Dear Family,
It has been a really good week for us here. Carrie is still
progressing towards the end of October to be baptized. We are going to a
baptism over in Davenport with her on Saturday where she will also be
attending the general relief society broadcast with some members of the
ward. She was at church yesterday along with her 6 year old daughter
and things are going swimmingly. I haven't been here in the Rock Island
ward for 9 months yet, but by the time I leave it will be 9 months.
I've been here for a total of 7 right now. The mission prep class
hasn't officially started yet, they had a meeting with all of the sons
and parents after church last night and is starting up this week.
Sister McClellans son is attending, along with 4 or 5 other young men
which is great. We haven't had a missionary out of this ward in over a
year now. The class should be fun because we get to go in and role play
with them to help them practice their teaching skills. When we have
gone on splits with some of these young men, they haven't been the best
at relaying the message they are trying to, but when they share their
testimonies it is a powerful thing.
We also met 2 new investigators this week. Their names are Kossi
and Koudzo. They actually aren't related, but they are both from Togo,
Africa. They speak french and pretty good english. They were both
former investigators and had copies of the BoM in french. Kossi is a
really nice guy and he really likes to talk. Koudzo was a way sweet
experience. He has been living in the United States for 6 years now
saving up to bring his wife and 6 kids to America. He knows that the
book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. We invited
him to be baptized and he wants to wait for his family to be here. He
said he is going to have enough money by December which will be way
sweet. I'm not sure why missionaries stopped teaching him in the past,
but we found him again and set a time that we can go over to his
apartment every single week at the same time. We gave our first "church
presentation" this week. We learned all about how to give them while
at zone conference this past week. You basically just teach the first
lesson while going through different rooms of the church. We did it
with a part member family, the Neyens. When we bore testimony of and
related the experience of Joseph Smith the spirit was really strong. We
talked a little about temples and sister Neyens, who is the less-active
member wife, bore a powerful testimony of how she misses the temple and
wants to go back. I think it will be a real turning point for them.
They were also at church last week which was sweet because it was the
first time she has come in a really long time and the first time he has
come ever for the whole block.
We got a different missionary in Rock Island this week. Elder
Brandley had to go home because a past neck injury wasn't really healing
and was being too much of a burden so he went home to get it fixed and
then hopefully will be coming back out. They new elder is Elder Spain.
He has been out for 17 months and is a good missionary. Very musically
inclined. At zone conference we talked a lot about the harvest and the
laws of the harvest. If you compare it to a corn field, we are to go
out and pick the ripe corn that is ready to come off the stalk. We
don't hover around the ones that are almost ready or "getting there" but
move on let the missionary's after us harvest those souls. We also
aren't supposed to be planting seeds. The time for planting is past and
our call is to harvest. Planting seeds is just a natural by product
that comes from us doing our work, but is not our goal as a missionary.
Just as you wouldn't see a farmer planting seeds during this season.
We also talked about the warning of not letting the ripe corn rot on the
stalk because no one was their to pick it. It was just a very good
conference and motivated us even more to work harder for our mission
goal of 400 baptisms for 2012. The church is true! Much love,
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