That's crazy about the flowers! I'm glad it all worked out though, I saw a couple pictures because I was tagged on Facebook and it looks like it was really nice! I'm happy to hear about the Book of Mormon reading with you and Dad. It's cool that you're using the journal edition to mark it too! I like the idea of that. I'm reading through in Spanish for the first time (I've never read all the way in Spanish) and I should be done by the end of the year. I've been going at it for a while now, but I'm trying to speed up. I also love the opportunities technology gives us. It's nice to be able to email rather than rely on snail mail all the time.
I forget that Rosie is so close to having her baby, that's so cool! There's actually a part of my current area that is in Indiana (though we never go because of distance and lack of hispanic people); maybe we'll have to drive out next Monday so we can say we were in the same state haha. Just kidding, we probably won't. We have mile limitations, and that would be a lot of miles. That's so cool about Rose though. I'm glad her baby is going to be giant. :)
That's cool about the choir, I'm surprised it's gotten so small though! I loved being able to hear the different choir arrangements and sing about Christ. It makes me happy.
I love you too, Mom. Thanks for all you do, and for striving to grow spiritually. It means a lot to see that.
So I'm going to start with some questions: I really want to make biscuits, but I don't want to buy shortening. If I replace it with butter will it still work? What happens if I don't knead the biscuits?
Another two about baking: Would off-brand or Jiffy brand baking mix work the same as Bisquick? How do I make jigglers? We found really cheap Jolly Rancher gelatin!
Things have gone really well! We've been working really hard to try to visit as many people as we can to work more effectively throughout our days, and it's been super cool! That really started to happen after zone conference on Wednesday. I was wearing my super-fly-tie that Matt sent me, and we had an amazing day out here! There were several main themes in the conference: Goals, Passion, and Teaching. The teaching one came first actually. President and Sister Welch presented to us a new approach to teaching the first lesson. It's not a 100% this will work for everyone kind of approach, but it is extremely effective in a wide variety of situations, and it cuts out a lot of things that missionaries do that can actually slow the progression of people. The idea with this is that the Book of Mormon is our most important tool for conversion; it's what will really change people's lives. However, they have to read it on their own. During our visits they learn, but conversion happens when we aren't there. So what we do is we very simply teach the first handful of points, not giving too much detail, only what's absolutely necessary, and we get to the Book of Mormon as fast as possible. The idea is to get there in like 5 minutes, and spend the rest of the time in the Book of Mormon. Also, we want to keep it short. Many people don't want us there for so long, they have a hard time scheduling us in for a half hour or more, so if we take 15-20 minutes we can visit more frequently. The missionary department has found that the slower we teach (in most cases) the faster conversion happens. We have to focus in on their needs a lot more than we think, and shorter, more frequent visits helps them get into the Book of Mormon faster and then conversion can happen. We've been able to have several lessons with this idea and they've been really good! Also this can work with people who want to have us over for an hour or more (it's surprising how many people just want us to be there), because if we take 20 minutes and leave them wanting more, they're more likely to invite us more frequently or read or do other things so they can maintain the feeling of the Spirit! It's been really cool to learn about, and we're working on implementing it in every situation that merits this.
Next we talked about passion. President Welch basically roasted us all about how we don't have enough passion/urgency about the work. It's sad, but he's right. As he told us, we have some of the most talented, skilled, obedient, diligent, etc. missionaries in the world. But without a drive, without urgency and passion, things just won't get done! We have amazing missionaries, but we have also been under-performing greatly. Our brains are awesome, but our hearts need some more calibrating. As sad or eye-opening as that is, it's kinda true. We WANT to be here, we work hard, we improve our skills, but why aren't we getting the results? Because we need to be all-in. We have to be more accountable, and the way we do that is by accounting to God every morning, every day, every night in prayer. We need to report to Him. When we set goals it's a covenant with Him, that we're going to do absolutely everything we can, and He will provide the rest. We won't always hit our goals, but we will always do our best. I can't explain it as well as President Welch can [see 2 Ne. 33:1 and Ether 12:23-24 -Ed.], but this sort of mentality has helped us immensely this week, we're doing much better. So we set goals, place ourselves accountable before God, and we do our best!
Elder Santistevan and I have been doing just that, working hard and giving our all to God. I've always tried to be obedient and improve, but something about this has been electrifying. We're very connected to our purpose when we focus on this, and it's just such a privilege to get out and work! I start to crave it! Other than that nothing too crazy has happened this week. Just lots of little miracles that I don't have time to write about, but I talked about the thing that I most wanted to share with my beloved family and friends. I love you all a lot! Keep striving to grow closer to God and feel accountable to Him for how we do every day! He is merciful, loving, kind, and He has the power to do what we need. He can truly help us.
Love,
Elder Liddle
No comments:
Post a Comment