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| On an exchange with Elder Payne :D He replaced me in Skyway A |
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| These are all the languages we most commonly run into. I carry around pamphletts with me of the most common and these are left in the back of our car. The most common ones we run into are Tagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese. Other people we run to are Laos, Cambodian, and Somali to list a few. Serving here in Skyway is probably more foreign than leaving the country haha. |
Its going here in Skyway B! Elder Cardin and I are tearing it up (meaning working hard. I like to visualize like tearing out carpet or asphalt lain poorly like in cars for the type of work "tearing it up" describes)!
Elder Cardin and I are really working hard on finding more and more of the elect (those who are prepared to repent and be baptized!) in our area. In Skyway we have a good problem where people are willing to talk with us for 45 minutes, but when it comes to teaching them and sharing more of our beliefs they are not all in for that. So one thing we do very often is filter the length of conversations that we have with people and which potentials we record in our area book. The way we filter is while we are talking to them (because we still talk to everyone) we teach them the lessons on the spot instead of asking for permission to come back and teach later. If they arent in a situation where we can talk for a long time, we try to teach them as much as we can and then we ask for a specific return appointment. We are being blessed with more and more people who let us teach them on the spot and then agree to a specific return appointment (that is what we define as a new investigator). This week we were blessed with 5 new investigators all ranging in their age and interest level.
Most people we talk to let us a come by as a result of our persistence and asking for it. I call that when its simply for that reason that they are "objects of our persistence." We are acting upon them, but our goal is to help them become agents. People who arent simply meeting with us because we ask, but who are meeting with us because they feel something, want to learn something, and feel a sense to continue to learn. At that point they become agents and are truly investigating. We want to find those who are going to be agents and who will truly in every sense of the word (like in reference to detectives like Sherlock Holmes) "investigate" the church. There is no wrong reason for investigating the church or meeting with the missionaries, but there are wrong reasons to be baptized. So while we work with them and help them make transition from object to agent by helping them see that the gospel and the message fits the needs in their lives, we pray for the gift of discernment to know what to best teach them. And if they arent willing to progress to be agents, we will move on to seek for those who are.
Thats a little bit more in depth of what we are trying to do as missionaries. We are trying to find the elect who are going to investigate this church exercising faith in the beginning and in the process along with repentance unto baptism! That is the beginning of their journey to their road to the Temple and Eternal Life with their Father in Heaven and families.
Love you all so much! One of the "agents" we are working with in her case to discovery the truthfulness of this church is Jean. Her biggest struggle right now is coming to church. We are working with our newly called Relief Society President Sister Kemp. They are great friends and we have been seeking for revelation on behalf of Jean to help her progress because she hasn't been making the progress we are hoping for. She is exercising her faith and preparing for baptism on August 6th and we are going to be doing a multitude of things to help her progress to that point.
Love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers!
Elder Sumsion
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