So nothing too exciting happened this week. It is been kinda
a depressing week. On Friday we ran into a recent convert who become less
active. We tried to set up an appointment where we could come talk to her but
she never returned our calls. Well while we were driving down the street we saw
her standing on the side of the road so we decided to pull over to say hello.
It is really weird because she was the first member I had dinner with in Payson
and she was super nice. Anyways, when we pulled over to say "hi" she
saw us and just walked to opposite direction. I don't know what happened to her
but it is pretty upsetting see somebody come so close to going to the temple
and then just giving up. I guess she has problems with women in the Priesthood
and gays in the church.
When we got home we also got a call form Marissa that she is
not interested in meeting with us. I asked her if she had prayed about it and
she told me that she didn't have to because she knew that she couldn't get
baptized. I think she is still afraid about what her parents will think if she
gets baptized. I told her to pray and think about it a little more and she can
let us know in a couple days if this is really something she wants to do. We
also fasted for her on Saturday.
Saturday was supposed to be an awesome day. We had four set
lessons but only one of them ended up following through. I feel like I have
been working me head off trying to have set lessons and get members to lessons.
Lately we have been doing more member lessons, seeing more dropped
investigators, and doing a lot of contacting but it just seems like nothing is
working. The members are great though and I can see that they really care and
that they are really trying to find people for us to teach. It is hard though
because 70% of the people in Payson are retired so they don't get too many
opportunities to talk to new people. They have already sent to missionaries to
their neighbors a dozen times.
We have been also praying that we will find a family that
has been prepared that we can teach. We have literally been talking to every
family that we see. If we see a family while we are driving we will stop and
talk to them. This is this one family that lives near us that we pulled over to
talk to and they said that missionaries for two years have been pulling over to
talk to them. they were a nice family but not interested.
Stake conference was also Saturday night. they talked a lot
about faith and that if we have enough faith we will find people to teach! I
believe that! I know that eventually we will fill our teaching pool. We
also had stake conference on Sunday and it was pretty awesome. It was again
focused on missionary work. The only part that was a little weird was when a
return missionary of about three days bore his testimony and he kinda chastised
the members. The only person I think can do that is Elder Holland....
After conference we went to the park to do some contacting.
The weather was amazing so there were a lot of people at the park. We talked to
two families there. The second family we talked to was awesome. They were
totally dry Mormons. Unfortunately they belonged to a church that has said some
really horrible things about the LDS church. So they thought that they already
knew everything about our church... And if I had been told what they had been
told and I didn't know what I know now i would come within 50 feet of any LDS
member. All I could was tell them that I have read the Book of Mormon and I
could deny the feeling I felt when I asked God if it was true. I told him that
they only way to know for himself if the Book of Mormon is true is to read it
and go to the source. It is pretty sad to see a family miss out on the
opportunity to be sealed because of false doctrine.
We also asked texted Marissa to see how everything was
going. She was responding to our texts until I asked her if she had a chance to
pray about meeting with us. We never got a response after that. so the next day
we told her if she was ever interested in meeting with us to just let us know
and that we really enjoyed teaching her. Maybe all we were supposed to do with
her was plant a seed :/
So anyways this week was a little rough. Things are getting
better here and I know that we will find the people that have been prepared
here in Payson if we just don't give up and lose faith! the true in is true the
sky is blue.
- Elder Joshua Anderson.
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