Hola familia y amigos!!
I'm going to take a break from writing a day by day e-mail for a while. It was good for a while, and I might use that format every once and a while, but it sometimes detracts from some of the more important things I want to write back.
I'm doing well, I still love working and serving with Elder Perez and learning from him. He will be a great asset to the Lord throughout his life, I believe. Anyways, the work here has still seemed slow, at least to my eyes. Elder Perez and I have been having a real hard time finding lately, but we've been focusing on contacting 10 or more people each day as we've been instructed and hopefully that will start bringing success, at least in finding, in the long run. We've been trying hard through these tougher times to focus on doing the basics, the things that we've been promised that if we do, we'll be blessed, and having faith that down the road the blessings will come, even if they're not the blessings we're looking for. I'm trying to keep that perspective in my thoughts for this time right now; my job right now is to continually work to be obedient to the rules, and to the methods and skills we've been instructed to use, and then have faith that the blessings will follow, and don't give up. That's obviously not to say it hasn't been hard, but that's the perspective I try to keep.
Couple specifics that I thought I'd share with y'all: Jamileth, who I've told you about before has been progressing, but slowly, she'll eventually get baptized, I'm almost certain, but short of an unexpected miracle (which we'll pray and hope for, but not count on) it appears like it will take a more slow and steady path to baptism. Also, we saw an interesting miracle (or at this point, beginning of a miracle maybe? I'm not sure...) the past few days. We received a referral from a Fijian member of the English ward who talked to this lady on the bus and felt very strongly prompted to share the gospel with her. She did and it went well enough that she got this lady's name and phone number. But the interesting thing is that the referral is for a lady who we had been teaching before, but had dropped about 5 weeks ago because she kept saying she was busy whenever we went by for an appointment. We haven't been able to get a hold of her yet, but are planning to keep trying until we do and we feel like it's maybe a sign that she's ready now. Anyways, hopefully it goes well!
Also, as the title suggests, there's something important about the date June 23rd. I should have started telling y'all about this earlier, but hopefully y'all have already heard some. As the Church has announced, the Mission President Training Conference will be broadcast around the world and will be open to the general church membership on June 23rd at 4:00 PM Mountain time. This will be the first time it will be available to general membership and maybe the first time it's broadcast around the world, too (I'm sure about the first part, just not about the second). That means that you can go to a Church building near you and listen to the same training that the mission presidents do. If you were wondering, every member should try to attend. We've been told Elder Nelson said it would be the "meeting of the Century". This century has had a few pretty important meetings, including the recent general conference with the age change and many other important ones, so take what you will from that. And this broadcast will not be rebroadcast (except to other parts of the world to allow for time differences) or available online afterwards. Point being, we've been counseled to try our best to get every member in our mission to attend, and I figured if it was important for every member in our mission to attend, it'd be important for everyone back home to attend as well. Maybe this isn't news to all y'all, but as it says in the title, Just Go.
-Elder Whitaker
I'm going to take a break from writing a day by day e-mail for a while. It was good for a while, and I might use that format every once and a while, but it sometimes detracts from some of the more important things I want to write back.
I'm doing well, I still love working and serving with Elder Perez and learning from him. He will be a great asset to the Lord throughout his life, I believe. Anyways, the work here has still seemed slow, at least to my eyes. Elder Perez and I have been having a real hard time finding lately, but we've been focusing on contacting 10 or more people each day as we've been instructed and hopefully that will start bringing success, at least in finding, in the long run. We've been trying hard through these tougher times to focus on doing the basics, the things that we've been promised that if we do, we'll be blessed, and having faith that down the road the blessings will come, even if they're not the blessings we're looking for. I'm trying to keep that perspective in my thoughts for this time right now; my job right now is to continually work to be obedient to the rules, and to the methods and skills we've been instructed to use, and then have faith that the blessings will follow, and don't give up. That's obviously not to say it hasn't been hard, but that's the perspective I try to keep.
Couple specifics that I thought I'd share with y'all: Jamileth, who I've told you about before has been progressing, but slowly, she'll eventually get baptized, I'm almost certain, but short of an unexpected miracle (which we'll pray and hope for, but not count on) it appears like it will take a more slow and steady path to baptism. Also, we saw an interesting miracle (or at this point, beginning of a miracle maybe? I'm not sure...) the past few days. We received a referral from a Fijian member of the English ward who talked to this lady on the bus and felt very strongly prompted to share the gospel with her. She did and it went well enough that she got this lady's name and phone number. But the interesting thing is that the referral is for a lady who we had been teaching before, but had dropped about 5 weeks ago because she kept saying she was busy whenever we went by for an appointment. We haven't been able to get a hold of her yet, but are planning to keep trying until we do and we feel like it's maybe a sign that she's ready now. Anyways, hopefully it goes well!
Also, as the title suggests, there's something important about the date June 23rd. I should have started telling y'all about this earlier, but hopefully y'all have already heard some. As the Church has announced, the Mission President Training Conference will be broadcast around the world and will be open to the general church membership on June 23rd at 4:00 PM Mountain time. This will be the first time it will be available to general membership and maybe the first time it's broadcast around the world, too (I'm sure about the first part, just not about the second). That means that you can go to a Church building near you and listen to the same training that the mission presidents do. If you were wondering, every member should try to attend. We've been told Elder Nelson said it would be the "meeting of the Century". This century has had a few pretty important meetings, including the recent general conference with the age change and many other important ones, so take what you will from that. And this broadcast will not be rebroadcast (except to other parts of the world to allow for time differences) or available online afterwards. Point being, we've been counseled to try our best to get every member in our mission to attend, and I figured if it was important for every member in our mission to attend, it'd be important for everyone back home to attend as well. Maybe this isn't news to all y'all, but as it says in the title, Just Go.
-Elder Whitaker