Work, work, work!

Hola Familia,

Estoy bien aqui en Kingston. Tuvimos una conferencia misional con Elder
Maines de la setenta. Estaba muy buena.

Just practicing a little Spanish there. Much good is happening here and
things are improving. We have difficulty with the ward and getting it to
grow. They've lost their spark for the work and we are trying to build
relations to improve it. But I believe we have been blessed. One of our
recent struggles has been in finding new investigators to teach, but
yesterday despite our limited time in working (since we had mission
conference in the morning) we found three new people, which we are excited
about.

Elder Maines from the seventy spake at the conferece (I think he is in the
bishopric) and it was really good. Nothing doctrinally deep nor anything
about Kolob. He just talked about good, old-fashioned work. That we need to
work hard to demonstrate our faith and sincerity behind our prayers and the
Lord blesses us with results. We then did this reverse planning on how hard
we should be working. What it came down to is that if we wanted to have 1
baptism a month, we needed to be teaching at least one first lesson (about
Joseph Smith) a day, and contacting at least 10 new people a day. Nothing
overly difficult, but it takes consistency and diligence. So I've repented
:) again, and dedicated myself to teaching more and contacting more, which
isn't my favorite thing to do, but it is growing on me.

I'm glad we have companionships though. They support you when you are
feeling inadequate. For example, the other day Sis. Vathauer and I were out
tracting, not much success at the houses, but we walked by a Hospital and we
saw a security guard. I thought, "I probably shouldn't talk to him, he is on
duty and might get in trouble." So I walked past. The next thing I here is
my companion saying, "I know you are duty, but we have an incredible
message....." My companion's great! And he was interested in learning more.
Then yesterday, as we left a lesson I decided to contact this man before
getting in the car to travel to a dinner appointment. He was going to bible
study and invited me to go with him, well that's when I invited him to learn
more about the restored gospel, testifying that it would bless his family.
And he agreed to learn more....isn't the Spirit amazing, carrying the
message "unto their hearts." Course, it is no guarantee that they will be
baptize, but at least the first step of inviting has been taken.

Course, not all is dandy in missionary work. Like the lady who abruptly hung
the phone up on me (after she had requested the video no less), or the one
who verbally attacked us saying that we had no right to tell her what to
believe and that we were wasting our lives away. Maybe I already told you
about that one. Yes, I'm learning to handle the bad with the good. Absorbing
all the good moments, and learning to have all the hurt absorbed in the joy
of Christ. I'm better than before and am sure the future will help even
more.

I'm sorry to hear about Emily. It can be really rough, but I'm determined to
stick it through, happily. Course (Kirstin can relate to this), sometimes I
have to say to myself, "This is a happy time. We are all going to be
happy.!." and some days are harder than other, but the cure certainly is to
work. Because the days I work the hardest are the nights that I'm the most
content, even if we didn't have any new investigators or baptismal dates.

Our biggest breakthrough is with Sis. Righetti and less-active member. We
have been trying for weeks to get her to stop drinking coffee and tea, but
even though she says what she thinks she wants you to hear, she hasn't
stopped. Whenever we started talking about it, she went into this zoned-out,
I'm-listening-but-not attitude. But then we told her about temple baptisms
and how she could do them for her family and she became really excited about
it. As we taught the plan of salvation to her we told her why temple
baptisms were so important and that she needed to be temple worthy to be
able to do them, which included living the word of wisdom. She started to
cry, (I didn't know what to do) so I asked her what was wrong (that was a
good response right? :)) and she said it was a happy sad. And that she
wanted so badly to baptize her mother who is deceased. Though she committed
to stop drinking, I was a little worried if she would stick with it. But
when we visited her on Tuesday, she had thrown away her made coffee and was
planning on giving away her tea and coffee grinds. And... her coffee pot
broke, so she took it as a sign that what she was doing was right. We didn't
argue with that one.

She also spoke about how much the Savior loves her and started to cry again.
Our goal is to get her to the temple soon. And what made me even more happy
is that I noticed she paid her tithing on Sunday, which she hasn't done in
awhile. And we didn't even talk about tithing!!!! We need to visit her again
to keep her spirits up and on track.

Ok, Ok, I know, I've written another epistle. But I hope it's letting you
know a bit more about what is going on. I pray for you at home and know
everything will turn out for the best. You are an amazing family! Thanks for
your example and support. Love you lots.

Love,

Erin