Hello everyone--
This has probably been the best week of my mission thus far, no joke. I
don't think you know how good and fun a mission can be until you're with a
companion that you hit off with well.
We've been going around this week pre-fast Sunday dropping off 21-day
promises to everyone we can possibly get to, trying to get this area of the
mission back on its feet. Our area is the most stagnant, least-transient
area in the whole mission, easily. That's something we're not going to be
able to change. It makes it really hard for us as missionaries to find
anyone when we have a record of literally every house and their
interest/activity in the church. The receptiveness just isn't there. Not
that it doesn't mean we aren't still residential tracting for an hour a day
and talking to everyone we see, but it does mean the most efficient way
we'll be able to get into houses is through two different avenues. This is
true in all areas, but especially in the residental-all-houses area I'm in
right now.
1) The members. While the non-transiency is bad for missionary contacting,
it's great for member missionary work. All the members know all their
neighbors, all the neighbors are invited to all ward and stake activities,
and just in general everyone is pretty friendly with everyone else. This
makes our relationship with members paramount to our success in the area. We
need their support, and any set of missionaries here that doesn't have it
will not have much success.
2) The Lord. This is where 21-day promise comes in. We have all the members
read scriptures and pray for a specific list for names twice a day as a
family as well as start with a fast. After 21 days it is promised that one
of the people they've been praying for will take the missionary discussions;
it's a promise from Elder Ballard just for the Salt Lake Valley Let's get a
Lord in with the Elders and the member's efforts to prune the vineyard here.
Through these two avenues we're able to change the hearts of people who have
been set in their ways for YEARS.
We've already seen some blessings from the members doing this promise - on
Sunday we more or less picked up two new investigators on date and a couple
really good potentials.
The Lord makes things work.
Sorry I'm on somewhat of a time-crunch today for email. I promise next week
will be better.
Elder Chandler
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