Elder Bednar is coming, yea!

Well the way sweet news of the week is that we had a capacitation by President Walker and it was fabulous. My compañero got super stoked to hear the President and I Think he’s got a few renewed desires. Then he got sick and he had to rest for a few of his study hours in the morning. It was a small flu or something like that. In fact we were planning on how to have more lessons with members... and he asked me what the level of excellence is, its fifteen lessons with members, and right now we have been having like 7-10 each week. He got stoked and wanted to do a ton of work with members and I asked him how we could accomplish it. I asked him how it was we were having lessons with members and he realized that while I’m calling and setting up lessons with members... he’s always writing his girlfriend. And realized that to be able to work as a team and dedicate himself to the area, at have more lessons with members he may have to write her less. I got super exited for him and I’m trying to support him in all of his decisions. One of the things he committed to do was not write her with e-mail for this whole transfer! I’m happy for him and exited to be able to hopefully see a change. The other good news is that Elder Bednar is coming In April to talk with us... I’m crazy exited.

As far as activities go mom, our president has told us that as missionaries our duty is to teach and not to set up activities. We can support the ward in their activities but we can’t plan them. We have to do our work through our ward mission leader. I have suggested and even planned many activities and presented them to our mission leader... but he does nothing. Flight 409... What we did as a ward... a contacting night... putting a church stand and giving things away to get references... I’m not just training my compañero but also the ward mission leader... and to be honest there isn’t much missionary work going on in this ward. Most of the people blame not doing missionary work on everything else. The truth is missionary work comes after testimony, cause you can’t lift someone to a ground that you don’t stand on. So we thought we need to help the ward with the basics... and it really hurt when I asked an active member where he is reading in the book of Mormon and he replied "I’ve already read it" ha-ha I couldn’t stop laughing and crying on the inside. The ward just split and so there will be more need to branch out. The stake president made some good promises to the ward and I’m hoping there’s a renewed energy. I’m happy to be here. The other two missionaries left and the President said that its cause a ward that’s not working in the missionary work doesn’t deserve two sets of missionaries. So now we have a huge area and it requires a lot of planning. I’m learning more and more every day and thank you for your fast, take care and thanks dad for your letter, actually I love the talk given by Thomas Monson Vivir la vida abundante, I’ve shared it a few times with some investigators and I really like the poems he cites. Love you


Elder Rhodes