Happy P-Day! (From Elder Smith)
Another week has gone by rapidly in the mission field. This week has been to me pretty hectic and crazy. Seemed like we were always doing something, or always busy finding more people to teach. That's always good, and it keeps you focused.
Just to start off with, after I emailed y'all last week, we, being the Coventry missionaries, 3 sets of em, Elder Salmon and Chandler, Elder Lavender and Till, E Silva and Smith went to play Squash in town. Elder Till was the only one that put up a reasonable fight against me, but I still beat him in the two games we played. He's an Austrian, and it turns out, went to the same school as Hitler did. Interesting fact! He's a bit of a perfectionist, mixed with an anger management problem...he was constantly yelling and screaming when he lost points to me. The other missionaries just couldn't hack it. Now I can say so far in this zone, that not only am I the best missionary..but the best squash player!
The rest of the week me and Elder E Silva we're either tracting and street contacting constantly, or doing workovers with other missionaries. This past week we actually had some fun going down to push and help the missionaries in Solihull and Rugby. In Rugby we went down early Friday morning to do a planning session to see how they were planning. It's a relatively new missionary training a greenie...so there was bound to be mistakes being made that could be helped.
Hopefully they got the point on that. By the way, that was Elder Kool, a frenchmen, and Elder Peterson from Mesa, Arizona. After planning we went out tracting, me with the greenie from France and Elder E Silva with Elder Peterson. Elder Kool's a great missionary, and very motivated, but also very leadership minded, so it's kind of difficult for him not to have the reins and be directing things. He was asking me loads of questions, from life at home, to what being a zone leader is like, to how to best teach. It was pretty scary actually...thinking he'll actually take my advice. We didn't have too much success tracting, but I brought him over to a group of about 4 15-17 year olds to talk to. I introduced us, and basically put Elder Kool on the spot to teach. The greenie in him was very apparent, very nervous, short statements, lack of concentration and uncomfortable. He very briefly recounted the Joseph Smith experience which was good..but just left it at that when he was done. When we walked away he said to me "Its amazing how comfortable you are talking to them." I kind of smiled and told him he'd get there soon. He'll definitely be a great missionary. Hopefully there area can pickup a bit. In Solihull when we went over there, there area as always was struggling a bit..but there motivation and level of discipline was high. They spent about 22 hours of tracting that week, and taught over 25 lessons. Currently there, it's Elder Staal from Holland and Elder Wood from SLC, Utah.
We spent about an hour and a half in the flat talking about planning, and especially about the need to drop non-progressing investigators, and stop kicking a dead horse with people that don't care, or are not coming to church. Hopefully they got the point on that. By the way, that was Elder Kool, a frenchmen, and Elder Peterson from Mesa, Arizona. After planning we went out tracting, me with the greenie from France and Elder E Silva with Elder Peterson. Elder Kool's a great missionary, and very motivated, but also very leadership minded, so it's kind of difficult for him not to have the reins and be directing things. He was asking me loads of questions, from life at home, to what being a zone leader is like, to how to best teach. It was pretty scary actually...thinking he'll actually take my advice. We didn't have too much success tracting, but I brought him over to a group of about 4 15-17 year olds to talk to. I introduced us, and basically put Elder Kool on the spot to teach. The greenie in him was very apparent, very nervous, short statements, lack of concentration and uncomfortable. He very briefly recounted the Joseph Smith experience which was good..but just left it at that when he was done. When we walked away he said to me "Its amazing how comfortable you are talking to them." I kind of smiled and told him he'd get there soon. He'll definitely be a great missionary. Hopefully there area can pickup a bit.
In Solihull when we went over there, there area as always was struggling a bit..but there motivation and level of discipline was high. They spent about 22 hours of tracting that week, and taught over 25 lessons. Currently there, it's Elder Staal from Holland and Elder Wood from SLC, Utah.
