Hola familia y amigos!!
This week we had Zone Conference (a once a quarter meeting with Pres. Alba for multiple zones ie about 70 missionaries) and it was so exactly what I needed. I'm super glad we had it and I can't explain what a difference it's made for me. Especially the first part where Pres. Alba talked about being fully converted. I've been having a hard time lately (the last few months) with a lot of things, for a lot of reasons, and I've been wondering what's wrong, why's it so hard, etc. Then he got up and said that "true conversion brings happiness" (based on a talk by Elder Scott). I was blown away by that simple statement and continued to be through that whole section of Zone Conference. I realized that while I do have a testimony that this is the only true Church of Jesus Christ on the Earth, and all that that entails, I have lately been stuck as what Pres. described the person that had full, complete, honest intentions to change/do better, but always just ended up falling short (the kind of person that's not quite truly converted). And then he gave examples of people, in particular Peter, before and after being truly converted that really struck me hard. Suffice it to say that I'll be using my notes from that section (as well the rest of Zone Conference) to study for a while! I do have a question that came up for me though: how do you get from just having a testimony/believing to being truly converted? or how do you help someone else make that change? I plan on studying/praying about that and see what I can learn, especially studying the examples of people who went through that change. As well as anybody's thoughts on that. The rest of Zone Conference was great. We had a lot of instruction about different things, including planning that will help us a lot I think. We also learned that every missionary in our mission will get a Facebook account as a missionary. We can't friend anybody that we know from back home though, so don't try looking for and friend-ing me... But I'm super exited to start using this as an amazing missionary tool! I'll let y'all know how that goes and what we can and can't do with it, etc.
Otherwise this week was pretty good, we improved on most accounts and with the better instructions for planning I feel like we'll be much more focused and effective and have an even better week this next week. We are planning on picking up an investigator, Jonathan, who's married to a member, tonight at dinner. He's already been to Church the past three weeks (and a baptism). Hopefully he will be able to progress much more quickly than some of our other investigators because of this. We have also been picking up a few other investigators and have quite a few more than we have had the past few weeks. Anyways, things are getting better, looking up, and I'm determined to be happy now no matter how things are going, because I'm going to become fully converted, which will bring happiness.
Love y'all and I had a great time receiving various birthday notes/packages from people.
Have a great week!
-Elder Whitaker
This week we had Zone Conference (a once a quarter meeting with Pres. Alba for multiple zones ie about 70 missionaries) and it was so exactly what I needed. I'm super glad we had it and I can't explain what a difference it's made for me. Especially the first part where Pres. Alba talked about being fully converted. I've been having a hard time lately (the last few months) with a lot of things, for a lot of reasons, and I've been wondering what's wrong, why's it so hard, etc. Then he got up and said that "true conversion brings happiness" (based on a talk by Elder Scott). I was blown away by that simple statement and continued to be through that whole section of Zone Conference. I realized that while I do have a testimony that this is the only true Church of Jesus Christ on the Earth, and all that that entails, I have lately been stuck as what Pres. described the person that had full, complete, honest intentions to change/do better, but always just ended up falling short (the kind of person that's not quite truly converted). And then he gave examples of people, in particular Peter, before and after being truly converted that really struck me hard. Suffice it to say that I'll be using my notes from that section (as well the rest of Zone Conference) to study for a while! I do have a question that came up for me though: how do you get from just having a testimony/believing to being truly converted? or how do you help someone else make that change? I plan on studying/praying about that and see what I can learn, especially studying the examples of people who went through that change. As well as anybody's thoughts on that. The rest of Zone Conference was great. We had a lot of instruction about different things, including planning that will help us a lot I think. We also learned that every missionary in our mission will get a Facebook account as a missionary. We can't friend anybody that we know from back home though, so don't try looking for and friend-ing me... But I'm super exited to start using this as an amazing missionary tool! I'll let y'all know how that goes and what we can and can't do with it, etc.
Otherwise this week was pretty good, we improved on most accounts and with the better instructions for planning I feel like we'll be much more focused and effective and have an even better week this next week. We are planning on picking up an investigator, Jonathan, who's married to a member, tonight at dinner. He's already been to Church the past three weeks (and a baptism). Hopefully he will be able to progress much more quickly than some of our other investigators because of this. We have also been picking up a few other investigators and have quite a few more than we have had the past few weeks. Anyways, things are getting better, looking up, and I'm determined to be happy now no matter how things are going, because I'm going to become fully converted, which will bring happiness.
Love y'all and I had a great time receiving various birthday notes/packages from people.
Have a great week!
-Elder Whitaker