Amados Padres Mios, Amados Hermanos Mios,
Man this week could not have been any more spiritually jammed packed. I did not think that this week was going to be good because of Halloween. Plus, I can't lie, I was pretty excited to take time and clean our apartment on Halloween night. But we had some BIG changes in our mission that just changed everything this week and got me super excited for the remaining time I have on the mission.
First off, thanks for finding those CD's. I really appreciate the time you took to find them for our Investigator. I am positive it will help him enjoy the scriptures and just increase his love and knowledge of our Savior and His teachings. Also thanks for the pictures of Bridget's rugby game. Looks like she is enjoying in and just destroying down there.
All right now for the details of what happened this week. So on Tuesday we found a pretty solid investigator named Rosy. She has suffered from depression the past few years and is barely starting to recover and is still suffering from anxiety. We found her contacting and she had some bomb questions about the plan of salvation, and knowing why there are so many churches today. So we taught her on Tuesday, with a member, and she just accepted everything with alot of excitement. She also has expressed numerous times that she just feels more happy as she talks with us about God. In fact, she wants to stay in contact so much that she will text us and so far this week she has fed us twice. So ya she is super bomb and super prepared. This week we are going to really focus on contacting her daily so she can get in the habit of reading from the Book of Mormon regularly and praying to know this is true.
Ok now for what happened on Halloween. So we had a pretty solid morning and afternoon of working. We contacted some cool people and some of our investigators. Then around 4 o'clock we get a call from our ZL's saying that President wants every zone in the mission to hold a zone meeting at 8 o'clock sharp and that some big changes were going to happen. No we did not get IPads.... Our ZL's had their Mission Leadership Council with President that day and he announced some big challenges. So from 6-8 pm we were in our apartment cleaning (By the way, our bathroom is SPOTLESS! I got that bathroom looking super clean) and then we met with our zone at the church building at 8 anxious for these big changes.
So here is a little bit of details. Around this time last year, we, as a mission, set a goal to baptize 70 people before the end of the year. Well we blew that goal out of the water and got 91 baptisms. So then, after that, we would set Monthly Baptismal Goals and strive to achieve those goals. Well we never achieved our monthly goal. We would get close, but we never achieved our goal. In fact we started getting less and less than our goal as the year went by. Well President kinda got tired of us not achieving our goals and decided a change needed to happen. So he changed the goals that we are focusing on and also set some challenges for us to achieve to help us increase our faith. The challenges were:
1. 75 Baptisms before December 31.
2. Every missionary in the mission will read the Book of Mormon, starting at the beginning, and finish it before December 31 (So we have about 60 days to do so).
3. Every day at 6:30 am and 10:00 pm, every missionary will get on their knees and ask God to bless them with a Miracle that day. Also to ask for the Eyes of Faith to see these miracles.
4. Every night, every missionary will write what miracle(s) they saw that day in a journal.
When I heard those goals, I got super super excited and felt that I could achieve those goals. Mostly because I feel like I have "failed" our mission because I haven't felt like I have helped our mission achieve it's goals. In a sense it felt like 17 month year old Elder Roberts died, and a new Elder Roberts was born. That night is always going to be a night that I will never forget. It was such a powerful spiritual night and I could really feel like we became more united as a zone, and as a mission that night. So that night we prayed for a miracle to happen the following night and we went to bed.
The following day during personal studies I started reading the Book of Mormon to start our challenge (I need to read about 9-10 pages a day in order to achieve this goal). I was thinking to experience before the mission when we got challenged to read the Book of Mormon in a set time and I didn't really have a great desire to do it in a set time. But this time I felt super excited to do this challenge. Man just within the first 10 pages I learned so much, and I could feel the Spirit testifying that the Book of Mormon is true. Every time after that has been the same.
So this week my testimony was strengthened like crazy. First off it confirmed to me that our Mission President is an inspired and guided leader of this mission. I know that he receives revelation directly from our Heavenly Father on how this work can progress better and how to help us work with more faith and trust. I know that I got super excited for these changes, especially because I want to contribute to these goals and help our mission achieve it's goals.
I want to invite you all to join with us with these goals. Maybe you can't help too much with our baptism goal. But you can join with us in our goal to finish the Book of Mormon before December 31, Pray for miracles in your own life, and then write those miracles in a journal. I know that by doing so you will recognize the hand of the Lord more in your life and your faith will increase dramatically. Just like Elder Bednar said in the General Conference last november about having eyes of faith to see His hands and His blessings.
So ya that was what happened this week. Like I said, there were alot of things I have changed to help me be a better missionary. I had a good visit with my ZL's to help me set some appropriate goals and plans so I can do my part to help our mission have success. This mission is awesome and I know that our Heavenly Father has called me to be here at this time specifically. I am so grateful for all that I have learned and for the experiences my Heavenly Father has blessed me with so I can learn.
Well hope you all have a good week. Thanks for everything!
Love,
Elder Roberts
P.S. (Feel free to laugh as you read this section, but stop immediately when you finish) I broke out the sweaters this week. Yep it got down into the 60's this week and I started wearing sweaters.... HAHAHAHA........stop laughing ;) LES QUIERO!!
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