Exciting Changes in the Mission

Dear Family,

Transfers are tomorrow (they moved it to Tuesday), but Elder Gemmill and I are both staying here. Actually, the whole district is staying the same, which I am glad about because we all have unfinished business here :)

Little miracles story: Our investigator, Steve Altepeter, went from having to leave church in order to smoke, to quitting smoking cold turkey! It's so great to see how one's faith can be planted, grow, and then move mountains! Right now we're just working to get him more independent with a job, car, etc... Missionary work can sure be interesting sometimes :)
Other than that, we got 2 new investigators this past week, Jacob and Jackie. They haven't grown up in real religious families, but they are very open and receptive. They accepted baptism, and we're excited to continue teaching them.
Also, yesterday we went out tracting and street contacting on our bikes and we got 5 new potentials. To answer your question, Mom, most people are very nice and respectful when they tell us they're not interested, and that doesn't bother me at all. Every once in a while we'll run into someone who is rude, which is a little disheartening, but not a big deal. It's all part of the work.

By the way, there are a lot of changes happening in the mission, which you might be interested in hearing about. I don't if I mentioned the mission conference in which Elder Grow (of the Seventy) came and taught us a couple of months ago. He made some changes which include focusing more on following the Spirit to do the work in whatever way is effective vs. focusing on getting stats like tracting and street contacting. Also he had us focus on setting baptismal goals and planning week by week, instead of month by month. He wants us all to baptize every week! He also changed it so that district leaders don't go on companion exchanges with their district anymore, just with the ZL's, so that everyone can spend more time in their own area. He also changed other things, like what key indicators we use, etc... but I can't think of them all.

But now there are a lot of new changes that are happening. District Leaders now will go on companion exchanges with their district. I'm not sure why they changed it, but I am excited about it. Also, zone conferences and interviews now only will happen every other transfer instead of every transfer. I guess they used to have a day long leadership conference every few months, where all leadership (DL's, ZL's, and AP's) get together and are trained. Now they'll be having a 3 day long leadership conference! We will be taught during the day, then go out and apply it at night. I'm really excited about that! Also, apparently the church is coming out with 8 missionary lessons as a supplement to Preach My Gospel that they'll use to train missionaries and help them become better teachers. They'll start using it in the MTC next year, but we're starting to use it in the field really soon, so that all missionaries in the field will be caught up with it when it comes out next year. This sounds pretty exciting. Also, we now have PMG DVD's that show missionaries talk about and apply principles from PMG in real situations. They use it in the MTC and we also use it in District Meetings each week. Apparently they're coming out with a whole new set!

Changes to me, mean improvements, so I'm really excited about all this. There's probably more changes happening, but this is all that I can think of right now. My excitement for missionary work has really been increasing recently. I've been receiving a lot of impressions on how I can improve, but I'm desperately running out of time to do it all! (I'm coming up on 15 months, which means 9 months left!) There's SO much good to do in this life! Especially living at this time in the history of the world, the opportunities are incredible!! It is so crucial that we stay focused on what's MOST important, what REALLY lasts, and what the Lord would have us do. There's work to be done and there's no time to waste! The Lord needs COMMITTED, DILIGENT, OBEDIENT, SUBMISSIVE, and DETERMINED servants to work in His vineyard near the end of the harvest. My prayer is that we may all rise to fulfill the callings that the Lord has foreordained each and everyone of us to do. I love you all and hope you have an outstanding week!

Love,
Elder Craft