Week of broken records!

Letter #13

November 18, 2013

Area: Broadway 3
Companion: Thomas

 I can't believe how fast this week went by! This week we broke our record of lessons taught and we found out a way to get new investigators! But first the questions before I forget :P

0)  I only have about 5-6 people emailing me.  Last week one of the missionaries in our district was actually going home last week, so we cut our computer time short. He wanted to take some time to sell his bike, and then head to the chapel early to get more time to do other things.

1) each p-day(preparation day) we wake up, exercise a little (usually just walking to the store to get quarters, but I do have a tennis racket now and we have a court nearby), study a little while laundry is going, then finish laundry, clean the apartment, email, then go out to eat or eat the food that we bought at the chapel, and then we play basketball, write letters, etc at the chapel

2) we are still teaching the Honduras family, but we haven't see them for about 1.5 weeks.  They were busy or not home, but we finally got a lesson in this last week, and we have a lesson set for tomorrow :)

3) morning studying goes as follows (the rules of a missionary--diligence and obedience):

*1hr personal study (scriptures, PMG[Preach My Gospel], and whatever else you want to study),

*1hr companionship study (share what we learned while studying, prepare for lessons, and make our lessons better by learning scriptures to share with them),

*1hr of additional training study (the training booklet that we got when we got to Houston-usually just working on making lessons better),

*1hr of language study (whatever words you want to learn, read a chapter of the Spanish Book of Mormon out loud with companion, whatever else you want to do to study language)

4) the 'willing and brief" approach has been used with almost everyone that we have worked with.  I guess it works, it definitely helps us set up appointments, but one of the flaws is that they might say yes or no just to move us along they might not be home, so really only a couple of the appointments have turned into lessons...

5)i got the family pictures and I really like looking at them.

          okay, now back to my week. I had a pretty good week, it was full of disappointments when lessons fell through, when we didn't catch our backups at home, and stuff like that, but we found more people to teach and we taught really well :) One way that we found more people is by not looking as much. yes, I know that sounds counter-productive and stuff, but what we did, is we went to the less-actives and the people we felt like we should go see and the lord blessed us with more people. So one trick to get more people is to work harder to bring back the people that are already there! We got a couple of referrals this week and we decided to go to try one really fast before we went to teach a less-active.  While we were going to his apartment, we were called over by a guy that was across the street. We went over there and it turns out that he was an inactive member that was willing to have us come over to talk to him Tuesdays :) We also got a new investigator because one of the members, that has been accompanying us to our lessons, had a friend over when we came to eat, so we got to teach her.

          Like I said, we had a lot of disappointments and challenges this week, but I know that the Lord wants to give us the people to teach and He wants us to bring people unto Him. I know that as we show God that we are willing to work to keep the people He already has in His fold, He will open ways for us to bring more in.  This insight is not just for missionaries, He is asking all of us to do this. I want to ask you all to make sure you continue to do your home teaching and visiting teaching, and do what Mom did and go out with the missionaries to the lessons that they teach. Really do all that you can to help people come to Christ and then help keep them there.

I love you all so much,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

Enjoying time with missionaries in district!