From October 13. (this is late as we had some problems with the blog)
Hey everyone!
Life is still great and just some great things are
continuing to happen. We still had another full week of interviews. The
interviews have been pretty good though. On Tuesday we were back up in college
Station, and then on Wednesday we were north east of College Station in a city
called Madisonville. It was so cool because on Tuesday we asked to carpool up
to Madisonville with President Mortensen. And so for the 1 1/2 hours up we were
able to talk with him about a variety of different things.
But he just really
helped give us great suggestions about how to be successful in life and he tied
it all back into the gospel of Jesus Christ! It is just so inspiring to see the
things he has done, and really just ponder more fully on how I can continually
improve. It was just a great chance to also discuss with him what things we can
do in the mission to help get the missionaries working even more
effectively.
Those interviews went great, and after being in
Madisonville we traveled down to Huntsville to the Sam Houston State
University. We went around the campus and toured the instituted building. We
met with the senior missionaries over the instituted program, and they are
doing great. We also recently added another companionship in that area to
assist with the work. We are really making a big push to get missionaries on
college campuses.
So many young people are receptive to learning from the
missionaries and we have fun some great success. So we talked with the
instituted director also and talked about what there plans were for increasing
the number of members in the program. And they set a goal to help expand there
vision even more. It was a great day to be there and to just see another way we
see the Lord moving his work forward.
So interviews went from Tuesday to Friday, and then Saturday
we took a big amount of time to get a full weekly planning in. Weekly planning
has been the emphasis we are also pushing for in the mission. Not just weekly
planning but chapter eight of preach my gospel. The average amount of
investigators needed to be found in this mission for just 1 baptism is
about 23. And in other missions that are using chapter 8 effectively it is only
about 5 new investigators. So we are striving to improve in that aspect. And we
are already seeing much more success.
Going into these trainings we had about
270 progressing investigators and only about 70 with a baptismal date. Now
obviously there is a big difference there. So we have been working on always
inviting people to be baptized in the first lesson when they come to the
knowledge that it is true. And giving them a date no later than the 2nd lesson.
Now the reason for this is because the church did a survey with about 3500
recent converts. And they asked them what was the most spiritual moments when
you were being taught by the missionaries. And almost of of them said it was
the first vision, and the plan of salvation.
Now these principles that we teach
are found in the first 2 lessons. These are going to be the principles that
will allow the holy ghost to help them have a spiritual witness. But we will
also not move on unless they are keeping there commitments! This is another big
thing we are changing here in this mission. And just since we have been doing
it in these last couple weeks we have seen miracles. As missionaries have been
more bold in there work they have set more dates for Gods children to enter
into a promise with God that will change there lives forever. It is such a
blessing to be able to be apart of missionary service.
On Sunday we had stake conference. And we had Elder
Schwitzer of the 2nd quorum of the 70 come along with Elder Southerland an area
70. And they came and created a new stake. The new stake is called "The
Woodlands Stake." And the new stake president is one of the members I got
to know really well while I was serving in The Woodlands. The spirit was so
strong and as we sustained him and the new stake presidency. It helped my
testimony grow on how much of a blessing it is for us to be able to sustain
church leaders. It made me ponder alot about General conference 2 weeks ago,
and all the talks that were given about sustaining.
After sustaining the new stake presidency Elder
Schwitzer had an amazing talk about the Book of Mormon. It was just an all
around great day yesterday!
Things are going great and I am just so grateful to be here
in Texas! It is a wonderful place! I would just invite yall to keep look and
praying to be able to strengthen the wards that you live in and seek out
friends and help them feel God love for them. I promise you as you do these
things you will experience so much joy with in your lives. I know that to be true
because I see it from day to day. I love being a missionary and I wouldn't
change it for anything!
Well I hope y'all have a wonderful week!
Elder Joshua V. Christensen
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