Hi everybody! I hope everyone's had a great week!
This week has been good. We've probably had more lessons this week than just about any week I've been in Enoch! And they've all been really good lessons! One of our newer investigators is a middle aged lady named Willow. Her husband is an active member. While on exchanges with Elder Howard, we taught her the first lesson (the Restoration). We started out kinda cautious, trying to gauge her interest level, and we started sharing some how to begin teaching points. Then she basically said she wanted to jump right into the lessons, so naturally we were thrilled to oblige! And that was such a good lesson! She totally gets it! We had another lesson on Sunday with her. So that was awesome! And it has just been so nice to have so many lessons, and it's also been nice that several of our investigators are starting to really keep their commitments and progress.
These seem to be the "days of plenty". However, in the scriptures, days of plenty are often followed by a famine, and it looks like we're about to get one. We're losing about half our investigators! This
week, Shawn is probably moving into the Cedar North stake, and thus will be under the teaching jurisdiction of Elder King and Elder Vidinha (yeah, my former companion recently got transferred down to Cedar!). Christopher is also moving into the Cedar North Stake, though we will have one last lesson with him this week. David, being YSA age (young single adult, 18-30), and being well within driving distance of the YSA missionaries, will be getting handed over to them to teach. We have a joint lesson with him this week, and then he'll be meeting with the YSA Elders from there on out. And one of our investigators, Ryder, just dropped us this past week. So by the end of the week, we will probably be down four investigators, three of which we only recently found in the last few weeks. It looks like we've been good at finding people for other missionaries to teach. And to make things more difficult. Julie, another recent contact, can't meet for another couple weeks, and we still can't seem to schedule anything with the Lawsons! That basically just leaves Crystal, Ann, and Willow, and Crystal is getting baptized at the end of the month, so although we will do the new member lessons with her, she won't be counting toward our nonmember lesson count or our investigator pool. So yeah, hard times are coming it looks like. Hopefully we can find A LOT this week and try and counteract the loss of work we're about to experience.
Other than that things are pretty normal. I don't think I've mentioned it in the newsletter before, but Elder Spencer can be really difficult to work and live with. He's incredibly rigid and uptight, and he often can't seem to compute thoughts and opinions other than his own. He does have his good qualities, but he has been a challenge. However, even that is a learning experience, and I've been tried and stretched and have become better for it I think. Plus, he has been a bit easier to get along with lately. So that is good. I'll take it.
I've told some of you in personal emails last week, but I'd already sent the newsletter out before we got the news. On Saturday, the 8th, we are having a special Mission Conference that all the missionaries in the mission are going to, hosted by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! That's so exciting! We get to have an Apostle speak to us for three hours, we get a mission photo with him (unfortunately no time for personal photos with him), and I'm pretty sure we get to shake his hand. This is going to be awesome! It's not often one gets to meet an Apostle.
So that's been my week. I'm still loving being a missionary, and I'm rather shocked at how fast it all seems to be going. I'm over my six month mark, and summer is almost over! How did that happen so fast! But I really do love it. I know that this church is true, and that Christ is at the helm, and that as a missionary, I am about His work. Even as the world seems to be getting crazier and crazier, I find
comfort in that. We have a loving Heavenly Father, and a loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Their doctrine will not change, nor will they leave us alone. No matter what happens, Jesus is the Christ, and if we
follow Him, we will not be lead astray, and we can be confident that we are safe in His arms.
Have a wonderful week, everyone! May the Spirit be with you!
-Elder Oswald
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