32nd Ward Newsletter Jan. 2015
Missionaries
bethany.coates@myldsmail.net
ross@myldsmail.net
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On Sunday the 11th we had a special fast for Carson Ross. He had eye surgery this month
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On Sunday the 11th we had a special fast for Carson Ross. He had eye surgery this month
Hello All,
Here's what happened in Hof this week.
On Monday, we decided to go by on one of our contacts in the north. We came to find that he lived in a large appartment building. We actually made out an appointment with him. We will be meeting him today. We had planned the night before to simply go from door to door in this area. We decided to stay at the appartment building. There were really over 100 people that lived there. We rang and rang, but nobody had interest. We finally got to the second to last doorbell. He let us in and we taught a 15 minute Restoration lesson. Sadly, he did not want us to come back, in spite of the questions that he had.
On Tuesday, we had planned to meet with Tesfalye, but he ended up being in Nürnberg for the entire week. This also meant that he could not attend sacriment meeting. We had prayed about where to go the night before during planning, and we decided to go to the specific street that we felt was right. We ended up finding 5 contacts. Although they were not new investigators, I have never had so many at one time in Hof. We definatley spoke to everyone. I was happy just to work hard, even though, numerically, we did not have success.
On Wednesday, we stopped by on contacts and did street contacting. No one really even let us talk at all. Sometimes, that is the way things go, but I wasn't discouraged. We also got to visit a member for Silvester. The food was delicious and we got to see a few fireworks. We still had to be in bed on time. Unfortunately, I slept the whole night and wasn't woken up once by the fireworks. I did see the results the next day. The streets are basically orange because of all the fire works that were lit. Pretty crazy.
On Thursday, we had an appointment with Ajay. We decided to teach him with the Kunz´s at his request. We taught him also in the church. I know that he felt the spirit, even though there were points in the lesson that were not so great. He said at the end " I love meeting with you people. You make me feel really cool." He is really an amazing person. He will probably be moving to Berlin very soon now. He wants to get baptized. We have tried to find out why, and I don't think that he even knows, but he is seeking it.
On Friday, we met with Bru. Rösler. He is a member. We have to be careful sometimes when we meet with him. He likes to have the missionaries over, but it can turn into a waste of time. In order to not waste time, we gathered up a list of names of investigators that he had contact with and innactive members. Our time with him was actually very successful and Elder Barboza and I learned a lot. We finished with a spiritual thought and he even told us that he was going to pray about some streets that we could go finding on. It was super cool. We met with Schw. Barbosa as well. She is making slow progress. She has a goal to read the Book of Mormon all the way through. We thought that simply reading it with her was not the best because she doesn't understand the German. Even in Portugese, she has problems. We gave her a portugese Book of Mormon on CD so that she could listen and understand.
On Saturday, we went by on a lot of contacts, and most of them were actually home, they weren't interested, but I felt like we got something done. We also talked with everyone on the street like usual.
On Sunday, we went to a street that Bru. Rösler reffered us to. We did doors there. Some of the people actually listened before they shut the door. We had some good conversations.
Sometimes, I think, we give ourselves reason to doubt. Why do we do this? We are always judging ourselves and even others. I think that it is a natural trait to want success. To want more. To be happy. We take a few steps in the right direction and somehow, on our journey, we seem to get stuck in the middle. There are some unexpected turns and climbs. Our endeavor turns out to be something completely different than we expected. We realize that we are coming to the end of our strength and we get stuck. We don't know whether to turn back, go forward, or if we ought to use our time doing something else. Remember the map maker. Remember that the Savior has walked this exact same way before and is actually there with us. Sometimes, we may need to change, but the most important path that we take, is the one we walk as a family. The Lord has promiced us the land of our inheritance, in other words, eternal life. This is truely available to all. Sometimes we are comfortable living below our potential, but this heavenly potential is something that everybody has. I am certain that God lives. He has prepared a place for us where we will see him again. This is the path we ought to travel. Sure, it envolves doing some things. But everyone can be on this path and I am absolutely certain that it leads us back to Him.
Elder Draper
Here's what happened in Hof this week.
On Monday, we decided to go by on one of our contacts in the north. We came to find that he lived in a large appartment building. We actually made out an appointment with him. We will be meeting him today. We had planned the night before to simply go from door to door in this area. We decided to stay at the appartment building. There were really over 100 people that lived there. We rang and rang, but nobody had interest. We finally got to the second to last doorbell. He let us in and we taught a 15 minute Restoration lesson. Sadly, he did not want us to come back, in spite of the questions that he had.
On Tuesday, we had planned to meet with Tesfalye, but he ended up being in Nürnberg for the entire week. This also meant that he could not attend sacriment meeting. We had prayed about where to go the night before during planning, and we decided to go to the specific street that we felt was right. We ended up finding 5 contacts. Although they were not new investigators, I have never had so many at one time in Hof. We definatley spoke to everyone. I was happy just to work hard, even though, numerically, we did not have success.
