Raining Mud and Investigators

April 20, 2015

Hi everybody!

Guess what! I've been on my mission 3 months now (well, as of tomorrow)! I can't believe how fast time seems to be going. I feel like my life is on fast-forward! Already an 8th of my mission is behind me. Time seems to be going way faster than it did before. Is that just something that happens on a mission or as one gets older, or is there some weird disturbance in the Time Vortex? :)  All I know is that it's going super fast.

This past week we had some really strange weather. It started out really nice; sunny, about 70 degrees or so, but then on Tuesday, it started to be really windy. It was still warm, but incredibly windy. The temperature dropped a fair amount by the evening, and the wind had blown up so much dust into the atmosphere that I could not even see across the valley, actually not even half way across! Then it got really cold and started a weird sleet/rain mix, but it was falling in brown globs! It was raining mud! That's how much dust there was in the air! Maybe that is normal for some parts of Utah, but I don't think I've ever seen mud rain before. Later that evening (after the dust had been rained out) it turned into snow, and we had snow for a couple days. But yesterday and today have been sunny and back around 70 degrees. Utah's weather is about as schizophrenic as Michigan's!

In terms of teaching, this week was WAY better than last week! The plan worked and we taught a whole bunch of lessons to nonmembers and less actives. We also got 2 new investigators! This was probably the most productive week I've had yet on my mission so far. Hence the title of the email, "raining mud and investigators". Of course, 2 new investigators and some new less actives doesn't really constitute "raining investigators", but it is close enough, and we are really happy with the progress. This week will probably be pretty good too. But after that I'm still worried. As soon as our batch of people are contacted, then that's it. We still need the member support. An awesome game plan can only sustain itself as long as there are people to visit, and it is the members who tell us who we should go see and help to fellowship. The plan this last week burned up about 2/3 to 3/4 of our people to see. A Relief Society President gave us another list of less actives on Sunday, so we are partially replenished, but by next P-Day I expect us to have burned through just about all of our options, unless we can get a substantial amount of new referrals. President Hinckley said "Every member a missionary". That is super important! Anyway though, for the time being at least, things are going really well.

This is my companion's last week. He goes home next week, and then I'll be getting a new companion. That will be a big adjustment.

Well, I hope everybody has a great week!

-Elder Oswald