Week 71: Learning and growing

Monday, November 6th, 2017:

I’ve learned that my companion and I have something in common: we both struggle with the Monday p-day schedule.  He needs some time to get ready in the mornings. Today’s preparation day was rushed because an investigator we're working with can only meet Mondays at 2:30 pm, which is about the same time that zone activities usually start.  Of course, we would much rather have someone to teach on Monday than not; it’s just that the timing can make things tight.

The investigator we are teaching, Martin, is nine years old.  His parents have started returning to activity in the church, so we are teaching the family through our lessons with Martin.  Martin is pretty sharp.  The way things look right now, he will be baptized soon.

Before that lesson, we got to shop, do laundry, email, and participate a bit in the zone activity (the zone got together to play a bunch of sports at a gym).  I was barely able to emailed my journal because I hadn't written it on my iPad during the past week.  I had prepared some bagel sandwiches so we could have quick lunches if necessary, but that's about the only extra thing I got to.

Elder Heyward set up for different priests to go out with us in the evenings. We got to visit a good number of people tonight because of it--the priest drove us around in his car--and the priest got to experience missionary work in action.

Tuesday, November 7th, 2017:

Our morning planning and schedule is out of shape.  We're getting better at it, but it was a sleepy start to this transfer.

We spent companionship study talking about our differences.  Elder Heyward noted that at times it didn't seem like I had the desire to preach the gospel. I realized he was right and reflected on that, but I still don't know what to say.

We taught a lesson, but I don’t have time to go into details. 

One random idea I had for an invention was to make a spice vending machine.  You could select your recipes and the machine would pick out everything necessary for it.

Wednesday, November 8th, 2017:

We went to family services today.  I talked with Kyle about the times I know I haven't felt emotion, and when I have felt emotion.  He told me that just like how some people are better built for basketball than others, other people are better built for missionary work than me.  However, that does not mean I cannot be good at missionary work.  It just means the reason I do missionary work will have to be different than more common reasons to do it.  I can try to increase my emotional connection to bringing the gospel to people, but there will always be a difference that I have to face.

We had interviews today.  I talked with President Hillier about how to increase my desire to do missionary work.  He said the best way was to read the Book of Mormon and to understand the doctrine of Christ.

The family we had dinner with tonight brought up the multi-level marketing company Scentsy.  They mentioned how some people can push the product and try to coerce others to sell under them.  I wasn't planning on doing it for a living, but it was still good advice to know.

Thursday, November 9th, 2017:

Today was busy.  We had meetings in the evening.

I got discouraged today.  I can't remember when.  I realized later at night that I would have to focus on my strengths--not ignoring my weaknesses, but building on my strengths as I went through each day.

We dropped Andrea.  We just asked her to call us when she wanted to meet again.  She's too busy for us to help her; I wish I could, but I can't as far as I know: I've done everything I really could and she has to do something to take that help in.

Elder Heyward is awesome.  He's very different from me, but he's been trekking along through whatever obstacle comes along.  He's a very hard worker.

Friday, November 10th, 2017:

District meeting was focused on finding those who will accept our message.  It wasn't the head-on approach leaders normally take of "let's find those who are ready." Instead, we looked at a PMG activity of Ammon teaching King Limhi, and how Ammon first served before he taught.

The other two highlights from today were my parents sending me a package, and the zone leaders giving me what they told me was a pressure cooker.  I was pretty disappointed when I found out it was a portable oven.

Saturday, November 11th, 2017:

We misplaced our area phone, but Elder Heyward used his iPad and iMessaged a few people until we found it.  It was through his messaging that we discovered a mission prep kickoff was going on for the Canyon Rim Stake.  We joined the youth for a good opening session and took home many leftovers.

Staci has a different attitude about the lessons now.  She's willing to set appointments right after she cancels and will reschedule for sometime later in the same week.

We are running out of people to visit.  We have to be on top of our game in finding out about other people we could visit. No more of “let’s default to a less productive activity, such as running through lists ward leaders wanted us to exhaust,” which is what has happened before.

We called lots of people.  Eventually, we had a dinner appointment that much later than our normal appointments.  The ward mission leader told us the family could use strengthening, so we did our best.  It turned out to be a wonderful visit.

Since we have decided to be more proactive in finding new people to visit, we have succeeded in finding new people to visit, a few of which we got to tonight.  The trick is to find and teach even more new people.

We had a meeting tonight with the young men's president for a ward.  I felt something profound. When the brother described how he wanted to help the priests as much as he could in a critical point in their lives, I felt the strong desire to help as well.  It was relieving and wonderful and unexpected to find an emotional connection to the work.

Sunday, November 12th, 2017:

We had a lot of meetings today. No time for details. I'll finish writing this day next week!