Initially we just went to the flat and I looked through there Area Book to see if there was anyone I thought they could go back to while Elder E Silva just chatted to them about life in general, and catchin up from the MTC since that's where E Silva and Staal first met. After about 20 minutes of that, we left to go tract. I went with Elder Wood who's the younger of the two and E Silva with Staal. I was asking him how he liked it, if it was tough, how he was responding and reacting to the lack of work and stuff. For now his energy and excitement are still high which is great. Now that the sun's out it definitely should keep them a bit happier...random sidenote, read yesterday that Joseph Fielding Smith and Brigham Young both in their opinion believe the sun to be a celestialized earth which I thought was pretty cool...Why not?! It was definitely good to chat with him to see how he's doing personally, if he's having any struggles in kind of a roundabout way to see if we could sort out...but also to see how he's studyin, what he's studyin, and how good of a teacher and committer he is. We talked a little bit about books to read, and I did my best to steer him towards the missionary library, and especially to start off with Jesus the Christ, as he was mentioning some other kind of random ones he wanted to read. I basically told him my opinion of some of the books he wanted to read, and some of the books I had read, and which would most help him and he'd find most interesting. And again, he'll probably take my advice...gotta love it. As we neared the end of the road, I had a mini-spiritual experience which was great. I see more and more each day how the spirit really does work subtly. I initially saw a younger guy walking on the road next to us on the sidewalk who I just about didn't say anything to...then I thought, I should...and just went with it.
The guy is about 25, named Craig and again I just introduced us, and said Elder Wood would explain about our message. He taught a great lesson on the Restoration, and prefaced it well with the apostasy of religion generally and the fact that there is a God and he does love us, and demonstrates it by giving us prophets to lead us. Craig said he was kind of a scientific guy, and we were like great man, religion is about truth, even more so than scientific theory. We got his address as he had to scurry off, but hopefully they can teach him and see him. After we finished tracting we went home and we had dinner with them. Elder Staal is a very speculative and creative guy and so we had a long discussion about President Mundays most recent zone Conference on the fall of Adam and eve which was pretty enlightening. I stuck pretty much to the scriptures and he kind of got off speculative....which basically every time was proved to be untrue from the scriptures. Dad's taught me well about how to use the scriptures as a standard to establish doctrinal truths so that people don't get off track. Right before we left Solihull, I was on the phone with one of the assistants, Elder Tucker, reporting numbers for about 35 minutes which was like a freakin marathon. I was exhausted after explaining, or excusing, or having to take accountability for the shortcomings or failures of the Zone...was kind of rough since everyones struggling...but slowly improving. I'll just mention a couple other things before talking about our investigators and teaching them. On P-day me and Elder E Silva found out Elder Chandler's birthday was on Thursday, and he basically didn't get any letters or packages from home, or any reference to it being his birthday in his emails on Pday...so we thought we'd better sort that out.
I'll just mention a couple other things before talking about our investigators and teaching them.
On P-day me and Elder E Silva found out Elder Chandler's birthday was on Thursday, and he basically didn't get any letters or packages from home, or any reference to it being his birthday in his emails on Pday...so we thought we'd better sort that out.
There wasn't too much we could do...but we decided to go over to ASDA, the UK Equivalent to Wal-Mart and buy some things to have a breakfast for the whole Coventry flat to celebrate his bday. We got a sign that said "Baby's 1st Birthday", some Happy Birthday plates, some instant Bisquik pancake mix, syrup and blueberry and chocolate chip muffins. I was the blueberry man, Elder E Silva was goin for the healthy style breakfast of chocolate. The next morning we woke up at 6, got all dressed, grabbed our skillet and food, and went over. It worked out great, because Elder Chandler and Salmon went out to go for a run, so the flat was decorated and the pancakes we're already being made in time for them to come back. It was great because we all got to eat, study together and start off the day well, both altogether and celebrating Elder Chandlers bday. He said "I just figured it was going to be like any other day"...so we changed that up and made it better. Me and Elder E Silva are going to ry to get all the names of the missionaries in our zone, and try to pop in and make them breakfast to celebrate. What they don't know...is that it's also a good opportunity to check up on them in the morning, make sure they wake up on time, study and leave the flat to work...muahahahaha nor just cause we like to eat! Just yesterday, Elder E Silva had a baptism in one of his previous areas called Stourbridge, which is just beyond Birmingham just about an hour from Coventry. President gave us permission to leave just after the 2nd hour to make our getaway...with a few Easter chocolate eggs in tow being crammed down our throats...mmm.