On Wednesday, we stopped by on contacts and did street contacting. No one really even let us talk at all. Sometimes, that is the way things go, but I wasn't discouraged. We also got to visit a member for Silvester. The food was delicious and we got to see a few fireworks. We still had to be in bed on time. Unfortunately, I slept the whole night and wasn't woken up once by the fireworks. I did see the results the next day. The streets are basically orange because of all the fire works that were lit. Pretty crazy.
On Thursday, we had an appointment with Ajay. We decided to teach him with the Kunz´s at his request. We taught him also in the church. I know that he felt the spirit, even though there were points in the lesson that were not so great. He said at the end " I love meeting with you people. You make me feel really cool." He is really an amazing person. He will probably be moving to Berlin very soon now. He wants to get baptized. We have tried to find out why, and I don't think that he even knows, but he is seeking it.
On Friday, we met with Bru. Rösler. He is a member. We have to be careful sometimes when we meet with him. He likes to have the missionaries over, but it can turn into a waste of time. In order to not waste time, we gathered up a list of names of investigators that he had contact with and innactive members. Our time with him was actually very successful and Elder Barboza and I learned a lot. We finished with a spiritual thought and he even told us that he was going to pray about some streets that we could go finding on. It was super cool. We met with Schw. Barbosa as well. She is making slow progress. She has a goal to read the Book of Mormon all the way through. We thought that simply reading it with her was not the best because she doesn't understand the German. Even in Portugese, she has problems. We gave her a portugese Book of Mormon on CD so that she could listen and understand.
On Saturday, we went by on a lot of contacts, and most of them were actually home, they weren't interested, but I felt like we got something done. We also talked with everyone on the street like usual.
On Sunday, we went to a street that Bru. Rösler reffered us to. We did doors there. Some of the people actually listened before they shut the door. We had some good conversations.
Sometimes, I think, we give ourselves reason to doubt. Why do we do this? We are always judging ourselves and even others. I think that it is a natural trait to want success. To want more. To be happy. We take a few steps in the right direction and somehow, on our journey, we seem to get stuck in the middle. There are some unexpected turns and climbs. Our endeavor turns out to be something completely different than we expected. We realize that we are coming to the end of our strength and we get stuck. We don't know whether to turn back, go forward, or if we ought to use our time doing something else. Remember the map maker. Remember that the Savior has walked this exact same way before and is actually there with us. Sometimes, we may need to change, but the most important path that we take, is the one we walk as a family. The Lord has promiced us the land of our inheritance, in other words, eternal life. This is truely available to all. Sometimes we are comfortable living below our potential, but this heavenly potential is something that everybody has. I am certain that God lives. He has prepared a place for us where we will see him again. This is the path we ought to travel. Sure, it envolves doing some things. But everyone can be on this path and I am absolutely certain that it leads us back to Him.
Elder Draper
Transfers have come around and I'm staying.
On Tuesday, we decided to go to Naila, a small city 30 minutes away. We prayed about it the night before and both felt that we ought to go there. As we first got there, at the train station, we had a good conversation with a man for 10 minutes. We planned to first visit an inactive member there. Sadly, he was not home, or not answering. We then progressed to contact all of our other contacts and find on the way. We had about 7 contacts, but none of them were home. This was really strange because of the Holiday. Anyway, we used our time effectively, we just didn't find anyone. I don't know exactly why the Lord gave us the feeling to go there, but I am happy that we did.
On Wednesday, we met with Tesfalye. Because of all of the problems that he has been having, he had a relapse. He started drinking and smoking again. We told him that we were there to help him. He said that he wanted to wait another month before he gets baptized. I am a little concerned about this, because he will not progress if we simply keep on setting a date and then end up moving it. He will probably end up staying in Hof a while longer. At this point, we are trying to remind him of how he first felt as he met the missionaries, when he first developed the desire to get baptized.
On Thursday, we did mainly finding. We did decide to go by on contacts in Oberkozau. Again, we had the feeling to go there, but not a lot of success.
I learned a lot at mission tour. What impressed me the most, is how to find and create ways for people to exercise their faith, even from the very beginning. Now, I will never do finding the same again. I genuinely had my questions answered at these meetings, and I plan to make the neccessary changes based on the answers to the questions that I recieved. At the end of the day, we visited some contacts. One of them was home and we will come again on Tuesday.
