Two Months Out, Expectations for Investigators, Exchanges (Dec 26)

It was a good week. We're still struggling because our teaching pool is pretty small right now, but we see miracles every day with the people we are able to teach. Especially with the ... family! They're so SO great. Yesterday we had a stressful situation that had to do with them, but it was resolved just fine. They don't have a car, so we have to arrange for rides for them to get to church on Sundays. The ward members are all really willing to help, so we had rides set up for them early in the week. Problem though, on Sunday morning, we called to confirm with their rides, and found out that the member who was going to take them to church wasn't coming to church that day. Big problem. We ran up to the chapel and found someone to go and pick them up, but he got lost and came back to the chapel without them. We felt awful, because by this time the meeting was half over, and there was no point in dragging someone else out of sacrament meeting to go and get our investigators. We were really frustrated and felt guilty because we weren't able to get our investigator to church, and especially on Christmas, when they were actually planning on coming to sacrament meeting! Derek can attest to this--getting investigators to church is one of the hardest things, and one of the most important things. Anyway, they couldn't get to church, but we went to their house afterward and apologized, and everything was resolved. We were afraid that they'd get offended or something and not want to talk to us anymore, which is silly, because they're very nice people, but everything worked out well and we had a great lesson with them.

"Another cool thing from this week--we just started teaching [another young man] ... We went by his house, half expecting him not to be there, because second to church attendance, keeping appointments is our biggest struggle. People tend to just not be home for the appointments they set with us. But when we showed up at Omar's house, he was there! And he had read the things we asked him to read! He had great questions about the plan of salvation and about the importance of baptism. It was a really great lesson. It was a reminder to me that I do need to have more faith in the Spirit's ability to touch the hearts of our investigators. Sometimes it's easy to be negative and expect them to not keep appointments, or to not have read from the scriptures, or to not show up at church, but that's something I need to repent of. The gospel does have the power to influence peoples' lives and actions, and I should be more positive in my expectations of our investigators.

"This week we also had exchanges. I don't know if all missions do this, but in our mission there is one companionship of sisters that is assigned to train other sister missionaries. Not all missions have sister missionaries go on companion exchanges, but our mission does. This Wednesday I got to go to another area to be trained by Hermana Luker. She's really great! It was weird to switch companions for a day, but it was good. I missed Sister Osborn and our area, but I learned a lot from Sister Luker. We focused on the importance of asking inspired questions when teaching and meeting people. You think I'd be better at asking good questions, since that's a big part of what I studied in some of my last classes at BYU, but asking inspired questions is one of the things I struggle with on the mission. I learned a lot from Hermana Luker though, and I'm on my way to improving that skill.

"Wow, I'm not sure what else to say! I made it through my first transfer, and when the new missionaries come on Wednesday, I'll no longer be one of the baby missionaries! Haha, that will feel good :D I'm so glad I was out here for this transfer, and not in the MTC, because I feel like I've grown in a lot of important ways through being thrown into something I didn't feel prepared for. I was already getting comfortable in the MTC by Week 1, so I know I definitely needed to come here early so the Lord could help me push myself. This transfer has been a blessing :)