Just yesterday, Elder E Silva had a baptism in one of his previous areas called Stourbridge, which is just beyond Birmingham just about an hour from Coventry. President gave us permission to leave just after the 2nd hour to make our getaway...with a few Easter chocolate eggs in tow being crammed down our throats...mmm.
Well, mmm for a little bit...until I got a headache and felt gross due to the excess of chocolate.
But that's expected on Easter. So yah, we drove all the way there, and it was one of the best baptisms I was able to witness. This less active lady named Phillipa was tracted into by some missionaries, which they subsequently taught her husband Chris for awhile, including Elder E Silva. It was great because she was reactived slowly by the missionaries..and with time he was slowly himself listening more and more. He first was reluctant, then less resistant, then listened to the message, then started reading passages from the Book of Mormon, then he would read everyday, then church attendence then baptism...whoo. Phillipas dad, who's about 82 and pretty frail ended up baptising Chris. One of the past missionaries was also in the font just to make sure Chris, who's pretty big, was able to be brought up by Phillipa's dad. Kind of weird having 3 guys in the font, but it worked out well. After the baptism, and confirmation we had some food there which I liked. But also one of the past missionaries, who had gone home and was there, had brought his sister. She's what you'd call a frog, and she was all flirty, asking me if I was on LDS Linkup and all this crazy stuff. Me and elder E Silva we're like "uhhhhhhhhhh what's goin on here". I did an exit stage left and just stayed by the food so I wouldn't have to keep my shield up and dodging. Eventually we went back to their house for about 20 minutes to have a drink and get them Elder e silva's email address which was cool. There were a very average British family, with a house and kids....not living by the government and divorced which was a shock to me. I was thinking it was impossible to get a family going to church that was normal here.
I guess they all left with Dan Jones and Wilford Woodruff back in the day.
Alright, well that's pretty much kind of some things that went on...but now I'll tell you who were teaching and what's goin on in our area. We spent about 18 hours this week knocking doors and a couple in the town centre which was pretty useful...we found lots of people to try back at. We don't have any real solid progressing investigators yet, but that will change.
We have a guy named Atilla from Hungary, so basically we're teaching Atilla the Hun. We just got him a book of Mormon in his language and he's been to church a few times. He's girlfriends down this week, so we probably won't get much time to chat with him. He's a real nice guy and his English is moving along very well. I feel pretty confident that we can baptise him. When we went over there we just talked to him about his life, and then gave him the Book and set up a return appointment. It wasn't really a teach I would say.
We also got a media referral, where someone orders a DVD from the TV. We delivered the DVD on Wednesday to a "Wisdom Yegbe". Me and Elder E Silva we're giggling and thinking we'd also be meeting "Charity" and "Love". At the door we met, Caroline and Susan who both were very nice to us and said "Your the Mormons". Both black and from Ghana. We rescheduled since Wisdom was sick and came back Saturday. We asked them if they'd watched the DVD, and they had already..twice!
