I've seen in my mission that 3 weeks is usually the magic amount of
time that it takes me to get settled and adjusted to change. Well, it
has been 3 weeks and I am seeing that adjustment happening but it is
still a bit of a struggle. The area is not as on fire as it was when
S. Brown was here and I feel bad about that. I'm trying to figure out
what things we used to do that we aren't now, and I'm seeing some ways
we can fine-tune that should help, but it is still frustrating. And I
know that areas go through different phases of momentum, I just don't
like that this is a slower phase! It is still good though. We met with
Bishop LaFond this week and asked what he would like us to do to
support him and the ward and what he said was focus on retaining our
recent converts. We have quite a few and a 5 of them are single
sisters and home teaching is pretty non existent in this ward
currently so he wants us to keep making sure they are getting the
spiritual support. Which is good, we were already working with them,
but we will be making an even more focused effort and reporting to him
on their progress. The people that we are working with are generally
progressing, we are just trying to find new investigators to build our
teaching pool back up. We have been seeing some success recently with
members naming friends that might be interested, we are just trying to
encourage them to follow through with having those conversations with
their friends and inviting them to learn more!
Last night we had a very interesting conversation with Kiernan's
brother Shawn. He said he had some questions and so we said we would
be glad to answer the best we could! It started off alright, he asked
what we believe about the history of the people in the Americas based
on the Book of Mormon. He wanted to know if we think that there were
no people here before Lehi's family and that all the Native people are
decedents of the people in the Book of Mormon. I explained that the
Book of Mormon is simply a record of certain civilizations in the
ancient americas. That doesn't mean there weren't other people already
here. If that is false doctrine feel free to call me out on it, but
that is my understanding. From there though the conversation went way
downhill! He started trying to talk about all these obscure things
from the Old Testament and talking about demons polluting the human
gene pool and that's why there were giants...or something like that!
Anyway, it made me grateful to have the framework of basic gospel
truths to discern what things are true and which are not. I didn't
need to have researched all of the random things he spent so much time
studying in order to not be confused. I just needed to know the
fundamentals of the Plan of Salvation and rely on the Spirit. He then
tried to convince us that our view of the Godhead is incorrect and
tried to prove the Trinity. When we testified of what we believe and
asked him to pray and ask God if what we believe is true, he said
something about all answers from God coming based on the validity of
the bible. How grateful I am to know that there is modern revelation
to help uncover lost truth and to know that through personal
revelation we can recognize truth versus the philosophies of men.
This week we will have Zone Conference and it is going to be about the
"Why" of missionary work. I am super excited about that! We also have
a temple trip coming up on Saturday to take recent converts to the
temple to do baptisms for the dead! Things have been more complicated
than expected because Bishop was out of town for 3 weeks and then was
back for a day and is out of town again because his Father-in-Law
passed away. Which is a problem for people who were planning on going
but had recommend interviews scheduled for yesterday. Plus I do not
have the organizational skills that Sister Brown had! But the Lord
will help it work out the way it needs to. So it should be good!
We also had a nine year old investigator named Elyiah come to church
with her uncle who is a less active member! Good moment for a
missionary :)
Love yous!
Sister McConkie
Sorry all my pictures this week have to do with dogs...
A member's dog named Banjo. Basically the coolest looking dog I have ever seen!
time that it takes me to get settled and adjusted to change. Well, it
has been 3 weeks and I am seeing that adjustment happening but it is
still a bit of a struggle. The area is not as on fire as it was when
S. Brown was here and I feel bad about that. I'm trying to figure out
what things we used to do that we aren't now, and I'm seeing some ways
we can fine-tune that should help, but it is still frustrating. And I
know that areas go through different phases of momentum, I just don't
like that this is a slower phase! It is still good though. We met with
Bishop LaFond this week and asked what he would like us to do to
support him and the ward and what he said was focus on retaining our
recent converts. We have quite a few and a 5 of them are single
sisters and home teaching is pretty non existent in this ward
currently so he wants us to keep making sure they are getting the
spiritual support. Which is good, we were already working with them,
but we will be making an even more focused effort and reporting to him
on their progress. The people that we are working with are generally
progressing, we are just trying to find new investigators to build our
teaching pool back up. We have been seeing some success recently with
members naming friends that might be interested, we are just trying to
encourage them to follow through with having those conversations with
their friends and inviting them to learn more!
Last night we had a very interesting conversation with Kiernan's
brother Shawn. He said he had some questions and so we said we would
be glad to answer the best we could! It started off alright, he asked
what we believe about the history of the people in the Americas based
on the Book of Mormon. He wanted to know if we think that there were
no people here before Lehi's family and that all the Native people are
decedents of the people in the Book of Mormon. I explained that the
Book of Mormon is simply a record of certain civilizations in the
ancient americas. That doesn't mean there weren't other people already
here. If that is false doctrine feel free to call me out on it, but
that is my understanding. From there though the conversation went way
downhill! He started trying to talk about all these obscure things
from the Old Testament and talking about demons polluting the human
gene pool and that's why there were giants...or something like that!
Anyway, it made me grateful to have the framework of basic gospel
truths to discern what things are true and which are not. I didn't
need to have researched all of the random things he spent so much time
studying in order to not be confused. I just needed to know the
fundamentals of the Plan of Salvation and rely on the Spirit. He then
tried to convince us that our view of the Godhead is incorrect and
tried to prove the Trinity. When we testified of what we believe and
asked him to pray and ask God if what we believe is true, he said
something about all answers from God coming based on the validity of
the bible. How grateful I am to know that there is modern revelation
to help uncover lost truth and to know that through personal
revelation we can recognize truth versus the philosophies of men.
This week we will have Zone Conference and it is going to be about the
"Why" of missionary work. I am super excited about that! We also have
a temple trip coming up on Saturday to take recent converts to the
temple to do baptisms for the dead! Things have been more complicated
than expected because Bishop was out of town for 3 weeks and then was
back for a day and is out of town again because his Father-in-Law
passed away. Which is a problem for people who were planning on going
but had recommend interviews scheduled for yesterday. Plus I do not
have the organizational skills that Sister Brown had! But the Lord
will help it work out the way it needs to. So it should be good!
We also had a nine year old investigator named Elyiah come to church
with her uncle who is a less active member! Good moment for a
missionary :)
Love yous!
Sister McConkie
Sorry all my pictures this week have to do with dogs...
A member's dog named Banjo. Basically the coolest looking dog I have ever seen!