(Ok, this week deserves this) WOW! WHAT
A WEEK!
So we found out about this for sure on
Thursday, but Monday evening, Elder Harris and I were picked up by
the assistants and I was dropped off in Madisonville to be in a trio
with Elder Matealu and his trainee Elder Ludwig here and the other
three went to Louisville because Elder Harris went home on Tuesday
due to medical reasons, so I will be here until the end of February
and then I will reopen Henderson with someone else. So, down side of
this situation, Elder Harris had to go home, up side, I get to be
companions with one of the best missionaries I know and watch him
train too.
Tuesday, we went and worked with this
couple with the Churches ARP. The other two have worked with them on
this before and the couple seem to enjoy the program. After that,
Elder Matealu had a district leader's conference call, then we went
to the Salvation Army and did service there. Next we went tracting
and was blessed with one of those last door stories. The man who
answered the door had a huge grin on his face and was very polite and
welcomed us in but excused himself to finish something. So we sat
there looking around and see all sorts of religious things and said
to each other, "This is going to be very good or we're about to
get into a bash." Well when he came back he just asked questions
like, "why do you believe what you believe", and "Why
did you choose to go on a mission", and "how has believing
this helped you." All very good questions, because he really
wanted to know, so as we answered his questions we also shared the
Restoration with him and he even agreed to read the Book of Mormon.
Well after that awesome experience, we had dinner then went and
taught one of there most progressing investigators (someone that I
taught last week on the exchange), and afterwards something got
brought up about Yu-Gi-Oh and he found out that the other two had
decks so he gave each of us, what I believe to be, a very good card
in the game, so to be polite I took it but was thinking to myself "I
have no idea what I'm going to do with this." Oh well, it made
him feel good.
To finish off the night, we had dinner
with members, then played a board game with them.
Wednesday, was the day things got
really exciting, we went to the church and watched the World Wide
Missionary Training. The first part was a review of last year's
training with some extra insights. Two of the things that really
stuck out with me was something Elder Bednar said to the question,
“How does a missionary know if he is being effective?” he said
"Don't worry about it, if you are doing what you're supposed to
be doing then the Lord will take care of the rest." Second, to
answer the question, “How do I know if something is by the spirit
or if it's just me?” Again Elder Bednar said "You don't need
to know, if it leads you or others to do good then it doesn't
matter," then quoting an apostle from before my time (I'll get
the exact reference later) he said "You will know it was by the
spirit if you learn something from what you say." The
whole thing was amazing and I will definitely study it again. Then at
the end they gave the announcements in regards to updates on how we
do missionary work. The first is the key indicators, we are now only
accounting on four of them, not to forget the rest, but these are the
ones that if we focus on and prayerfully and effectively work on, we
will see great success. These being: Investigators Baptized and
Confirmed, New Investigators, Investigators with a Baptismal date,
Investigators who Attended Sacrament Meeting. Also, Mission
Presidents are not allowed to make new key indicators for
their missions. The next change was to the daily schedule, the two
biggest things being, instead of planning at night we do it from
8:30-9 a.m., then do personal Study from 9-10 a.m. Then on
Preparation Day, we study from 7:30-8 a.m. Then we are open to do
what we need to from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. So it has been interesting
adjusting to it.
Then that evening we drove to a town in
the very south west corner of the mission. We first stopped by an
appointment we had with a lady and her kids, but the lady wasn't
there and her mom wasn't up to meeting with us because she had gone
through chemo so she was exhausted. Quickly, Elder Matealu explained
priesthood blessings and asked if she would like one, and she gladly
accepted and was really grateful afterwards. Then we had a lesson
with a less active that had lost her mom last year and was still
having trouble with it, so we taught a very powerful Plan of
Salvation lesson and helped her work through some of the stuff and
helped her figure out some of the root problems.
We then drove all the way back to
Madisonville and went to the church to have coordination meeting and
was able to meet many of the members who were there with the youth,
and I didn't even have to seek out my victim of who I would torment
because he came to me trying to act all tough and smart, so this will
be fun, him trying to get the upper hand, well I gave him a hard
time.
Then to top off the night we went to a
less active members home and gave the husband a blessing because he
hadn't been feeling well all day. It was fun, when we got there they
had a friend over and the husband introduced us, and his friend told
us he knew who we were because he is a member, and the member we were
there to see got a little upset with him because he never told him,
then his wife said that she knew, and he was like, "No one tells
me anything!" But it was all in good fun.
Thursday, in the morning we helped a
member in his barn/shed cleaning, organizing(ish), and packing
insulation. Then we saw the investigator who is getting baptized in a
few weeks, he's really funny and they're having him brush his teeth
with cinnamon toothpaste so he thinks of them every morning ;) Then
we visited the less actives from the night before and had a great
discussion about the Plan of Salvation. From there we dashed to a
member's home and had dinner with them, which by the way, was really
good. From there we went to our Yu-Gi-Oh loving investigator and as
we were sitting down to talk, one of the other people that live at
the same facility asked if he could join. As we were talking, the
other guy made a comment about how he sees God and the purpose of
life, then before any of us can say anything our investigator replies
to him with a short, simplified, but powerful explanation of the Plan
of Salvation, and before this guy left we gave him a Plan of
Salvation pamphlet.
Friday, we had a lesson with a guy we
met in a parking lot the night before, and this guy had prepared a
lot of anti, the two problems with that is one, we could rip it
apart, and two he had anti for the Jehovah's Witnesses, so that was
funny, and we had a good lesson with him.
We then had weekly planning, tried by
some people, then had dinner with some members that made really good
hamburgers with a fried egg in the burger, it was amazing.
Saturday, we did a LOT of driving,
first we met a member at a former investigator's house and spent most
of the time clarifying questions they had from the last set of
missionaries that taught them. Then we drove to the edge of our area
trying to find some less actives and had two impromptu lessons with
random people we met. After that we drove back to the church in
Madisonville and just as we were pulling in a member called us asking
for help because his roommate had just gotten a call that his mom had
passed away, so we dashed over there and was able to give him comfort
through the Plan of Salvation that helped him out a lot. From there
we dashed to a different members home and he went out teaching with
us and drove us around, he showed us some of the land that he owned
and some of the stuff on it, then unfortunately both appointments
fell through, but we did find out that he is a very prominent person
in the area. We then went home and had dinner.
Sunday, Church was good, I got to meet
the rest of the ward and we had two investigators there. It's awesome
how missionary minded people they are around here. Anyway, after
church we went home and spent the rest of the day inside because we
figured we had earned it from all the work that we did this week ;)
Na! We did stay inside, but it was because Elder Ludwig has been
fighting some sort of stomach bug for the last few days and it hit
him really hard Sunday so we decided to let him rest.
Well, that was my fun and exciting
week.
Love y'all!
Elder Durrant
Great Kentucky Louisville Mission