That's always good. Saturday came, and we knock knock knocked, and eventually Susan answered and let us in. We went in and sat down to a couple black guys watchin Cradle 2 the Grave, some jet lee movie with loads of swearing. They shut it off, and we met Jude, Wisdom and Ben, all from Accra, Ghana. All very quiet, but nice and very Christian guys. They we're all preppin for a big Easter party that night so we got a bit of cake and sparkling juice. We decided to watch the Restoration DVD with them about Joseph Smiths first vision which went very well. They asked a bunch of questions, so we basically reiterated the whole first vision account so they got it that time. After explaining about the Book of Mormon, it actually got pretty cool. Jude, one of the guys was quoting a few scriptures about how no man has ever seen God, not in an antagonistic way but like 'i thought no one had?". Wisdom, clearly the leader there, started referencing scripture after scripture. I mentioned that was a mistranslation with reference to man never seeing God and being in his presence naturally but had to be changed, or his spiritual eyes had to be opened. Then Wisdom was like "It could have been like the Transfiguration on the Mount with Joseph when God appeared to Joseph". Elder E Silva and I were like "Woah". It was actually really cool to have your investigator listen and understand your message, then discourse and defend scripturally the message you shared to others in the room. We just sat back and we're thinking "Wisdom, you take the floor'. Before we left, we gave out Books of Mormon and the new restoration leaflets and set another appointment. I think we're going to baptise that whole house. What's great as well, is that they've been to our church in Accra with friends and know of the temple there.
I was going to leave the investigators from the Ghanans, but we just got home from another appointment and I thought I'd mention it while it's fresh. I street contacted a young lady with 2 kids on Saturday named Phillipa, got her addy and made an appt to see her Monday. We went over Monday, and she wasn't there, but her mom and grandma were. As it turns out they were Christian Scientists...but also somehow like Church of England at the same time. Wasn't too sure what was going on there. Both these ladies chatted forever, basically talking at us about their Christian work and how they help the Coventry area. The ladies generally are more Christian minded, the men, the doctrine. After relating some good experiences they both had(and mentioning that Coventry had the only prison to hold prisoners back in the day...hence the "Sent to Coventry" phrase) we got down to business. These ladies were Verina and Louise. Louise had been given the Joseph Smith Restoration pamphlet from her daughter and suprisingly read the whole thing. We for awhile talked about God, how he loves us, and there lots of "Yes"'s, etc and agreement. Louise, the mom, understood the idea of apostasy and persecution so that fascilitated our explaining of the Apostasy after Christ. At the same time, it was amazing as we spoke about Reformers how she was pretty content that any church of God would do. Elder E Silva asked how you could find out which church was true...which got them onto some random tangent, but I pulled it back asking a few questions. Since we already knew they believed God answers prayers I said "What if I was a leader of a church, and taught God did not answer prayers, could my church be Gods church?"
I think she got that, but tried to pull another tangent and deflect it Bill Clinton style by avoiding it. I brought it back again by establishing that only through Christ do we gain salvation, and any other church teaching otherwise would of course not be true. Sometimes you don't want to hurt little old ladies, or moms faith by saying there church is wrong..but there perception was way off in left field. After a few establishing points, we came around to Joseph, and the necessity of God's visit to him and subsequent answer. I really felt strong and powerful as I testified to them, the spirit was definitely there and I know it touched there hearts just for that moment. As I recounted the First Vision, Louise also said out loud "above the brightness of the sun" and the grandma's eyes were slightly red. Due to the culture and tradition...and old ladiness, they got onto another tangent, which we decided to kill off, commit to read 3 Nephi 11 and make an appt.
That only took another 15 minutes. Dang chatty ladies! Both these ladies were very sweet, very Christian, and happily inquisitive which is good. I left just thinking to myself, our church is God's church, there's no confusion, no misperception, no speculative or man made doctrine, we all know the truth which I love.
It's awesome so far being a Zone Leader. I definitely like being able to teach and direct a little bit, without usurping unrighteous authority...but doin it in the right way. It's also been great to drive every other day. We have a small little red, 2 door, 5 seater car called a Corsa. It's a 1.0 litre car which means 0-60 in 10 minutes ..or no acceleration. Kids on their bikes can leave the lights faster than we can.
It's great though because it gets us around quick and we can spend time tracting and not biking so much.
Tomorrow should be another great p-day. President in his desire to get everyone working hard and unified has been letting the District Leaders do overnight workovers without callin him to ask for permission, so far it's goin well. Elder E Silva and I as well, decided to have a Zone Pday where we would play Squash and go bowling with everyone in Coventry, and also talk about how things need to improve, and people need to start getting investigators baptised. Hopefully we can do a bit of inspiring tomorrow.
