Week 86 in the Field: Worldwide Missionary Training AND Snow!

See Isaiah 1:18 written in the snow!

Okay so this week was fun.

Monday we had a three way dart war at the church. It was entertaining to say the least.  A lot of fun and not one dart was lost. We then ended the Pday playing Life.  Didn't have too much success contacting in the evening.

Tuesday we began the cold day tracting near our house but didn't pick up anyone except a nice family in a big house. In the afternoon, I went out home teaching with Brother Cosgriff, but didn't have too much luck. When we came back we felt inspired to go tracking this really fancy street. And I mean really rich. Like mansions all over the place. Surprisingly, we actually found someone who is semi-interested. He invited us back some other time, but we haven't been able to get in contact with him due to the snow. We had to call it quits in the evening because it was getting way too cold, and no one was opening up.

Watching the broadcast

Wednesday was sweet. We went to the church building and watched a worldwide missionary broadcast that was focused on the idea of "teach repentance, baptize converts". Essentially what I was gathering from it was that in some cases, missionaries may not focus on the most important things like repentance.

What the quorum of the twelve were emphasizing were teaching and testifying of Christ in every lesson, inviting the Spirit to really and soundly testify, and making sure we are teaching the atonement more. It was a big eye opener and you can read bits and pieces of what happened on lds.org. 

Here is a link to Elder Oaks’ talk:

https://www.lds.org/church/news/repentance-and-baptism-are-focus-of-missionary-work-elder-oaks-says?lang=eng

But I think the biggest thing I got out was when Elder Bednar said something along the lines of "The Holy Ghost is not supposed to be the instrument, we are supposed to be the instruments in the Lord's hands." Essentially meaning that the Holy Ghost isn't a missionary tool, the missionaries are the tools the Holy Ghost uses to testify to people. And that relationship is only open if the missionaries are diligent and obedient. 

He explained, “You can bring truth unto the heart, but you can’t push it into the heart. That is very important to understand. We can bring the message unto the heart, but the investigator has to allow it into their heart.”

Here is link to training presented by Elder Bednar, Sister Oscarson, and Elder Clayton:

https://www.lds.org/church/news/leaders-instruct-missionaries-during-video-segments-of-worldwide-broadcast?lang=eng

Pretty cool overall. After that we saw some people and scheduled some more appointments.

Thursday we went out to go see some people up north. We found this one family, the Nagy's, and they were from New Jersey which was really cool. Accent and all. Husband was interested but he asked us to wait with him for a little bit till his wife got home. That "little bit" was more like an hour. It was kind of weird and awkward the entire time but we had some good conversations still. When the wife actually got there I couldn't remember if she actually was interested or not. It was a little hard to tell. They invited us back though so that was good. In the evening we had an awkward dinner with a part member less active family who were not interested in coming back. Elder Barrus was a little too bold with them, so it was just awkward all around. But oh well. We came back home after that.

Friday was when he fun started. We got a text at 9:00am from the ZL's (Zone Leaders) to "use this time to help people shovel their walks." We burst out laughing because it was pouring rain. But about three hours later it started to snow... And snow... And snow... We got about 4 inches which was good for TN. President then told everyone to stay inside until the roads cleared up. Bishop heard about us and got us dinner. That's when boredom sat in.

Snow!

Saturday was a whole lot of nothin’. Elder Barrus is a very active guy so he was having cabin fever bad. He just kept cleaning and re-cleaning while Elder Beckett and I just chatted after calling all our investigators to try and set up appointments with them for the next week.

Sunday was the same thing. Church meetings were cancelled due to the bad weather.  We literally didn't leave our apartment. It had improved but was still icy. Luckily today we were able to leave.

That was about it for the week. I hit my 20-month mark this week on Wednesday, and as of today I have less than four months on my mission. It's kind of crazy to believe how long I've been out but it certainly has felt like it. Hope you are doing well with whatever snow you may have gotten. I can't believe how much snow Virginia got this past weekend.  That's incredible.

Talk to you next week.

Elder Peery
Email:  andrew.peery@myldsmail.net
Blog:  Elderpeery.blogspot.com