Week 3 is done and done! It’s been pretty slow here lately but this week we have a lot of appointments with new potentials we found so hopefully it picks up. It’s getting harder and harder to meet with people now that the weather is getting colder.
As a missionary, we can’t go into a house unless there is another man there who is at least 19. That makes it really hard to meet with our investigators because most are single women or have husbands that work. In the warmer weather we just meet with them outside but we can’t really do that in the cold. From what it sounds like though, next transfer they’re going to send a Spanish speaking missionary up here and we’ll be in a tri-panionship until Elder Erickson leaves. That will be nice because with 3 elders, you’re allowed to go into a home with no males present.
Lately we’ve been doing a lot of work with members. We’ve been doing what we call the ‘Preach My Gospel’ activity with them to hopefully get them more comfortable with telling people about our beliefs. Basically, we ask them a question (something like ‘what does your church believe?’) and then give them one minute to answer it. It’s kind of funny watching people stumble over there words trying to get all of our beliefs in one minute. It seems easy to me since I do it every day! After their minute is up we show them that at the end of the Restoration lesson in CH3 of Preach My Gospel, there is a 3-5 minute lesson plan that has a good, easy statement to say that takes less than a minute to say. It’s a fun activity to do and hopefully it will lead to more referrals! We joke around that the mission is where you pay for all the times you turned people away at your door, or for all the times you didn’t give referrals to missionaries. I don’t think I ever gave a referral at home.
Lately, most of our investigators have decided to look up a bunch of Anti-Mormon material on the internet. It really sucks because then we’re stuck answering a bunch of questions and defending ourselves when we shouldn’t have to. When they look up that stuff, they stop reading the BOM too. You can’t gain a testimony of this gospel without reading the BOM! This week we’re just going to tell everyone to stop listening to what OTHER people say about the BOM, and start reading it themselves.
We had a lot of service projects we did this week. People have to rake leaves like crazy out here and I think we racked up 6 hours of leaf raking this week. We also helped a member winterize his boat and later this week we’ll be painting a ceiling for someone. It’s a lot of work but if it leads to referrals and appointments I’m all for it.
Yesterday was stake conference here and it was really far away. We had to drive about 45 minutes both ways. So once again none of our investigators came for the 3rd week in a row…
The Halloween decorations out here are amazing! There is a street right across from out apartment complex called Tillson St. that is well known around Michigan for their Halloween and Christmas decorations. We walked down it last week and it was really really cool. Mom would drool over it! This Friday is the branch Halloween party and we have permission to go too so that should be fun.
Well I guess I’ll talk to you guys later. Tell everyone in the Family and Sis.Peck and Sis.Sabin for writing! Hopefully I have enough time to write back today! Say hi to Fritz for me!- (His Friend returns from his mission this week)
-Erik