Hope everyones week goes great, ours has!
Love,
Elder Smith
Just to start off with, after I emailed y'all last week, we, being the Coventry missionaries, 3 sets of em, Elder Salmon and Chandler, Elder Lavender and Till, E Silva and Smith went to play Squash in town. Elder Till was the only one that put up a reasonable fight against me, but I still beat him in the two games we played. He's an Austrian, and it turns out, went to the same school as Hitler did. Interesting fact! He's a bit of a perfectionist, mixed with an anger management problem...he was constantly yelling and screaming when he lost points to me. The other missionaries just couldn't hack it. Now I can say so far in this zone, that not only am I the best missionary..but the best squash player!
The rest of the week me and Elder E Silva we're either tracting and street contacting constantly, or doing workovers with other missionaries. This past week we actually had some fun going down to push and help the missionaries in Solihull and Rugby. In Rugby we went down early Friday morning to do a planning session to see how they were planning. It's a relatively new missionary training a greenie...so there was bound to be mistakes being made that could be helped.
Hopefully they got the point on that. By the way, that was Elder Kool, a frenchmen, and Elder Peterson from Mesa, Arizona. After planning we went out tracting, me with the greenie from France and Elder E Silva with Elder Peterson. Elder Kool's a great missionary, and very motivated, but also very leadership minded, so it's kind of difficult for him not to have the reins and be directing things. He was asking me loads of questions, from life at home, to what being a zone leader is like, to how to best teach. It was pretty scary actually...thinking he'll actually take my advice. We didn't have too much success tracting, but I brought him over to a group of about 4 15-17 year olds to talk to. I introduced us, and basically put Elder Kool on the spot to teach. The greenie in him was very apparent, very nervous, short statements, lack of concentration and uncomfortable. He very briefly recounted the Joseph Smith experience which was good..but just left it at that when he was done. When we walked away he said to me "Its amazing how comfortable you are talking to them." I kind of smiled and told him he'd get there soon. He'll definitely be a great missionary. Hopefully there area can pickup a bit. In Solihull when we went over there, there area as always was struggling a bit..but there motivation and level of discipline was high. They spent about 22 hours of tracting that week, and taught over 25 lessons. Currently there, it's Elder Staal from Holland and Elder Wood from SLC, Utah.
We spent about an hour and a half in the flat talking about planning, and especially about the need to drop non-progressing investigators, and stop kicking a dead horse with people that don't care, or are not coming to church. Hopefully they got the point on that. By the way, that was Elder Kool, a frenchmen, and Elder Peterson from Mesa, Arizona. After planning we went out tracting, me with the greenie from France and Elder E Silva with Elder Peterson. Elder Kool's a great missionary, and very motivated, but also very leadership minded, so it's kind of difficult for him not to have the reins and be directing things. He was asking me loads of questions, from life at home, to what being a zone leader is like, to how to best teach. It was pretty scary actually...thinking he'll actually take my advice. We didn't have too much success tracting, but I brought him over to a group of about 4 15-17 year olds to talk to. I introduced us, and basically put Elder Kool on the spot to teach. The greenie in him was very apparent, very nervous, short statements, lack of concentration and uncomfortable. He very briefly recounted the Joseph Smith experience which was good..but just left it at that when he was done. When we walked away he said to me "Its amazing how comfortable you are talking to them." I kind of smiled and told him he'd get there soon. He'll definitely be a great missionary. Hopefully there area can pickup a bit.
In Solihull when we went over there, there area as always was struggling a bit..but there motivation and level of discipline was high. They spent about 22 hours of tracting that week, and taught over 25 lessons. Currently there, it's Elder Staal from Holland and Elder Wood from SLC, Utah.
