We found a family

Well hello. This week has also been great. We continued to apply what we learned at MLC which was to act like we know nothing and we had an extremely good week as far as Key Indicators go. In fact Sunday was the first day on my mission that we met all of our daily key indicator goals. We had a lot of fun doing what we learned. I think the one that had the biggest impact on me was the principle of asking everyone "who do you know who would be interested in and benefit from this message" and that's yielded a lot of fruit, it's fun asking people on the street that question and many of them refer their neighbors to us. Another principle is that when we visit media referrals to knock on their neighbors doors. Oftentime the person who requested X item on any church website will frequently change their mind but we're to have faith that we were put in that neighborhood for a reason and it's panned out! We had a media referral that we had contacted already but we went back to the neighborhood we found a family! Only two people in the family speak english and the rest speak kinyarwanda.... You've probably never heard of it. It's from Ruwanda. Well they're a wonderful family and I think every time we go over we'll be graciously accepted into their home but unfortunately we don't know how much we can help them since we really can't communicate and the church has nothing translated into their language. But we found a family!

I can't say I have too many experiences to share this week but I think this has been one of the best weeks of the mission. We tried really hard to do everything right. We looked at Preach My Gospel many times because we realized a lot of what we did was cultural or habit and not really the best way to do things. It's been helpful. 

On Saturday Barry was baptized into the fold of God. I don't know if you remember him but I taught him in Oxford. He was so great and he really digested each step of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He had lots of Faith so that was easy and he had lots to Repent of, but that's why we have the atonement and now he's been baptized and has been confirmed a member of the church. I have complete faith that he will successfully endure to the end as well. I was planning on going and I had permission to go but on the day of his baptism I received a distinct impression not to go. It was odd but I was reassured that if I went I would regret it. I tried to work really hard that day to find the miracle God had instore for me but I don't know if that's why he had me stay. We had an awesome day and that's when we found the family but I never felt a confirmation that some event that occurred on Saturday was the reason I didn't go to the baptism. I don't know why I stayed except the Spirit told me to and I pray I'll be able to recognize why someday. 

I'll send pictures of the baptism next week

Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes and/or stuff. I really do appreciate it. 

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Elder Trevon Turley

Do you know a family we could teach?

Well this week was very good for me, it was an extremely difficult yet positive week. As far as numbers go our week didn't go to well but as Preach My Gospel says success is measured by our willingness to serve the Lord and we certainly had that. We talked with a lot of people but most of them weren't interested, actually out of all the people we were asked to visit none of them were interested. Thankfully at one of our  last visits we saw an advertisement for an old lady who makes alterations on clothing and we wanted to see what she had to offer. Well she wasn't home but we knocked on her neighbors doors to see what they could tell us and we met a nice old lady named Ruth! She's 91 years old and her husband died when she was 54. I think she said 5 times during our ten minute conversation with her that she was ready to see her husband again and she wanted to hurry up and finish what God wanted her to do so she could die. It was slightly humorous because she had a lot of spunk. Thankfully I was so desperate after all the doors being closed on us I said "Ruth we can teach you how to ensure that you'll be with your husband forever, when can we come by?" She responded well to that and we'll be seeing her this week. 

On Thursday we had the director of Proselyting come to our mission which was super great. I felt like a new missionary again with all the new things I learned! And he only taught from Preach My Gospel. I realized how over time I had altered missionary work and there were many points that weren't in line with PMG so I set a goal to forget what I know and see what PMG has to say. It's been good. The director of proselyting said "if you want to teach a family, pray and ask God to help you find one" well we did and spent Saturday looking for the family. We visited a lot of people, knocked on a lot of doors and asked for many referrals! My door approach was "We prayed that we could teach a family today, do you have a family that we could teach?" I figured my honesty would allow the Holy Ghost to testify more completely. Well we found no family, I don't know why but we tried really hard and it was a really good learning experience. I hadn't felt so close to the Lord in a long time. I'm still praying for a family and we're even knocking on doors that have multiple cars in the driveway because we think there's a family at the house. I'm sure they'll turn up eventually. I'm hoping we'll have an ether 1:12 experience, that would be nice.

You can pray for the family too, that would be helpful

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Elder Trevon Turley

I decided to rename Soup. He looked more like a Sriracha to me. He is having quite the adventures here in New England territory. 

He & Chiao get along very well.