On Saturday, we made a solid plan for this next week. We are really trying to meet with the Forberig family, but they told us that they would have no time this week. We had the feeling that they are the ones in the ward at this time that we really need to be working with. We decided to apply some of the principles that we were taught from Elder Kopischke in teaching them. The husband is not a member, so we are going to start with the Book of Mormon. We will first ask them to come up with questions and we will as well. We will read together in the Book of Mormon, get our questions answered, after praying. We will then invite them to do this on their own and follow up afterwards. We met also with Schw. Barbosa. We shared with her how questions will be answered, and we invited her to come to church and she actually came. We also met with Tesfalye. We invited him to come to church with a question, like we were taught. The problem was, we think, that he had been drinking, because he really was not acting normal. Sadly, he didn't come. He says that it is too hard to wake up because of the sleeping medicine that he has.
On Sunday, we did some finding. We actually talked to this man named Hasan, right as we walked out of the appartment. We initiated a personal converstation, just like Elder Kopischke said. It actually worked. We couldn't get an appointment, but we have his e-mail address, and he said that he would respond as soon as he gets internet. We also met with a former investigator. We have an appoinment with him in February, because he has too much going on this month.
I feel that I have learned a lot about hope this week. Hope doesn't mean that we simply sit around thinking that maybe, possibly something miraculous is going to occur. Hope is a trait in which we expect that the Lord is going to follow through with his promiced blessings. It is easy to go about life, expecting only the worst. We go on, not necessarily being dissapointed, but also not partaking of the happiness that we perhaps could have enjoyed. As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are privelaged to partake of all his blessings. There is not one act that He or His Son ever did that was not for us. He asks that we have faith and keep believing, even in an unclear horizon. I have found that for relatively small expectations, I have recieved innumerable blessings in return. I know that this is always the case, and will always be, even until the day when we shall meet him again.
Alles Gute,
Elder Draper
Hello Everybody, hope your week is great.
On Monday, we stopped by on contacts, and did finding on the street. Our main contact didn't end up having any time to meet with us.
On Tuesday, we did lots of finding. It was really nice weather, so there were tons of people outside. We talked to everyone. I've been trying to be observent in finding some way to start up a conversation, but I still need to improve. I am definately trying to do the best that I can, but the people just aren't warming up yet. We had a lesson with Klaus, an investigator. We tried to teach him a lesson, but he doesn't really show any real intent. He invites us and most of the time he isn't there when we come back. We just need to find out where his concerns are, and how the gospel will help him.
On Wednesday, we went by on Familie Toth. They weren't home. We have tried to get appointments with them, but they always fall out. It is strange, because the two times that we taught them, they had lots of interess and questions. We are trying to work out a solution. We have been trying to get the husband's phone number for quite some time now, but he is never there. We also stopped by on other contacts, and did street contacting in between.
On Thursday, we went to a specific street that we prayed about the night before. We ended up getting three contacts in this area. To one of them, we gave a Book of Mormon. He told us to come back in 3 months because of a surgery that he had had. We also met with Herr Pushmann. It said that he was not teachable in his teaching record, but we thought we would hive him another try, because it had been a few years. We asked him questions throughout our meeting with him. He would say maybe one thing in responce, and then talk about movies or other unrelated topics. We tried to innterupt and ask questions numerous times, but to no avail. We also met with Tesfalye. We decided to commit him to read, but we applied the principle that Elder Kopischke taught us. We told him that he would get answers to his questions, so we chose a chapter in the Book of Mormon we all came up with questions. We then committed him to do exactly what we did together on his own.
On Friday, we went and knocked on doors. Honestly, we did not pray about a street the night before as we should have. I think this is why not a single person showed interest. I've learned my lesson, and from now on, I am going to pray about where to go.
On Saturday, we went to Naila, after praying and getting an answer the night before. We decided to find, and visit our contacts there. Almost all of them were home. A few didn't have interest, but most of them said to come back. One of them didn't remember us at all, but he said that we could come back on a week night. I felt like our time was very successful there. We also met with Tesfalye again. We talked about some of the problems he had and followed up on his reading. He did really well. He even wrote down some concerns and questions that we had, as we were teaching him that he could take to church the next morning.
On Sunday, Tesfalye didn't come to church. He had problems with his sleeping medication again, and he slept through it. We had an eating appointment with Familie Hemmann. Luckily, the Kunz's warned us a few days before that this family likes to have a huge social event with the missionaries. We had the Kunz's bring us over, so that the husband wouldn't push back the time to take us home. We told them right from the beginning that we would not be able to stay long. We had dinner and we gave a 45 minute lesson. We told everyone to come up with a question and we read in the Book of Mormon. This didn't go over very well, because the husband ended up getting angry. (He's not a member.) We simply asked everyone to come up with a question. He didn't and wasn't willing to exercise his faith, so he got nothing out of it. Kind of the same case with the family as well. I just don't think that they are used to being taught by missionaries. The husband said some bad things about the Book of Mormon that I wont repeat. They tried to get us to stay, but we were adimate that we really had to leave, and so we did and made good time. We got home and had the feeling that we should go by on Tesfalye. We prayed about it and then went over. We promiced him that all of his questions that he wrote would be answered if he would read everyday and come to church. He agreed, and we had a great lesson.