Initially we just went to the flat and I looked through there Area Book to see if there was anyone I thought they could go back to while Elder E Silva just chatted to them about life in general, and catchin up from the MTC since that's where E Silva and Staal first met. After about 20 minutes of that, we left to go tract. I went with Elder Wood who's the younger of the two and E Silva with Staal. I was asking him how he liked it, if it was tough, how he was responding and reacting to the lack of work and stuff. For now his energy and excitement are still high which is great. Now that the sun's out it definitely should keep them a bit happier...random sidenote, read yesterday that Joseph Fielding Smith and Brigham Young both in their opinion believe the sun to be a celestialized earth which I thought was pretty cool...Why not?! It was definitely good to chat with him to see how he's doing personally, if he's having any struggles in kind of a roundabout way to see if we could sort out...but also to see how he's studyin, what he's studyin, and how good of a teacher and committer he is. We talked a little bit about books to read, and I did my best to steer him towards the missionary library, and especially to start off with Jesus the Christ, as he was mentioning some other kind of random ones he wanted to read. I basically told him my opinion of some of the books he wanted to read, and some of the books I had read, and which would most help him and he'd find most interesting. And again, he'll probably take my advice...gotta love it. As we neared the end of the road, I had a mini-spiritual experience which was great. I see more and more each day how the spirit really does work subtly. I initially saw a younger guy walking on the road next to us on the sidewalk who I just about didn't say anything to...then I thought, I should...and just went with it.
The guy is about 25, named Craig and again I just introduced us, and said Elder Wood would explain about our message. He taught a great lesson on the Restoration, and prefaced it well with the apostasy of religion generally and the fact that there is a God and he does love us, and demonstrates it by giving us prophets to lead us. Craig said he was kind of a scientific guy, and we were like great man, religion is about truth, even more so than scientific theory. We got his address as he had to scurry off, but hopefully they can teach him and see him. After we finished tracting we went home and we had dinner with them. Elder Staal is a very speculative and creative guy and so we had a long discussion about President Mundays most recent zone Conference on the fall of Adam and eve which was pretty enlightening. I stuck pretty much to the scriptures and he kind of got off speculative....which basically every time was proved to be untrue from the scriptures. Dad's taught me well about how to use the scriptures as a standard to establish doctrinal truths so that people don't get off track. Right before we left Solihull, I was on the phone with one of the assistants, Elder Tucker, reporting numbers for about 35 minutes which was like a freakin marathon. I was exhausted after explaining, or excusing, or having to take accountability for the shortcomings or failures of the Zone...was kind of rough since everyones struggling...but slowly improving. I'll just mention a couple other things before talking about our investigators and teaching them. On P-day me and Elder E Silva found out Elder Chandler's birthday was on Thursday, and he basically didn't get any letters or packages from home, or any reference to it being his birthday in his emails on Pday...so we thought we'd better sort that out.
I'll just mention a couple other things before talking about our investigators and teaching them.
On P-day me and Elder E Silva found out Elder Chandler's birthday was on Thursday, and he basically didn't get any letters or packages from home, or any reference to it being his birthday in his emails on Pday...so we thought we'd better sort that out.
There wasn't too much we could do...but we decided to go over to ASDA, the UK Equivalent to Wal-Mart and buy some things to have a breakfast for the whole Coventry flat to celebrate his bday. We got a sign that said "Baby's 1st Birthday", some Happy Birthday plates, some instant Bisquik pancake mix, syrup and blueberry and chocolate chip muffins. I was the blueberry man, Elder E Silva was goin for the healthy style breakfast of chocolate. The next morning we woke up at 6, got all dressed, grabbed our skillet and food, and went over. It worked out great, because Elder Chandler and Salmon went out to go for a run, so the flat was decorated and the pancakes we're already being made in time for them to come back. It was great because we all got to eat, study together and start off the day well, both altogether and celebrating Elder Chandlers bday. He said "I just figured it was going to be like any other day"...so we changed that up and made it better. Me and Elder E Silva are going to ry to get all the names of the missionaries in our zone, and try to pop in and make them breakfast to celebrate. What they don't know...is that it's also a good opportunity to check up on them in the morning, make sure they wake up on time, study and leave the flat to work...muahahahaha nor just cause we like to eat! Just yesterday, Elder E Silva had a baptism in one of his previous areas called Stourbridge, which is just beyond Birmingham just about an hour from Coventry. President gave us permission to leave just after the 2nd hour to make our getaway...with a few Easter chocolate eggs in tow being crammed down our throats...mmm.
