Today and last night were kind of crazy because Elder R had to be in the mission office at 8:30 last night to go sign for his visa in the morning. So because I couldn't stay here alone, I went to G at about 6:30 and was in a trio with Elder J and Elder V. It was fun. I love those guys. We taught a lesson last night and it was super powerful. Let's just say 3 missionaries teaching is a lot more powerful than 1. Elder R just barely got back about 2 hours ago, so we haven't really had time to do anything and we have an appointment in a half hour. Lovely.
If you're asking about the subject line, I got a hilarious letter from Caitlin Stratton today and, thanks to that, I lost the game. Dang it, woman! Haha, love that kid.
Also, tell the Johnsons and the Stauffers thanks for the Christmas cards/books they sent me.
Ok, well, this week was really rough. This is just a hard area, I decided. We did find one awesome new couple to teach. After one of our lessons, this guy in the street asked us if we knew where he could download the Bible in audio. So we sent him to LDS.org and put an appointment to visit him. His name is G, he's 20 years old and lives with his girlfriend, who is also 20. He knows the Bible really well and had a ton of questions for us; about tithing, denying the Holy Ghost, who created God, etc. Also, he knew it was bad to be living with someone he's not married to, and they are already in the process of saving up enough money to get married. Golden! So we taught him the restoration and it was really great. When we challenged him to be baptized, he said yes, and when we asked him why he wanted to be baptized, he said "something inside me just told me to say yes!" Perfect, right? This happened Friday so we were pretty pumped, because the rest of the week had been pretty unsuccessful. So we go back Saturday, and he's standing outside waiting for us to tell us that they decided that they don't want us to come over anymore. I guess they read some things in the introduction of the Book of Mormon that they didn't like. What? No guys, that's not how it goes. You're supposed to read the Book of Mormon, know it's true, and ask us where the baptismal font is. So we told them to keep reading and asking God if it was true and they said they'd do that.
Highlight of the week: interviews with President Wagner on Thursday. 20 minutes with that man and he had me laughing and crying and he blew my brain up about 6 times. Needless to say, I got a lot of revelation out of that. He taught me how we should be teaching the restoration--more focused on God´s love for us and less on the fact that our church is true. Powerful. He also said a lot of things we could do to help out in the branch and to help me with my companion. It was so great. The best part, of course, was when he told me that the N family had had a family night with him in his house that week, and that they invited him to their baptism on the 19th! I was freaking out! I'm so happy for them! Thank you, Elder B!
Yesterday the District President came to our church and changed all the callings. He told Elder R and I a whole lot of things that made me really...sad? I don't know how to describe it. He gave us a bunch of extra assignments to try and help our branch president out. So we're going to be focusing more on the branch than on the investigators right now. I kind of had that feeling this week as all our appointments continued to fall through and all the cool new investigators we found fell off the face of the earth. It's going to be a lot of work. He put our youth Sunday school teacher in the primary to try them there and put me as their Sunday school teacher, which leaves Elder R to teach Gospel Principles alone. I'm kind of excited but it's going to be hard. We´re going to make a branch mission plan with our branch president to try and figure out how to solve the mess we've got right now.
Well, that's about it for this week. I've got my hands pretty full right now with the branch, the investigators, and the companion. Thank you for your prayers and support, I couldn't do it without you. I love you all! Have a great week!
Elder Pew
