Well we had transfers last week and as you could probably guess I'll be staying in Libby for another transfer! Not too upset about that. It's a good place and it's starting to warm up and more people are out and about so that's good! Elder Anderson transferred down towards Moscow and Pullman and my new companion is Elder Nelson from Las Vegas. He's a pretty cool kid and we get along so far. Sorry I couldn't update last week on Brian but the baptism went well and he was excited and happy all day long. We're hoping to keep working with him.
We had some cool visits this week! We got a member referal for a guy that he knew. We didn't really know anything about this guy but long story short, we went over there and met him and his wife and turns out they are less active members! (that would've been nice to know before hand but its fine) and they had us over for pizza. We talked with them a little and they came to church yesterday! We also met with another less active guy we didn't know but he actually had called the church asking if we could come over. He's had it rough the past little while. Triple bypass surgery with no insurance waisted his money and then while he was living in shelters he had a bunch of his stuff stolen. So he's been bouncing around but finally got himself a nice little place and starting to rebuild his life a bit. He was super nice. I asked him about his conversion story and it's pretty wild. Another long story short: he was painting a lady's house for her and he was way high up on a ladder around the third floor. Well the ladder started to tip sideways while he was up there! He was able to grab hold of something to steady himself but he was the only thing stabilizing the ladder at this point that is now hanging at an angle with him on top. He called out for help and nobody is around; until finally two guys in white shirts walk down the street and see him, help him get down... and the rest is history!
It always brightens your day to be able to share and talk to people about the gospel. The gospel effects people in many different ways but the message is the same.
Letter to Dad answering some questions in our weekly letter:
I was hoping that we could meet with the new converts but we haven't been able to hardly at all. We are focusing on the new member lessons but my goal for the rest of the time I'm here is to really be able to work with the ward council and leaders and get things up to the way it should be. So we've held off on doing the new member lessons until we can coordinate with the ward, but at the same time working with wards and other people is always a test of patience because members' time tables are so different than missionaries and I feel like I'm trying to drag a stick through the mud, while on the other hand the members and ward council probably think I'm hassling them a little bit. I've kinda had to take the reins and get things going myself a little bit. We haven't heard from Brian lately which is kind of concerning. We were talking to him over text a day or two ago just asking what his schedule is going to be like over the weekend. He said he'd be around Sunday so we texted him later in the day or the next day I'm not sure but sometime asking if we could meet with him a bit after church and have a quick lesson and we never heard back from him and he wasn't at church. Not exactly sure what happened. And we haven't been able to get out to Troy to see Jeremy but for the last two weeks him and his mom have only been coming to sacrament meeting.
We also had transfers and I took over the area. I'll mention more in my weekly but I've noticed a pattern. I was trying to think of things to do and came up with some plans and we went out and tried to find some people and I had a realization that I was taking the new comp pretty much the same way Elder Anderson took me around to find the same people and none of it really worked. We need to find new people is what I'm getting at because right now we only have one investigator who is progressing but really really slowly. Kind of a goofy older guy.
But anyway that's how things are going right now. Dad, you asked about tips for teaching. I'd probably say a lot of it comes with practice, but something that's important is teaching simply. You don't want to ramble on and be all eloquent in explaining every detail about the lessons. I'd take a lesson and have them each personally write down or type out for each principle of the lesson a little paragraph of what they would say if they were teaching that point in the simplest and most basic way they can. Simple and precise is the best way to teach I think, and then you can adapt to each individual person and go more in-depth if they need it, but focus on those little paragraphs of simplicity. You can also share one or two of those on a street contact too. Also, learn what "Mormon words" are and avoid those or at least be able to explain what they are (like atonement or things like that). As far as scriptures, I'm still working on using those effectively, but 2 Nephi 31 is good, Mosiah 18 where Alma is baptizing at the Waters of Mormon, Alma 7. Whatever passages of scripture that reinforce the main points of doctrine are good.
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