Intensity
It was a pretty sweet week!! First off, got to talk to the family last Sunday and then we had a super effecient week, work-wise. On Tuesday, we had exchanges with the Assistants…that went awesome. They really motivated us to work with the members and other things. I’ve gotten to be pretty good friends with one of the Elder Jackson..of the 4 AP exchanges I’ve had, I’ve been with him 3 of them. He has taught me so much on how to become better in the missionary work. One of the main things we took from that exchange is that we need to be working better with the members…we have been trying to do all of it by ourselves. But ever since then, I have been calling tons of members, getting to know them and setting up appointments and exchanges. I have never been so focused on the people and the work then this last week. For example, I just called this last active guy (who used to be really active) and set up an appointment with him and his family on Tuesday and they all came to church yesterday! It was sweet..he was one of the lost sheep and everyone was freakin’ excited to see him. I don’t know if my little call had anything to do with it, but it was really good feeling that I might have made the difference. But he is going to be moving soon to the other missionaries side of the branch..grrr. I’m so greatfull to be a missionary right now serving in this branch. It’s the biggest best spanish branch in the mission, so it’s a pressure spot (there is lot of pressure to accomplish alot here), so i have been a little stressed out lately, but it has been a learning experience and helped me realized how I can be more successful. Becoming a missionary is definately a huge learning experience. When I first came out, I didn’t know anything about being successful. But I feel like I am beoming a lot more effective lately. We taught 29 lessons…more than I’ve ever taught in one week.
One of the highlights of the week was that we FINALLY set up a baptismal date for Esther. I hadn’t been able to contact her for about a week and a half and she hadn’t been to church in about 3 weeks. Well, we finally got the chance to teach her and set the goal of June 24th. It’s been a struggle to get anything going with her and finally she did it! We don’t have too many promising progressing investigators, just a whole bunch of new ones. We find a couple ladys from Mexico named Magali and Arcenia. They seem pretty interested, we taught them like 4 times in 5 days last week. The only thing about them is that they work Sundays….like everyone else! I know that if they come to church they will be able to see how awesome the branch is and want to get baptized immediately! But we also see how instable the Hispanics are here. We met a member, Lorenzo, in the street last week who recently came from Mexico. Like I said last week, he brought a friend to church who said he wanted to be baptized. We taught him last Wednesday and set an appointment for the next Saturday. Well, when I called to confirm the appointment, a lady answered the phone and told me that they had left the same day because they found work somewhere else. And they also left the cellphone where they lived…so they was no way to contact them…
Well, things are going great…Zone Conference is this next Wednesday..the last of President Mabey. The next one, President Wallis will be here. We are also going to the Raleigh Temple this next week…it’s going to be sweet. It’s going to be said to see the Mabey’s leave, they have done a whole lot for this mission.
The weather is going to continue to get hotter and more humid.
Elder Hardy