Just yesterday, Elder E Silva had a baptism in one of his previous areas called Stourbridge, which is just beyond Birmingham just about an hour from Coventry. President gave us permission to leave just after the 2nd hour to make our getaway...with a few Easter chocolate eggs in tow being crammed down our throats...mmm.
Well, mmm for a little bit...until I got a headache and felt gross due to the excess of chocolate.
But that's expected on Easter. So yah, we drove all the way there, and it was one of the best baptisms I was able to witness. This less active lady named Phillipa was tracted into by some missionaries, which they subsequently taught her husband Chris for awhile, including Elder E Silva. It was great because she was reactived slowly by the missionaries..and with time he was slowly himself listening more and more. He first was reluctant, then less resistant, then listened to the message, then started reading passages from the Book of Mormon, then he would read everyday, then church attendence then baptism...whoo. Phillipas dad, who's about 82 and pretty frail ended up baptising Chris. One of the past missionaries was also in the font just to make sure Chris, who's pretty big, was able to be brought up by Phillipa's dad. Kind of weird having 3 guys in the font, but it worked out well. After the baptism, and confirmation we had some food there which I liked. But also one of the past missionaries, who had gone home and was there, had brought his sister. She's what you'd call a frog, and she was all flirty, asking me if I was on LDS Linkup and all this crazy stuff. Me and elder E Silva we're like "uhhhhhhhhhh what's goin on here". I did an exit stage left and just stayed by the food so I wouldn't have to keep my shield up and dodging. Eventually we went back to their house for about 20 minutes to have a drink and get them Elder e silva's email address which was cool. There were a very average British family, with a house and kids....not living by the government and divorced which was a shock to me. I was thinking it was impossible to get a family going to church that was normal here.
I guess they all left with Dan Jones and Wilford Woodruff back in the day.
Alright, well that's pretty much kind of some things that went on...but now I'll tell you who were teaching and what's goin on in our area. We spent about 18 hours this week knocking doors and a couple in the town centre which was pretty useful...we found lots of people to try back at. We don't have any real solid progressing investigators yet, but that will change.
We have a guy named Atilla from Hungary, so basically we're teaching Atilla the Hun. We just got him a book of Mormon in his language and he's been to church a few times. He's girlfriends down this week, so we probably won't get much time to chat with him. He's a real nice guy and his English is moving along very well. I feel pretty confident that we can baptise him. When we went over there we just talked to him about his life, and then gave him the Book and set up a return appointment. It wasn't really a teach I would say.
We also got a media referral, where someone orders a DVD from the TV. We delivered the DVD on Wednesday to a "Wisdom Yegbe". Me and Elder E Silva we're giggling and thinking we'd also be meeting "Charity" and "Love". At the door we met, Caroline and Susan who both were very nice to us and said "Your the Mormons". Both black and from Ghana. We rescheduled since Wisdom was sick and came back Saturday. We asked them if they'd watched the DVD, and they had already..twice!
That's always good. Saturday came, and we knock knock knocked, and eventually Susan answered and let us in. We went in and sat down to a couple black guys watchin Cradle 2 the Grave, some jet lee movie with loads of swearing. They shut it off, and we met Jude, Wisdom and Ben, all from Accra, Ghana. All very quiet, but nice and very Christian guys. They we're all preppin for a big Easter party that night so we got a bit of cake and sparkling juice. We decided to watch the Restoration DVD with them about Joseph Smiths first vision which went very well. They asked a bunch of questions, so we basically reiterated the whole first vision account so they got it that time. After explaining about the Book of Mormon, it actually got pretty cool. Jude, one of the guys was quoting a few scriptures about how no man has ever seen God, not in an antagonistic way but like 'i thought no one had?". Wisdom, clearly the leader there, started referencing scripture after scripture. I mentioned that was a mistranslation with reference to man never seeing God and being in his presence naturally but had to be changed, or his spiritual eyes had to be opened. Then Wisdom was like "It could have been like the Transfiguration on the Mount with Joseph when God appeared to Joseph". Elder E Silva and I were like "Woah". It was actually really cool to have your investigator listen and understand your message, then discourse and defend scripturally the message you shared to others in the room. We just sat back and we're thinking "Wisdom, you take the floor'. Before we left, we gave out Books of Mormon and the new restoration leaflets and set another appointment. I think we're going to baptise that whole house. What's great as well, is that they've been to our church in Accra with friends and know of the temple there.
