February 19, 2009

Weekly Update

First off, transfers and my companion. Yes, transfers happened last Wednesday and I received a new companion, Elder Nelson, while staying in my same area - Tigard. I was very sad to see Elder Jensen leave. I love him and he is an awesome guy. Though, now that a week has passed I can see that it's for the good. 

So, my new companion - Elder Nelson. He's a pretty cool guy. Of course, I don't have the same kind of relationship with him as I did with Elder Nelson, I've only been working with him for one week. But so far it's been good. It's definitely different trying to adjust to a new companion and everything after having adjusted for 3 months to my previous companion. But it's good experience in learning what is important and what isn't important, what "conflicts" to bring up and try and resolve and which ones just to learn to deal with and move on, and probably a good source of learning humility and trying to not be prideful. Anyway, we're doing pretty well. The teaching is going great and we're working hard!

So, what's up with those we are teaching, you ask? Alot and also a little. We had a lesson last night with a couple and that was awesome! The Spirit was really strong and it was super cool. I love recognizing when the Spirit is prompting me and then acting on those promptings! It's also really sweet to feel the Spirit confirm what I'm saying when I bear my testimony of something...and it seems that every time I feel I should testify that the Spirit confirms that and it's just another reminder that I do, indeed, know the things I say I know. Also, while we were there we gave him a white shirt, a tie, and a suit. The shirt was one that Elder Jensen no longer wanted and didn't take with him, the tie was one that Elder Nelson wasn't all that crazy for, and the suit came from a member in the ward who no longer wore it and just hadn't gotten rid of it yet for some reason. To see the reaction of John's face was so cool! For just a few seconds he seemed to be as giddy as boy opening his presents on Christmas morning! That was such a cool experience! As for when they'll come to church, we're still not sure - but they are much closer than they have been for some time. As for our other investigators, one sister seems to be coming along! She's always excited and eager to learn and our lessons with her also feel very uplifting and nice. We're hoping the progress continues with her and that she keeps making the steps to come back and closer to Christ. Things with another woman are at an interesting point...right now it seems like there is still progress happening, but we'll see if that continues - we hope it does. Another one of our investigators always shows a tiny bit of progress with him each time we meet him, but the hardest thing with him seems at the moment that he's not fully open to Joseph Smith being a prophet or seeing the need for the Book of Mormon. He bring alot of things out from the Bible and we're trying to think of ways we can help steer him toward the Book of Mormon and help him to have the desire to read it in FAITH - with a desire to know if it's true, and to then PRAY about it! Hopefully progress will continue there and we can continue to invite the Spirit into his home and hopefully the Spirit will touch him at some point. So, a new investigator this week! Brother Jensen basically taught the first lesson to one of his co-workers after she brought up church and asked him some questions. So, he invited her over for dinner on Sunday and invited us as well. She's pretty cool! She baked a really good coconut cake and we had a great discussion. We taught her the first half of the Plan of Salvation and she seemed interested. Our main focus, though, is mostly on Christ being the Savior of the world, because for the past 5 or 10 years or something like that she's been studying Islam...but she's very open and the lesson went well! We have another one for this Sunday, and from what Brother Jensen has told us from their conversations at work, she's pretty excited for it! Now, as for our investigators - mainly the younger kids - progress seems to have slowed some. What seems to be the biggest issue for the moment is reactivating them and trying to get the parents back into activity before we really go any further with the kids. What I think is going to help them the most is for the kids to come to Primary and learn in that environment. That's what Elder Jensen and I felt and Elder Nelson hasn't met them yet. But hopefully soon! As for other things going on, the work is progressing! We've been out seeing people and doing some tracting. Always funny times when tracting, but they're good learning experiences too! Trying to put a Gospel principle into a couple of sentances and getting people interested is always a trick, but fun experience!

Allright, that's all for now.  I love y'all and I hope that all is going well for the family and for...everyone else! I love y'all!