awesome. It had ground beef, carrots, yellow crookneck squash, potatoes, onions, celery, tomatoes, etc. Kinda reminded me of some of the soups you make mom :) most people just had one or 2 bowls... I had 4. Burp. (:
Oh! I had one of my first "dog" encounters on Saturday. Ha :) I was following Zacharias up to a house and the gate was open so we walked into the yard and around the corner and there sitting several feet in front of us is a rather scary looking dog that growls and stands up as we round the corner. Zacharias and I did a 180 about-face mid-stride and ran out of the yard. Luckily the dog was dumb enough to run straight towards us at the edge of the fence instead of going around the corner and out the gate. Phew! When we went up to the next house, we saw on the gate that was swung inward a giant "BEWARE OF DOG" sign. Great! Good to know. lol.
We ran into a 94 year old WW2 and Vietnam vet while tracting. He talked with us for a while and accepted a Book of Mormon. he feels like he has lived so long and watched his wife die because he had to pay for the sins he committed in the war. We asked if we could come back and he said "well I don't know if I'll still be alive; I could die anytime!" Haha. We're going to try back and maybe talk to him some more hopefully.
We stopped by Walmart there were some vagabond/travelers there asking for money or help and they had a sign but also had a dog that was trying to eat the sign and one of them was fighting with the dog for the sign. They were laughing though so it was pretty funny. Anyways, Zacharias and I continued walking but at the same moment he and I stopped, turned around, and walked back over to them. We gave them a couple bucks and talked with them for a few minutes. Zacharias did more of the talking because a member walked up to us and started talking to me at the same time. But anyways. That was sorta cool. They recognized us as Mormons and we talked about what we do as missionaries and they thought it was pretty cool and said they might check it out when they return home.
I went up to Fort Irwin yesterday again. I think that they think I'm their missionary. haha. I fit right in with the Browning name. They actually asked us to speak last minute Saturday night because one of their speakers wasnt going to make it. I go up there on Sundays sometimes so that we can keep one missionary from each area in barstow to talk to investigators and members at church and what not. Zacharias was going to go until he learned he'd have to give a talk. Haha. Anyways. I enjoy it up there. They were having some rotation when we showed up and literally over 20 Apache helicopters were flying around or were on the ground it was freakin SWEET! I counted 21 but there might have been more.
Well I better get scootin. Kickin kabootin. Shootin. Rootin tootin. Rasputin!
haha... sorry. Adios!
Love,
Elder Nelson Browning
"Everyone will eventually be backed up to the wall of faith and there must make his stand." - Ezra Taft Benson
No comments:
Post a Comment