Tuesday, March 8, 2016

February 22, 2016 - Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia

Dear Family,

It has been another mild week in Nova Scotia. We didn't get any snow at all this week and practically all the snow on the ground has melted. By this time last year, Church had already been cancelled at least twice and I was shoveling roofs. So far this winter Church hasn't been cancelled at all altogether and I haven't shoveled any snow off of roofs.

I have been "Woodstock trunkey" this week. I have been missing the people there and the memories. Woodstock was a tough area to serve in but I enjoyed every minute of it. President Pratt put two of the most light-hearted companions together when he put me with Elder Evans. The two of us had a blast together. Some fun times we had was when we were doing the lemonade stand and when we had a brunch with the Houlton Sisters after district meeting. That truly is a special place and I gained some leadership skills, and mental toughness from that area. Someday I want to take the whole family to Woodstock & Houlton. 

This week has been a good week for us. Elder Sturco left for his mission on Wednesday morning. Triston Barr also got his visa and he left for Dallas on Wednesday as well. I had the opportunity to speak to "Elder Barr" before he left and there was a good spirit about him. He seemed very upbeat and optimistic about going to his own mission. There was also a great deal of spiritual maturity in him as I was talking to him. I was impressed. It goes to show that people can change and we shouldn't look at people as they are but rather as they can become. President Monson gives a great talk on that called See Others as They May Become. "We must develop the capacity to see men not as they are at present but as they may become."
MONDAY: We were doing potentials and formers and we stopped by this one potential. We knocked on his door and he let us right in. We sat down and he started talking about all these different missionaries he's met with. At this point we're thinking either this guy is a eternal investigator or a less active. We proceeded to ask him and it turns out he is a less active. After the visit we were sure to write down that he is not a potential investigator but a less active.

TUESDAY: We went knocking in the afternoon and we got let in by a Jehovah Witness couple from Quebec. They were being very nice to us and invited us to sit down in their living room and have a chat. They then were talking to us about our concept of  "Jehovah" and they believe that once they die they will still be on earth because earth is already heaven. They also didn't understand our idea of the Pre-Earth life. They couldn't wrap their heads around why we would choose to come to Earth to a wicked world when we were already living with Heavenly Father and had it all made. We kept trying to tell them it's because we wanted to grow but they still weren't seeing eye-to-eye with us.

WEDNESDAY: We had zone training in Dartmouth. Recently, President Pratt got rid of the standard of 180 contacts a week and replaced it with the standard of "talking to everyone". He did it because he felt like the missionaries were more focused on the quantity of contacts, not the quality. It was very well put together training and the message got across. We picked up a new investigator that day. She is a potential that hadn't been followed up on. We taught her with a member present that was a recent convert. The lesson went well. We taught her most of the Restoration and committed her to read the Book of Mormon.

FRIDAY: All of the Halifax Metro Missionaries got invited to a service activity in Halifax. We all went and there was some additional members there from the Halifax Family Ward. The service activity was sorting through clothes and giving them to Syrian refugees. We did that for about 3 hours. We went through a lot of winter clothes and coats. It was a lot of standing and kneeling. But it was worth it. Mormon Newsroom was there taking pictures so who knows we might be up there soon.

SATURDAY: We went out to Enfield and it was raining pretty hard at that point. We went knocking before our lesson with a recent convert out there. While we were knocking we knocked into an awesome potential investigator. She let us right in. She had never met missionaries before. She was asking us a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon and about what we do as missionaries. She seemed quite curious about our beliefs. So we basically taught her a mini-restoration lesson and left her with a Book of Mormon with our number in it. We walked away from her door feeling excited about the potential she has. We are going to call her tomorrow and follow-up on her reading of the Book of Mormon.

Have a good week!

Love,
Elder O`Brien (the older)

No comments:

Post a Comment