I was going to leave the investigators from the Ghanans, but we just got home from another appointment and I thought I'd mention it while it's fresh. I street contacted a young lady with 2 kids on Saturday named Phillipa, got her addy and made an appt to see her Monday. We went over Monday, and she wasn't there, but her mom and grandma were. As it turns out they were Christian Scientists...but also somehow like Church of England at the same time. Wasn't too sure what was going on there. Both these ladies chatted forever, basically talking at us about their Christian work and how they help the Coventry area. The ladies generally are more Christian minded, the men, the doctrine. After relating some good experiences they both had(and mentioning that Coventry had the only prison to hold prisoners back in the day...hence the "Sent to Coventry" phrase) we got down to business. These ladies were Verina and Louise. Louise had been given the Joseph Smith Restoration pamphlet from her daughter and suprisingly read the whole thing. We for awhile talked about God, how he loves us, and there lots of "Yes"'s, etc and agreement. Louise, the mom, understood the idea of apostasy and persecution so that fascilitated our explaining of the Apostasy after Christ. At the same time, it was amazing as we spoke about Reformers how she was pretty content that any church of God would do. Elder E Silva asked how you could find out which church was true...which got them onto some random tangent, but I pulled it back asking a few questions. Since we already knew they believed God answers prayers I said "What if I was a leader of a church, and taught God did not answer prayers, could my church be Gods church?"
I think she got that, but tried to pull another tangent and deflect it Bill Clinton style by avoiding it. I brought it back again by establishing that only through Christ do we gain salvation, and any other church teaching otherwise would of course not be true. Sometimes you don't want to hurt little old ladies, or moms faith by saying there church is wrong..but there perception was way off in left field. After a few establishing points, we came around to Joseph, and the necessity of God's visit to him and subsequent answer. I really felt strong and powerful as I testified to them, the spirit was definitely there and I know it touched there hearts just for that moment. As I recounted the First Vision, Louise also said out loud "above the brightness of the sun" and the grandma's eyes were slightly red. Due to the culture and tradition...and old ladiness, they got onto another tangent, which we decided to kill off, commit to read 3 Nephi 11 and make an appt.
That only took another 15 minutes. Dang chatty ladies! Both these ladies were very sweet, very Christian, and happily inquisitive which is good. I left just thinking to myself, our church is God's church, there's no confusion, no misperception, no speculative or man made doctrine, we all know the truth which I love.
It's awesome so far being a Zone Leader. I definitely like being able to teach and direct a little bit, without usurping unrighteous authority...but doin it in the right way. It's also been great to drive every other day. We have a small little red, 2 door, 5 seater car called a Corsa. It's a 1.0 litre car which means 0-60 in 10 minutes ..or no acceleration. Kids on their bikes can leave the lights faster than we can.
It's great though because it gets us around quick and we can spend time tracting and not biking so much.
Tomorrow should be another great p-day. President in his desire to get everyone working hard and unified has been letting the District Leaders do overnight workovers without callin him to ask for permission, so far it's goin well. Elder E Silva and I as well, decided to have a Zone Pday where we would play Squash and go bowling with everyone in Coventry, and also talk about how things need to improve, and people need to start getting investigators baptised. Hopefully we can do a bit of inspiring tomorrow.
Hope everyones week goes great, ours has!
Love,
Elder Smith
posted by JerzyGrl | 6:22 AM
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