What a great week full of exchanges, meetings, trainings, etc. I love this work. It’s been tricky lately though trying to find time to proselyte with all our training responsibilities. However, we've found that the Lord truly does bless us with people to teach as we do our best. There were several days this week where we only had an hour of proselyting time. It was amazing to see how the Lord created teaching opportunities for us. One of the nights we went over to an active member family to present the ward mission plan. It turned out that the non member grandpa sat in with us, and he loved it! That was cool! In addition, this family gave us a referral of someone to teach as well. Wow! It’s awesome to see the miracles of the Lord.
One Tuesday, Elder Fowler felt we should train the missionaries on how to apply the “Vision Goals and Plans” idea in their area. It's actually a really cool principle. It takes a little bit of extra effort but it's worth it. Kinda like that quote which goes something to the effect- "if you give me an axe, a tree to cut down, and a certain amount of time, I'm going to spend 90% of my time sharpening the axe and only 10% actually cutting down the tree." This can illustrate the principle of being effective not just busy. That's the idea of the “Vision Goals and Plans” principle but remind me to explain it all when I get home. I don't think I can do it justice in an e-mail.
On Thursday, we gave a training on "effective teaching." We tried to really focus on the essential truths. For example, the first vision. You can simply teach that God and Jesus Christ really did appear to Joseph Smith. Then you pose a powerful question like, "Why do you think that is significant?" Or "how could Joseph Smith’s experience change your life?" It's a really powerful way to teach. There were several baptismal dates set in the zone this week which were attributed to teaching the "essential truths.” Yeah!
Friday through Saturday we had our second exchange of the week. Before switching back we decided to go out to eat. Remember the memorable death taco experience? Well, this time, Elder Fowler, Elder Low and I sat out. We figured we'd already proven ourselves and that we'd let the newbies give it a go. WOW. Poor guys. We had elders throwing up, crying, faces red as a tomato, sweating profusely, etc.. Not going to do that again! But it'll be a memory for the rest of their lives, right?
Something else -Elder Fowler and I have started a new thing on P-days. Our new apartment has no downstairs neighbors so we can take out the nerf hoop and go at it. It's actually a pretty good work out; we get a good sweat going. Plus it builds unity, like when I dunk on his head :)
Gotta go. Love you guys!
Elder Hicken
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