Greetings,
This week flew by as usual,
Tuesday we had a lot of meetings. We met with our photo team and talked about themes we could use for the Zone posts. We also had District Council, and in the middle of it, we got a call which of course we answered on speaker as we are supposed to. It was a scammer, so I just handed the phone to our DL (knowing he would take care of it). He played along for a second claiming to be the owner of a 2001 Honda Accord SPORT edition. Next, they told him it wasn't covered so he let out a blood-curdling yell saying "Help me help me, someday help me!!" I've never seen a scammer hang up so fast, and none of us in the room could even breathe we were laughing so hard. Tuesday evening we did some stopbys and street contacting which was fun. Street contacting is really fun if you just talk to everyone who is outside. We found someone new to teach. Then as we were going to head to DQ for Facebook since it was almost that time, I felt like we should stop by this girl named Lenora. We are teaching her but she hasn't answered our calls or the door the last 10 times we've tried. It's super sad since she's so golden. Anyway so we stopped by and knocked twice no answer. So we decided we would probably drop her. We were going to leave but I felt like I should write a note and leave that. So I started writing a note ad when I was about halfway done she answered the door! We would have never waited that long if I wasn't writing a note. We talked with her and she said she had been scared off because of jealousy in another pastor's eyes when we showed her our ingenious "Love" Plan of Salvation diagram and apparently he said some not very nice stuff about us. So she had kind of cut off contact with him and us. But we resolved her concerns and she said she was so glad we were persistent and didn't give up on her. She even said she wouldn't be talking to us if she didn't believe what we were saying.
Wednesday was fun, we stopped by a lot of people and walked around and talked with lots of people. Nobody was really interested, but it was super funny to mutter under our breaths after each one. For example one person said "I don't have time for a scripture" while sitting on their porch doing absolutely nothing. Our unspoken reply was "You don't have time for God then?" Another funny things is when someone is walking away briskly so they don't have to talk with us and then we go around the other way and corner them anyway haha--it's hilarious to see the look of dismay as he or she sees they've been bamboozled!
We also taught Doris the Law of Chastity which was fun cause she completely agreed with everything we taught, as old ladies do.
Thursday in the morning we had some meetings with the social media specialists. In one or the meetings they gave us some cool numbers. Apparently in our mission this month as of Thursday there have been 87 people found through Facebook, 27 of those at church, and 11 or so of those on date. So Facebook has really been working well. And I will get to more on that soon...
Also on Thursday we had all 4 lessons cancel on us. Luckily we always have in a backup event on our calendar for every planned lesson so we did a bunch of stopbys in De Kalb. It was only 70⁰ so it was perfect for walking around. For dinner we had Tortilla soup with the Heiners which was pretty good. We have started getting members involved with the Zone page now that we are running it. After all it's much easier to send one of the Zone posts to one of their friends then to refer them directly to us. Then WE reach out to everyone who likes or interacts in any way, so it makes their job extremely easy.
On Friday in the morning we helped someone (a non-member service referral) move for 5 hours. It was fun, I've always like helping move when it isn't ME who's moving!
Unfortunately we had 4 lessons with 4 different people who we were planning to put on date, and every one of them cancelled, as if they KNEW we were about to invite each one of then to be baptized. But it's fine cause we don't give up. >:)
In the evening we walked around and talked to everyone who was outside. One dude was out there with his buddy arguing and we yelled out to them asking if they would like to hear a scripture. The guy's reply was, "I'm smoking Crack so I don't think you want to talk to me right now. You know the brown stuff? I smoke that!" At this point I was trying my best to hold in my laughter, and not doing to well. Finally we just told them to reach out if they ever DO want to talk, with laughs almost escaping the whole time, and we walked away.
On Saturday we helped with the move a bit more in the morning. We also talked to a girl named Mary (name has been changed) as we walked out of a lesson and she was looking really sad. So we went up to her, and apparently she is going through a rough time. She said she used to be a member of our church but then she had a bad dream as she was preparing to go to the temple and it scared her off. She cut off communication at that point. We were intrigued but didn't have time to talk at the moment so we got her address and set up a time to come by on Sunday. She said she was fine if we came by but she wasn't going to join our church. This is just the beginning...to be continued...
Sunday morning was great. As we were getting ready for church I got a message from this guy I had randomly messaged on Facebook a little while ago to look for him at church today! And sure enough he showed up to church after parking his longboard. So I have now found at least one person on Facebook every transfer so far!! Facebook really does work super well, I just wish I could get our Zone to believe me that it works. We've been trying to get them more hyped about Facebook work,, but they are all so pessimistic about it. >:( Anyway back to the guy, he's so cool, he came in with us and and asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and he said, "I always thought there was more writings, not just the Bible." We spoke in church and afterwards he told us he loved it. He us also intrigued by the thought of modern prophets and said, "it does make sense that they would exist." He stayed for Sunday school even. Then another member of our ward came up to him with a surprised look on his face, and apparently the two work at the same place! So they talked for a while, this means we already have a fellowshipper! He even posted on his Facebook after church thanking us for being so welcoming.
Okay, now to return to Mary. Sunday evening we went over to her house, with not very high hopes. She answered her door and we day down with her and basically asked her why she was scared away from our church. She told us it was that dream she had. But we knew there was something more so we kept pressing. She them said one thing that concerned her was polygamy. We promptly told her that isn't a thing anymore and she said, "Really? Oh well that's a relief!" We then explained a bit about why it was a thing before and she said, "Oh yeah, I'm sure God had his reasons." We then asked if she had other concerns and she said, "The spirit is telling me I should be honest with you guys. So actually I didn't have a dream that scared me off. I was actually shown a video by these Baptists about some horrible things going on in the temple and I know I shouldn't have watched them but I did and it scared me." We were shocked to hear some of the things they had showed and told her, and quickly told her nothing like that would EVER happen in the temple. She was so relieved like a weight had been lifted and we told her she can't believe everything she's told. She agreed and seemed much happier now. She then told us she had never actually been baptized, she had just been working towards it, and had been scared off. We asked if there were any other concerns and she said "how do I know it's actually God's church?" And we said great question and went to Moroni 10:3-5 and started reading but as we were reading she interrupted and said, "Actually I already did this, I prayed about it and I know it's all true cause the Spirit told me." And we were stunned again. So we got a return appointment, told her next time we'd tell her everything we were allowed to talk about that goes on in the temple next time and we are planning on putting her on date to be baptized!
That's it for now
-Elder Nielson
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