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| Me with Pres. Wirthlin, he leaves for home next week. |
Tim, one of our investigators, mother passed away this week. As a result, we haven't been able to meet with him for a week. We also have a family with great potential, but the Dad is so sick that he pushed back his kidney transplant a month just so that the kids could hang out with him for Father's Day. As these two groups are struggling with illness/death, we have decided to let them settle for a month or two before we try and teach them.
:( This week, we have dropped about 8 investigators. The reason why is because the people were just not progressing in their testimonies and didn't show any real interest in us or what we were teaching. Thankfully we still have a solid teaching pool of about 10 people. Unfortunately, some of them are very busy with work and can't always be seen during the week. So, we decided to go looking for those who are looking for the Truth.
We worked our really old area book and went to a few areas that we have never been to before. We went to Clinton and Sauquoit. Fun fact... we saw the mansion that Clara Barton (who founded the American Red Cross) lived in while trying to met people in Clinton. It was beautiful. We did a lot of walking and talking in the sun, and for the most part, it was somewhat effective. We didn't pick up any investigators. We did give out a few Book of Mormons and pamphlets and found people and less-actives that moved out so we could update the ward records. But, for the most part, the areas were on the snobby-er side. I didn't realize how much I actually like tracting in humbler areas. Any where else and people get quite mean. :( We do have competition with other proselyting religious factions. So, that was difficult. We did have an unusual lesson with 2 drunks on their porch and they wanted us to come back... but we aren't in any rush to do that.
Despite all of the hard work we had to do... some GREAT THINGS HAPPENED.
1) CJ passed the sacrament for the first time and was a boss at it. He looked great in a white shirt and tie.
2) We have two investigators Rick and Kym who are so cool and they ask the best questions. Our average lesson is about 1 hour long and we hope that they will get baptized sometime this year. We see them every other day and it is people like them that make missionary work worth it.
3) We have a less-active woman we are working with and she is finally working up with 'good feelings' and accepted to come to church this next Sunday!
4) A week ago, the man we found while tracting has ended up being one of the coolest guys ever. He has real intent to change. We referred him to the elders and he is progressing forward! Lesson learned: The Lord sent us up a hill to talk to uninterested people so that we could find the one person at the bottom of the hill who needed us. Follow the spirit!!
5) The Lord just loves me.. I have had 3 baptisms in 7 months. 1 was a self referral, 1 was a member/self referral, and 1 was a member referral. Basically the Lord just handed them to me and all I had to do was teach. Many other missionaries are not that lucky to get those. This week was hard and was my 1st week we had no investigators at Church with us. But then, BAM this lady comes in with a member and she looks nice and we shake hands, but we don't think to much of it. Anyway, after an awesome sacrament meeting about personal revelation and accepting the will of the Lord, the member grabbed us after Sacrament Meeting and said "My friend wants to hear the gospel." Well, I basically grabbed my companion by the arm and we fly over to her before she walked out of the building to go home and cook for her husband. (Turns out her husband is an ex-member). She loved Sacrament Meeting so much that she cried. Anyway, she is from Puerto Rico and we taught the restoration to this really cool woman during 2nd hour. She accepted to be baptized August 25th. Better yet, she lives in New Hartford next to my favorite Swedish members and she has a car! YES! Gold Mine!!
So, after a whole week of just showing the Lord that we would work hard, we were blessed with a gift on the last day of the week, and it was a big one. So now, we just have to teach and help get her progressing.
Finally, this week I learned a lot from a Sister in the mission that got to stay the night since the Mission Home is in transition with President Wirthlin leaving next week. Before bed, we just started talking and she is 2 months away from going home and is the coolest Tongan/Hawaiian Sister ever. She is 23 years old and told us some crazy things about what has been going on with things back home, her school and she was just stressed. As we talked, she taught me about something that I didn't know existed... it is known as missionary 'Greed'. Missionaries live in a world of numbers. Each week we give the leadership our weekly statistics to document if we are working hard. I learned that a recent convert that was baptized after only being taught for 2 weeks is now inactive. It is just breaking my heart and I was slightly mad that the Sister that pushed her to be baptized so fast-- did it so she could get the statistics before going home. She praised herself for teaching 40+ lessons a week and would rub it in other missionaries noses. I am the missionary who replaced that Sister missionary. I have learned that the quality of lessons were awful. She taught in the car on the way to other appointments, or taught at inconvenient times for investigators and she didn't use the principles found in Preach my Gospel. :(
The Tongan Sister told me about how when she served in Carthage near Watertown, the Sisters there were some of the most humble and hardest workers she has ever met. They were in a walking area in the middle of the winter with 10 degree temps and walked everywhere from appointment to appointment. The area was hard, but they did everything they could. Over the course of a week, they taught 10-12 lessons and other missionaries kept saying how they were struggling but not having success. In reality, the Sisters in Carthage/Watertown were working harder and were more dedicated than the sister who claimed to teach 40+ lessons. Their humble and sweet attitude about the work they were doing was amazing.
To the Lord, whether it is 5 or 55 you teach, it matters equally to the Lord. I learned that there's plenty to learn here and in life. I have a new goal for the mission... to never get complacent where I am and to continue to be teachable. When it is my turn to leave and I get to bare my testimony to other missionary transfers.. it will be a testimony and not a training session! I have learned that numbers really do not matter in the eternal scheme of things. If we work hard, then in the next life we will truly be rewarded for our efforts. And also.. do not push people to join the Church for the wrong reasons. Because missionaries leave... bu then the ward/branch has to clean up the mess. So don't make a mess!
The Church is true. Good things will come this week. We are hosting a girl from Saratoga who has slight learning disabilities for a 10 day mini-mission to see if she can handle a full mission. So it is trio time!!
Love Sister Williams