I have been learning more and more about listening to the Spirit. I feel like sometimes I kind of take over and I want to bring forth my ideas and sometimes I don't stop to really listen. The Spirit is the most important tool in missionary work along with faith. When we exercise our faith, the Spirit testifies to us. He testifys of Christ. He testifes of truth. As we listen to him our testimonies grow. The light that we had once found in Christ begins to grow. I really feel close to my Savior. This is something special about being on a mission, but it is not just for missionaries. One of the most powerful spritiual motivations that I have every day, is the oppurtunity to read the Book of Mormon. I am convinced that there is no problem so great, that it cannot be solved with the Book of Mormon. Of course, we still have to face our troubles, of which there will always be plenty, but powerful motivation is to be found in reading the Book of Mormon. I testify of its truthfullness. I know that it was translated by the power of God. It was written by prophets seer and revelators according to the same spirit that guide these leaders today.
Elder Draper
On Monday, we did some door to door finding. This is one of the skills that I could improve on. Door to door is definately something that I could improve at. This is something that I really never got used to. I definately am trying, though. I do need to develop some skills. One thing that I did notice, though, is the difference that it has made when we pray about a specific street to door. We have been doing this every day. Through this, we haven't been getting new investigators, but I have noticed that I feel better. It is hard to explain, but it seems to make all the difference.
On Tuesday, we found all day. We tried hard, but we didn't see any results. Although, effort is not wasted, like it says in Preach My Gospel Ch. 9. We also met with Brd. Rösler, a member. He is really in to missionary work. He doesn't really have anyone that he knows that he could reffer us to, but he prays about streets for us all the time.
On Wednesday, we had an exchange. I had the privelage of serving in Plauen with Elder Spencer. This was a really exciting day. First, we met with Diana, a new convert. I love having the oppurtunities of meeting with new converts. It is really cool to see the results of hard work and exceeding faith. After this, we stopped by a Serbian family, that the elders in Plauen had met a couple days before. Though the son had to translate the whole lesson, it was fantastic. We tried three times to invite them to baptism with pictures and everything, but they didn't understand. We still had a great lesson, and got away with comittments to come to church and read the Book of Mormon.
On Thursday, Elder Spencer and I did some street contacting. We had some good conversations. We had an excellent exchange inventory. I learned a lot and Elder Spencer is doing great at following up on what I have learned. We exchanged back and met with Tesfalye. We made a plan with him about how he can get to church. He actually had the idea that we could call him in the morning to wake him up. We have tried picking him up for church before, but that doesn't work. He has been reading the Book of Mormon daily, and he is learning a lot. After Tesfalye, we had a lesson with Hassan, a new investigator. He is very interested in other relighions, but from an academic point of view. We tried to tell him that our purposes were to help him come unto christ.
On Friday, we met with Schw. Barbosa. She didn't keep our last committment. We extended the same comittment again. To write out a question and then pray and read. We did street finding and visited contacts for the rest of the night.
On Saturday, we met with Tesfalye again. We felt that he needed to be re-taught the plan of salvation. We were right, he hardly even remembers it. We drew up a nice clean diagram on a piece of paper and drew all over it in our lesson. We also read a chapter in the Book of Mormon, to explain the plan better. (Alma 42) We committed him to read this chapter again on his own.
On Sunday, we called Tesfalye in the morning, just like we had planned, but he had his phone turned off. Because of this, we stopped by him again. We showed our disappointment. We talked about how we could help him in another way to get there. He still has this problem with his sleep medicine. We are working on it. He still definately wants to be baptized, he just doesn't quite understand why church is important. We have taught this many times, but I honestly think that his testimony of church will come has he reads and partakes of the sacriment.
I am truely thankful for the privelage that I have to pray. Sometimes, I would much rather have my situations change than to actually change myself. Sometimes we want the Lord to move mountains and make the path even, because surely he can do these things. But, often times he doesn't. Why not? I wonder this all the time. Why can't investigators just sleep walk to church? Why do I keep on getting doors slammed in my face? Sometimes, we do not realize our real purposes here. The object of prayer and work and trials is not to have everything given to us. These things change us. And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon yourshoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, evenwhile you are in bondage;
and this will I do that ye may stand aswitnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety thatI, the Lord God, do visit my people in their
afflictions. Mosiah 24:14
The object is not to change the will of the father, but to change ourselves. When we change, our testimony increases. We understand and come to know with a more perfect knowlege that Christ is Our Savior. I know that the Lord answers my prayers and they really are His answers.
Elder Draper
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Loving Moments:
With Valentines around the corner I wondered if you would like to share Loving moments about someone who has passed away.
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