Hello family and friends,
It has been yet another great week in the Great Kentucky Louisville Mission!
General Conference as a missionary was very different in that I thought infinitely more about how these messages could be applied to my investigators and others without the knowledge of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. For that I loved Elder Christofferson's talk so much, as well as the Priesthood session talks. Those talks featured a lot on "rescuing" less actives and fulfilling priesthood responsibilities. There are many less actives here and we are involved in the reactivation in some of those, missionary work in and of itself is an awesome tool for reactivation of our members, but member support is always the most vital aspect of retention in this church. It is something I am learning about enacting and maintaining "real growth" in this Church. A fear I have is baptizing someone into inactivity. Not something I want to be responsible for and something I would and we are trying to prevent.
Although we had planned on 15 investigators coming to at least one session of General Conference on Sunday, we completely struck out as we sat investigator-less for four hours yesterday. Regardless, I am so incredibly for the Restoration of the Gospel and the opportunity we have to listen to living prophets and apostles.
That was the end of our week, I guess I should fill in a bit of our week as a whole.
It really was a good week. We were busy meeting and teaching new investigators and trying to build our teaching pool as well as our fellowshipping pool. The members in this area are great and we have been able to find ways to get people involved in the work, which is exciting. Also, we had to scurry around to the different buildings to set up Spanish translation for conference. On Friday we had a Leadership Training Meeting with President and Sister Woodbury. We went over and had training on a few different things.
We first took upon us a promise that Elder Ballard gave to mission presidents in 2005, that if every individual missionary spoke to 10 people a day, irrespective of tracting, teaching, or other finding activities, just talking, that convert baptisms would double. Obviously that is something we want to work for. And for us especially, I mean double 0 baptisms and you still have 0, but we could at least shoot for one!
We also went over the purpose of the Book of Mormon in the work. The whole time all I remember was that stat that Elder Holland gave us in the MTC, that less than 20% of new converts say that during their path to baptism they had a significant experience with the Book of Mormon. And, since it truly is our greatest resource and other than the Spirit, THE key converter, that is a problem. So I welcomed our training because I know how powerful the Book of Mormon is.
Also, we went over how to help our investigators get to church (or conference). Judging from our numbers we didn't internalize that too well! But, there are no excuses because the MTC trained us very well at least in the knowledge of these things, its just a different story applying them.
So, hopefully things will pick up once we start doing those things.
On another note, Elder Banks goes home in three weeks, and so that leaves it up to me to know this area well enough to make sure whoever comes in can be on the same page. That isn't an easy task. We cover New Albany, Clarksville, Jeffersonville, and Charlestown, Indiana. Thinking about how to get from point A to point B alone gives me a headache. So, it is down to crunch time to make sure that I can at least make sure we don't flounder.
The work is moving along though. I love being out here. The weather has been kind to us, it is gorgeous. And although sometimes we have insane thunderstorms, we are always in the car or at home when they are going on, so we get to watch them, and they really are way cool. The only thing that has been tripping me up is the allergies here. The Ohio River Valley is apparently one of the biggest areas for allergens and whatnot. But there isn't anything that a triple dose of Claritin can't fix.
Hope all is well with everyone. Thank your for your prayers and support. Love you all,
It has been yet another great week in the Great Kentucky Louisville Mission!
General Conference as a missionary was very different in that I thought infinitely more about how these messages could be applied to my investigators and others without the knowledge of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. For that I loved Elder Christofferson's talk so much, as well as the Priesthood session talks. Those talks featured a lot on "rescuing" less actives and fulfilling priesthood responsibilities. There are many less actives here and we are involved in the reactivation in some of those, missionary work in and of itself is an awesome tool for reactivation of our members, but member support is always the most vital aspect of retention in this church. It is something I am learning about enacting and maintaining "real growth" in this Church. A fear I have is baptizing someone into inactivity. Not something I want to be responsible for and something I would and we are trying to prevent.
Although we had planned on 15 investigators coming to at least one session of General Conference on Sunday, we completely struck out as we sat investigator-less for four hours yesterday. Regardless, I am so incredibly for the Restoration of the Gospel and the opportunity we have to listen to living prophets and apostles.
That was the end of our week, I guess I should fill in a bit of our week as a whole.
It really was a good week. We were busy meeting and teaching new investigators and trying to build our teaching pool as well as our fellowshipping pool. The members in this area are great and we have been able to find ways to get people involved in the work, which is exciting. Also, we had to scurry around to the different buildings to set up Spanish translation for conference. On Friday we had a Leadership Training Meeting with President and Sister Woodbury. We went over and had training on a few different things.
We first took upon us a promise that Elder Ballard gave to mission presidents in 2005, that if every individual missionary spoke to 10 people a day, irrespective of tracting, teaching, or other finding activities, just talking, that convert baptisms would double. Obviously that is something we want to work for. And for us especially, I mean double 0 baptisms and you still have 0, but we could at least shoot for one!
We also went over the purpose of the Book of Mormon in the work. The whole time all I remember was that stat that Elder Holland gave us in the MTC, that less than 20% of new converts say that during their path to baptism they had a significant experience with the Book of Mormon. And, since it truly is our greatest resource and other than the Spirit, THE key converter, that is a problem. So I welcomed our training because I know how powerful the Book of Mormon is.
Also, we went over how to help our investigators get to church (or conference). Judging from our numbers we didn't internalize that too well! But, there are no excuses because the MTC trained us very well at least in the knowledge of these things, its just a different story applying them.
So, hopefully things will pick up once we start doing those things.
On another note, Elder Banks goes home in three weeks, and so that leaves it up to me to know this area well enough to make sure whoever comes in can be on the same page. That isn't an easy task. We cover New Albany, Clarksville, Jeffersonville, and Charlestown, Indiana. Thinking about how to get from point A to point B alone gives me a headache. So, it is down to crunch time to make sure that I can at least make sure we don't flounder.
The work is moving along though. I love being out here. The weather has been kind to us, it is gorgeous. And although sometimes we have insane thunderstorms, we are always in the car or at home when they are going on, so we get to watch them, and they really are way cool. The only thing that has been tripping me up is the allergies here. The Ohio River Valley is apparently one of the biggest areas for allergens and whatnot. But there isn't anything that a triple dose of Claritin can't fix.
Hope all is well with everyone. Thank your for your prayers and support. Love you all,
Elder St. Martin
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