July = Summer, Heat & Zone Conference

Dear Family and Friends, 

 

So transfers were last Sunday and I am still going to be here in San Gabriel which is what I wanted because so many good things are happening!! We have found a great family to teach and people are really close to taking the step to be baptized! Elder Bowes and I really get along well and so that makes it even better! :-) So this last week nothing too exciting happened mostly we are just teaching finding and eating with members! I didn't have anything strange this last week to eat either but it was all yummy! 

The exciting thing that happened is that we had Zone Conference and it was really good! Sister Becerra talked about how we can know if we are receiving revelation and how we can better receive it. When we are moving and acting or studying it out in our mind we need to listen for the revelation. Because we can't just stop and be like what do I do now? Where do we go? What do we teach? We have to think about it and then just act. A lot of the times it doesn't matter; what matters more is that we do make a descision.  

Then President Becerra told us about the doctrine about why we need to ask people to be baptized in the first lesson. That mission wide we are having a problem with not inviting people to baptism. So now what we are doing is right in the first lesson we are going to invite everyone to be baptized.  We will do it during the first lesson. Not to start off the lesson, we are going to tell them our purpose, how they can get a testimony, then we ask them when you have recieved this testimony will you be baptized?  I think this is great because then we can see who is really ready to recieve the gospel and who really wants to make the step towards baptism.  It was great because twice after Zone Conference we had two first lessons and we invited them just like that and they said yes that they would be baptized when they recieve a testimony!!! Then we did role plays and did the way we can invite people to be baptized right at the beginning of the lesson.  

Then we had the Assistant to the President give a lesson about locking our hearts because there has been a problem with missionaries "falling in love" or meeting "the one" on their missions. He told us to lock our hearts and to only love people like the Savior would love them and not to be looking for a wife.  President Becerra told us some of you have been out so long you forgot what true beauty is haha! Thankfully I have not had this problem but it was good advice nonetheless.  

We also had a lot of missionaries leaving within the next few weeks so we had 5 missionaries who were leaving bear their testimonies. Their testimonies were so powerful the Spirit was so strong during Zone Conference and I learned a lot! 

Also, something else that we did is Elder Bowes and I taught the third hour combined Priesthood and Relief Society lesson on Sunday. We had a member MTC and we talked about how missionaries are there for the spiritual conversion and members are there for the social conversion. We need to work together in order for a person to begin the conversion process. So we did some role plays with the members and showed them that it was really easy to invite people to listen to the gospel or go to church or an activity at church or to listen to the missionaries. Then we did a role play that if the friend of the member doesn't like us then they can just throw us under the bus! So for that role play/demonstration I was the missionary, Elder Bowes was the member and we had a member be Elder Bowes friend. What the situation was is we finished the lesson then I the missionary would say something weird that would make it so that the friend wouldn't want to listen to us anymore.  So I asked so what do you think of what we talked about? The member said it was interesting then I said well wait, I forgot to tell you something. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit it was a pineapple, a big pineapple and this pineapple was really good. Then Elder Bowes cut me off we pretended to pray and then I left. Then Elder Bowes said sorry those guys know a lot but they're weird and they don't represent me. So we told the members to keep their friends and if their friends don't like us they can shove us under the bus!  It was a lot of fun to teach this lesson and I think the members really understand their role better in helping the missionary work progress.  

Other than that we've still just been teaching and finding a ton!!! I know it's only because Heavenly Father is preparing these people for the gospel and I am so blessed to be serving where I am now. I love you all!

Love, Elder Reisner