It has been a long grueling week. This
week took a lot out of me but in the end it was good for me. Blitz week
pushed me to the brink. I was very tired at night during the whole week.
The sisters ended up winning the competition but the Elders were close.
It was a fun week. The competition also motivated us.
But
that's not the only thing that highlighted the week. A dark cloud hangs
over our mission right now. On Wednesday we got a call from the
Assistants telling us that Elder Dooley was getting emergency
transferred on Sunday. Another missionary in a trio in
Amherst also got emergency transferred as well. We had personal
interviews with President Pratt on Wednesday and he didn't seem too
happy. He expressed his disappointment and his frustration as to the
reason why he had to do it. I can't go into detail as to the reason
behind the emergency transfer. He didn't want this
emergency transfer to happen. He wanted Elder Dooley to be in
Bridgewater with us. Anyway, President Pratt isn't very happy right now with some missionaries. This mission is known for how obedient
it is. It was one of the most obedient missions in North America and
this incident hurts us.
This is now the third
emergency transfer I have been affected by. Although I have never been
the cause of one. Ironically, all 3 of them have been around the time I
Skype home. So at this rate I'll be a part of another emergency transfer
around May :P. Emergency transfers aren't fun to be a part of. They are
unexpected and they cause a domino affect in the mission. They also
cause stress and it can be hard to adjust too.
In
my interview with President Pratt, he told me that when he does
transfers sometimes he has his reason for it, and sometimes he just
doesn't know why he does it, he just does because he feels inspired to.
We also talked about Christmas and other standard questions like how my
physical health is and how my family is doing. But at the end of the
interview he told me that he trusts me and that he feels like we have a
good relationship and then he gave me a hug. That was the first time I've
seen President Pratt express himself to me in a personal way. I could
tell that he meant what he said.
Tuesday:
It was the day of power where we extended as many baptismal invitations
as we could on that day. The approach we took went something like this
"If you found these things to be true would you be baptized?" It was
scary at first but once we got going it wasn't that bad. But the people I
talked to wouldn't even let me make the invitation. I was having bad
luck that day. Anyway, we knocked into a evangelical man that wanted to
prove us wrong that day. He was very argumentative and stated that we
didn't believe in the resurrection. Finally we just walked away. On the
flip side we knocked into someone who let us right in and was being very
nice to us. It was an older couple. They were more interested in our company
than our actual message. We ended up with 40 baptismal invites by the
end of the day.
Wednesday: It was creative
contacting. For our creative contacting we did a survey with people. The
survey was: 1) Do you believe in God? 2) Do you attend Church? 3) If
so, which one? 4) What comes to mind when you hear the word Mormon? 5)
Would you like to learn more? We picked up 2 potential investigators
from it. One of the people we did the survey with replied to the 4th
question with "blood transfusions." We think she got us mixed up with
the Jehovah Witnesses.
Thursday: It was short
restoration lessons. But sadly we didn't get the opportunity to teach
one. But we did travel to our personal interviews with President Pratt
that morning in Kentville. When we were there it made me think back to a
year ago when I was in Kentville for Christmas. Those were fond memories. I remember the snow on the ground, the mini-Christmas tree we
had in the apartment, and all the Christmas festivities.
Friday:
It was Book Of Mormon handouts with the cap of 5. We passed out 4 and 2
of them were to less active members.
Saturday:
It was number of Church invites. We invited 26 people to come to
Church. We picked up a new investigator that day. He doesn't believe in God. But he is open-minded and is
willing to meet with us.
Have a good week!
Love.
Elder O'Brien (the older)
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