I'll be honest. This has been a tough week. But its all good.
I am now remembering my first long days of being here in Tepatitlán. I feel like we walk, walk, climb a hill, walk, climb another hill, and then run home. We have been really just trying to work our butts off... walking all over this little city and we haven't had a lot of success in finding our investigators in their houses. We are really good at finding new investigators but then going back to their house for the second or third appointment that we made with them... they just aren't there.
Like I said, we find a lot of new investigators. The finding isn't the problem. The week before last week we found 10 new investigators... this last week we found another 10 investigadores... the last two Sundays combined we have had a total of 0 (yes, zero) investigators at Sacrament meeting. It's been tough lately because we have just been working our butts off but the fruits just don't seem to be showing.
A cool experience that we had this week is when we were going to house after house not finding anyone. We were a little discouraged... but we decided to pray. I said something in the prayer like this "we are tired... we aren't finding anyone... Father please help us to find someone in this street to the right of me" Well, we started walking and found two men standing in the street. We started to talk to them and one didn't have any interest whatsoever... while the other was named Elias, when people are named after prophets it is a sign that they are going to accept the gospel (okay thats not exactly true... but it sometimes is). Anyways... we invited him to listen to a message. Elias told us that he didn't have much time but sure. We taught a little bit about how God is our loving Heavenly Father, that the gospel blesses families, and baptism. We then invited him to be baptized and he said sure. It was pretty awesome how fast our prayer was answered. Now Elias didn't go to church... but we will work on that this week.
It's been a little tough out here but I now understand that things don't always work out the way we want them to. It seems like I may have acquired a little bit of patience in these last 17 months being in the mission. I don't feel sad about the effort that I am putting in. I am doing my best... my best isn't perfectness... but it is heading there... poco a poco [little by little].
I love you all... Keep being strong over there in The States... and all of you that are serving missions in Russia too.
Love,
Elder Summers
I am now remembering my first long days of being here in Tepatitlán. I feel like we walk, walk, climb a hill, walk, climb another hill, and then run home. We have been really just trying to work our butts off... walking all over this little city and we haven't had a lot of success in finding our investigators in their houses. We are really good at finding new investigators but then going back to their house for the second or third appointment that we made with them... they just aren't there.
Like I said, we find a lot of new investigators. The finding isn't the problem. The week before last week we found 10 new investigators... this last week we found another 10 investigadores... the last two Sundays combined we have had a total of 0 (yes, zero) investigators at Sacrament meeting. It's been tough lately because we have just been working our butts off but the fruits just don't seem to be showing.
A cool experience that we had this week is when we were going to house after house not finding anyone. We were a little discouraged... but we decided to pray. I said something in the prayer like this "we are tired... we aren't finding anyone... Father please help us to find someone in this street to the right of me" Well, we started walking and found two men standing in the street. We started to talk to them and one didn't have any interest whatsoever... while the other was named Elias, when people are named after prophets it is a sign that they are going to accept the gospel (okay thats not exactly true... but it sometimes is). Anyways... we invited him to listen to a message. Elias told us that he didn't have much time but sure. We taught a little bit about how God is our loving Heavenly Father, that the gospel blesses families, and baptism. We then invited him to be baptized and he said sure. It was pretty awesome how fast our prayer was answered. Now Elias didn't go to church... but we will work on that this week.
It's been a little tough out here but I now understand that things don't always work out the way we want them to. It seems like I may have acquired a little bit of patience in these last 17 months being in the mission. I don't feel sad about the effort that I am putting in. I am doing my best... my best isn't perfectness... but it is heading there... poco a poco [little by little].
I love you all... Keep being strong over there in The States... and all of you that are serving missions in Russia too.
Love,
Elder Summers