Taking Control With Pedometers

Its that time of the mission again! Transfers! I finally get to stay in one area for the first time. This transfer is ganna be great I am kind of excited and nervous at the same time this will be the first area that I take over. That just means I know more about the area than my new companion, Elder Cryer, and I will have to lead out a lot and be more proactive in finding. I always knew there was something special about this area that's why I wasn't to surprised to learn that I would be staying In River Falls. I was a little sad to see that Elder Ford would be leaving, oh well not my will but the Lords be done. I plan to go where he wants me to go because I know that the Lord won't give me more than I can handle.

This is a portion of what President Clements wrote in his letter to the mission. He talks about his expectations for transfers. I thought this was kind of cool so I would like to share this with you. Because for me it changed my perspective on how I look at transfers and how I look at my mission.

"Often I hear of missionaries who have served in an area for three or four months express the view that they’re ready for a transfer. Please know that my goal is to have you serve in an area for nine months or more. Occasionally, when things work out really well, a missionary spends a year in the same area. The record is one sister missionary who spent her entire mission in one area, except for the last five weeks. Admittedly that’s rare. But for those of you who think a transfer should come after three or four months, please reconsider. Like Ammon, your attitude should be that you “desire to dwell among this people for a time; yea, and perhaps until the day [you] die.” Don’t look forward to the next transfer. You simply don’t know when it will come. Act as if you’ll be in your current area until the day you die!"

Well my weekly wrap up, Monday was pretty fun I got to get a haircut it was nice. I gave the haircutting lady a mormon.org card because of the scripture references that she had tattooed on her arms. Then we had dinner with B. Foster and the Taylor's, thats another sad thing about this transfer B. Foster is progressing very well and he is ready for baptism. Sadly he had asked Elder Ford to baptize him, after we had given him a long list of people to choose from. So now we need to talk with him and find a new person to baptize him.

Tuesday we had one of the longest Zone Training ever it was more like a Zone Conference, P. Ehlert gave this Zone Training, and he taught us how to be more FUN missionaries by asking FUN questions (Fact, Understanding, Need). I have to say learning to be more FUN is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I'll have to tell you more about FUN in another letter, if I tried now I would run out of time. One last thing about Tuesday, most missions are testing out I-Pads and Facebook and a lot of other things. Our mission is testing out Pedometers, we have to walk 10,000 steps a day.

Wednesday, was kinda difficult because Elder Ford started getting sick and he was having a hard time doing anything because he was so stuffed up. But we did manage to have a really great lesson with one of our new investigators named Tony. We taught him all about the Restoration.

Thursday was a little rough on the finding but we gave it our all. Latter in the evening we had a ward correlation meeting at the church which was really FUN. After correlation we went with B. Wheeler to teach Hawk, it was kind of difficult because his roommate was there and he was super high and he was asking a lot of really weird questions that didn't relate to anything we were talking about. Hawk just sat in the background messing with computer stuff. We barely managed to make it through the lesson.

Friday we had weekly planning, afterwards we decided to go do some finding till our 4:00 appointment with a super nice lady named Christy and her family. Then we tracted till B. Fosters baptismal interview with District Leader Smith. He passed with flying colors.

Saturday we had an awesome lesson with one of our less active members named David it was really cool and the spirit was there so strongly. David has come a long way and he is a very humble man who has been through a lot. The rest of our appointments for the day fell through and we ended up tracting around home for a while.

Sunday's are always great days we didn't find a whole lot of people but we had a really great miracle. Lately I have been noticing small miracles here and there because from the start of my mission to now I was expecting big miracles like the ones we read about in the scriptures. But now even the small miracles are becoming big in my eyes. Anyway's after planning on taking Hawk with us to Presidents fireside he fell through because of family problems. But we managed to pick up a referral while cleaning the apartment of a less active, and we also taught a restoration to a cool guy named Mike. He said we could come back next Sunday at 6 because he has a crazy work schedule. These small miracles are great because looking at them down the road they could potentially become huge miracles.

Well my time is up, till next week.

Sincerely.
Elder Hurd.