It has been a cold weekend here in New Brunswick/Maine. Yes, we had our first snowfall of the winter
on Saturday :/. There was quite a bit of frost this morning on our car
as well. It's safe to say that winter is back. I am grateful that you
sent me my winter clothes as it looks like I got
them just in time. They say that New Brunswick winters are a lot colder
than Nova Scotia's and if that's the case then I am in for a long winter.
It might be worse than last winter.
This
weekend was stake conference. The adult session and the Sunday morning
session were both broadcasted to the chapel in Houlton. In both sessions,
they talked a lot about Ward Councils and the importance of women
speaking up and reaching out to others. Overall Stake Conference was enlightening and edifying. During
stake conference, we learned that on November 22nd they will be broadcasting the dedication of the Montreal Temple to
Caribou, Charlottetown, and Saint John wards. We are supposed to go to
the nearest church building. So that would be Caribou for us. This took
me a little by surprise. I didn't think that they would be broadcasting a
dedication of another temple that's not in the Maritimes to us.
Yesterday I had a rough day. As
President Straight spoke about his mission, he told a story of how good
it feels that those he influenced on his mission are staying faithful.
That hit home for me in a bad way because most of the people I've taught
on my mission aren't staying faithful. I had a good influence on M and now she has fallen away. R in Hampton has now
fallen away too. So doubt and darkness filled my mind and my heart
yesterday as I began to question the impact I've made on the people I
have worked with. I had some pretty dark thoughts as well. This
continued until this morning when I received the impression, "They have
their agency." This impression dispelled all the feelings of darkness
and doubt I felt yesterday. I know it was Satan trying to put me down.
He is good at making me feel inadequate. But if the Lord didn't need me
on a mission then he wouldn't have called me.
I
have a funny story for you this week.. While we were knocking on
Wednesday night, we walked by this house and inside we saw that they
were watching the Blue Jays game. Before this we had dinner at a member's and they informed me that it was Game 5 of the
series and it was the deciding game. So of course I volunteered to knock
on this person's door. So I knocked on the door and did the standard
knocking approach. He wasn't too receptive at first and said he wasn't
interested. So I asked for a referral and he said he doesn't know
anyone. Then as he was closing the door I said "Just before we go.. I
noticed you were watching the baseball game and I'm an avid baseball fan
myself. What is the score of the game?" Then he all of a sudden perked
up and said "6-3 Blue Jays.. Bautista just hit a 3-run home run in the
bottom of the 7th". He still wasn't interested after that but that
seemed to have softened him up. I know we're not supposed to talk about
sports with people but when I saw that he was watching the baseball game
my natural man took over and I couldn't help myself but ask him what
the score was. Plus it showed him that missionaries are real human
beings too; we're not just there to preach at them. We are also told to be
real with people. I was simply being real with him by asking him what
the score of the baseball game was. I think his view of missionaries
changed after that too. So that was a cool moment experience for me.
We
had zone training in Fredericton this week. At zone training the first
training was on the YSA. In the training they talked how the young
college/university students are a lot more open minded and not set in
their ways. They called them "The Millennials of the Church." The older
people are more set in their ways and. Whereas Millennials
are much easier to talk to and more willing to talk to you too. Each
area was given the list of the YSA age members of the unit and we were
instructed to pick out some of the YSA's and present them to the Bishop
and discuss how we should work with them. During the training we were
also to contact the local university/college and get a list of
clubs/societies from them. Then plan on setting up a booth one day of
the week. It is a new method of finding to implement. It helps us focus
on the younger people and help them in their conversion. We were also
told to get in the habit of testifying "Why?" when we're talking to them.
"Why are we on a mission? Why are we giving up 2 years to do this? Why
does this matter to us?" That sort of thing. When we do that our
testimonies will move them and they will want to learn more.
We met with our investigator Timothy
twice this week - at dinner and at a regular meeting. We
talked about the Book of Mormon and The First Vision in these lessons.
He read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and accepted everything
very well. He even came to stake conference yesterday morning. We are
planning on putting him on-date this week so hopefully all goes well
with that and he will commit to baptism in the near future.
Have a good week!
Love,
Elder O'Brien (the older)
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