Life is great! Tons of good stuff going on. Church attendance was smaller than it has been but I can feel it'll go up soon. The group is actually under the jurisdiction of the Portland Ward (it's near
Corpus, super confusing). So the Bishop there is in charge of everything but there's a group leader guy who's in charge of sacrament meeting.
Reactivation is slow but it's going. There's a few people that seem like they're right on the edge of it. They just need that little push.
The Ns are doing ok. The mom works a ton, but the kids really want to come. They didn't come to church, but they love when we come by.
We found a bunch of new investigators that should be really good soon. Really interested people.
Things are going fairly well. President Maluenda would always say that being positive is just a decision, like a switch. And it is. but sometimes it's tough to flip the switch. So I think about the reasons I'm doing things and how I'm doing them.
Zone conference was really cool. President flipped the work around a little bit. He really wants us to focus on less actives and building the kingdom. We have to build up the attendance. In the past few years, missionaries have baptized a lot, but the attendance rate has decreased which doesn't make sense. He wants us to change the way we teach and work with people. Really awesome stuff. He's an amazing dude. He was offered a pro soccer contract back a while ago and had a really good company and left it behind for this and he doesn't worry about it at all. The assistants have told us he like to walk around in just socks and he takes greenies bikes out to the parking lot to do bunny hops and stuff on em. I like him a lot.
What are the main things that happened on the following days?:
• Monday
We walked around in super hot weather. One of those days where you feel like nothing is happening and then super fast you find a few really cool people in the last couple minutes of the day. Found the M family. They were taught by missionaries before and they're really nice. Gave us water and stuff (biggest blessing ever)
• Tuesday
We taught a girl named K. She really wants to learn and grow and her 5 year old has really been bugging her about church. We taught her about the restoration and she said it all made sense. we also helped a member named Brother R out. He's a good guy. His wife is super sick so while she had a doctors appoinment, we set up a new air conditioner for her and cleaned up a bit. Brother R used to be a Navy mechanic back in the day so he
gave us some Navy coveralls. haha Super cool.
• Wednesday
We worked in Taft. We've had people try to sell us watches they've stolen and stuff. Met a less active named Brother S. We'd talked to him before and he said we remind him of the missionaries who baptized him. He's been really hard to meet with him and he told us he's rarely sober. Taught him about God's love and how he needs to work to get closer to him.
• Thursday
Thursday we had zone conference so from about 8 to 5 we were in the meeting or traveling. After that we found a guy named J who was reeeeallly nice. He loves the missionaries but he's been at college. He said he wanted to come to church and told us to teach his friends at the skate park and said he'd teach us to skateboard.
• Friday
Back in Taft. All of our plans fell through and so we tried to find some new places to work. Ended up in the middle of nowhere with fields of hay surrounding us. We saw some apartments we'd never seen before and said a prayer and the first door we knocked we found a lady named R who's been going through a tough time. We shared 3rd Nephi with her when Jesus heals the people and she cried. a lot... and then the 2nd door we knocked was a less active member who we didn't know lived there. She was also raised FLDS so she talked a lot about how she was raised with multiple moms and stuff. But she's super cool!
• Saturday
President set up this new schedule where 2 hours of the day are just spent looking for less actives and reactivating. So we tried out one of them and it turns out his son really wants to change and come to church! it was a big miracle for sure. and then we went around inviting everyone to church. Met a cool guy named S who wants to learn.
• Sunday
Nobody came to church which was lame but we found a couple of new people to teach .
What has been your biggest challenge this week? Finding a way to touch all the less actives. The majority have been offended by something people have said in church and we have to find a way to fix that through the scriptures.
What has been your biggest concern? We really want to build the kingdom here, but people are really slow to move. So we have to try something new to get people to come.
What has been your biggest success? Finding the less active in the weird apartments. Turns out it was
someone the bishop in Portland had been looking for and asked about the day before. We didn't know that.
Who has been your favorite person this week? Why? Elder Stone. I don't think there's another missionary I would like to walk around with in this kind of crazy weather. We have a lot of fun.
What has been your most significant tender mercy? Finding R. She's a really sweet lady with some big problems. It'll be nice to be able to help her out.
What are you looking forward to this coming week?We have MLC this week (Missionary leader conference). We do every start of the month but we talk to President about our goals and get trained and he always gives really good suggestions. It's awesome!
Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week? I've been marking up my New Testament to use it more and I love that the sermon on the mount is like almost completely marked up. Toooons of good stuff to share with people.
How has your testimony grown this week? I think my testimony of this work has grown more this week. It's not
about us at all. We're only here to help like Jesus did. Sort of like mining. You have to dig through tons of worthless rock and tough times to get through to the gold. Jesus went through way worse things than
any missionary has and helped out thousands. The least we can do is help a few.
Love you guys a lot!
Elder Hess
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