Hello Everybody!
What a week. I still think it hasn't quite hit me that I'm not just on exchanges and that I really have taken over the area. Things are going great so far though! I guess it was kind of a good time to have transfers because Sister Johnson (my new companion) and I have a whole lot of finding to do. We've had a lot of turnover with our investigators on account of having to drop people/getting dropped, so we're basically starting from scratch. This week (well, the four days we've had together since transfers) has been all about going through referral lists, contacting old investigators, and going through the area book. It gets a little tedious at times just going through old progress records, but we have seen some huge miracles this week!
What a week. I still think it hasn't quite hit me that I'm not just on exchanges and that I really have taken over the area. Things are going great so far though! I guess it was kind of a good time to have transfers because Sister Johnson (my new companion) and I have a whole lot of finding to do. We've had a lot of turnover with our investigators on account of having to drop people/getting dropped, so we're basically starting from scratch. This week (well, the four days we've had together since transfers) has been all about going through referral lists, contacting old investigators, and going through the area book. It gets a little tedious at times just going through old progress records, but we have seen some huge miracles this week!
One of our goals this transfer is to find a golden family. Our mission is making a huge push to use our time more wisely, and if people aren't progressing, we're not supposed to keep making them a priority. Obviously we're still there for them, but some people just aren't ready yet and that's okay. We're supposed to do a lot of finding and we've been promised by a few different people that we will find the people who are ready to be baptized right now. I'm looking forward to trying this promise out and finding more of these people! I know it's possible, on account of Juan Pablo (who is getting the Priesthood this week and a calling hopefully), so I'm super excited to get to work and to try to find more like him. Especially families. Both Sister Johnson and I had a goal to find and baptize a family in the first 6 months of our missions, so that we would be here in a year when they could go to the temple and be sealed. We've been praying so hard to find prepared families and I think we found two!! We had an amazing lesson with one of them this week and tried to commit them to baptism. They didn't exactly commit, but said they felt great and that they were going to pray about the lesson (which was the Restoration) and about baptism. When we come back next week we'll talk more about it. That whole lesson was just amazing! The mark of a great lesson is when the Spirit is definitely there and definitely in charge. The Spanish comes easier, the lessons flow, revelation is crazy abundant both in the teaching and in asking inspired questions, and the investigators feel something that they can't deny and that they want more of in their lives. We have a lot of great lessons every day, but that was just one that felt like everything fell into place as it should. Now we're just praying that their prayers will be answered and that they will keep progressing!! We also have another family that is potentially super golden. We've taught them before and we know Patricia (the wife) is reading the Book of Mormon a ton. We just have not been able to catch her. We try her door so much but they're never home. We'll keep trying though!
This transfer, we also have a mission goal of finding 3-5 new investigators every week. At first, that seemed a little daunting, but my companion and I have made it a goal to be exactly obedient, not just with the white handbook rules, but with the mission goals and suggestions from the mission president. We prayed to be able to fulfill this goal and we've been working really hard to find more, and find better, and one day this week, we got FOUR new investigators! In one day! The Lord definitely comes through for His missionaries! I can't wait to see the miracles that are going to come from this new mission goal!
This transfer, we also have a mission goal of finding 3-5 new investigators every week. At first, that seemed a little daunting, but my companion and I have made it a goal to be exactly obedient, not just with the white handbook rules, but with the mission goals and suggestions from the mission president. We prayed to be able to fulfill this goal and we've been working really hard to find more, and find better, and one day this week, we got FOUR new investigators! In one day! The Lord definitely comes through for His missionaries! I can't wait to see the miracles that are going to come from this new mission goal!
Going back a little bit, transfer meeting was great. We drove up to Baton Rouge Tuesday night and slept over with the sisters there. It was so good to see them again! Then transfer meeting was fun because we got to see a ton of missionaries we haven't seen in a while. There were 9 Elders going home and every single one of them cried giving their go-home testimonies. Sometimes when we see missionaries in our wards or around the city we’re kind of accustomed to it and it's not a big deal. But let me tell you, missions mean everything to the missionaries. We put our entire hearts and souls into this work and even though I'm sure those Elders were excited to see their families again, it was not easy to leave this life behind. Thank heavens I still have a long time here because saying goodbye does not look fun at all! It was hard enough to say goodbye to Sister Whitney and I was only with her for 12 weeks, and she's even still in my zone!
I absolutely love my new companion! She's from Utah, graduated the same year as me, went to a year at Southern Utah University and is studying elementary education, but is transferring to BYU after the mission, loves Harry Potter as much as me, is super passionate about music and plays piano really well and sings like an angel (hello sacrament meeting musical numbers), and is just the best! Even in just 5 days together we're already getting really close and we've had a ton of fun! She's super obedient and hard-working too and we have a lot of the same goals for the mission, so I can tell we're going to have a great time together. I'm still terrified of training and sometimes I wonder who in the world thought this one through, but I'm so lucky to have Sister Johnson because she's basically pre-trained. I just have to teach her the area and she's golden.
I absolutely love my new companion! She's from Utah, graduated the same year as me, went to a year at Southern Utah University and is studying elementary education, but is transferring to BYU after the mission, loves Harry Potter as much as me, is super passionate about music and plays piano really well and sings like an angel (hello sacrament meeting musical numbers), and is just the best! Even in just 5 days together we're already getting really close and we've had a ton of fun! She's super obedient and hard-working too and we have a lot of the same goals for the mission, so I can tell we're going to have a great time together. I'm still terrified of training and sometimes I wonder who in the world thought this one through, but I'm so lucky to have Sister Johnson because she's basically pre-trained. I just have to teach her the area and she's golden.
I think that's about it for this week. I'm looking forward to having a normal week (well as normal as any mission week can be) without the craziness of transfers in the middle. We have zone conference tomorrow which should be super fun, and then we're going to hit the ground running and start finding those people that I know Heavenly Father has prepared! I love you all so much!
Con amor,
Hermana Sorensen
Con amor,
Hermana Sorensen