A CRAZY WEEK!

Dear Family and Friends,

 

This last week was super crazy and it just was crazy because a lot of things happened! 

Tuesday we went to the doctor because I got a spider bite or MRSA or both at the same time. My infection was HUGE it hurt a lot but I am doing much better now.  We still found time to talk to some people and did some finding.

Wednesday was pretty normal and we were able to do some service and teach.

Thanksgiving Day was crazy! We had an appointment to see our recent convert Dianna. We had a nice visit with her and helped her family prepare their Thanksgiving dinner. Then we went to our first Thanksgiving dinner appointment. On the way there I got a flat tire so of course we were late because we had to get a ride and it took awhile for them to pick us up. Dinner was good we had all the normal fixings. Then we went to our second dinner which was really really good. We had it with the Gonzalez family and it felt like we were at home with our own families. It was a really good time with them! 

Friday we had a conference with Brad Wilcox who is a well known teacher at BYU and was a Mission President in Chile. We actually have his daughter in our mission right now. She is waiting for her Visa to go to Spain. President Becerra asked him to come teach us and it was super amazing!! We learned a lot!! One thing was about how literally our job right now is no matter what tribe of Israel that we are we need to gather the rest of the house of Israel and their specific oracles will be revealed later. He taught us that as most of us are of the tribe of Ephraim and Manasseh that Ephraim is building the eternal things and Manasseh the spiritual things. It was really cool to learn all that he had for us! (On a mom side note I hope that I got this information right! Elder Reisner gets typing so fast and doesn't have time to spell check or re-read what he has typed and so sometimes I have a hard time interpreting. So, if I got this wrong please forgive me!)  Then after that I went on exchanges with Elder Smith who is leaving soon. He taught me a lot!

Sunday we had the primary program at church. It was a great program but really different to hear it in Spanish. The songs in Spanish almost seem better than they do in English sometimes!  

So, that was my crazy week! It was a good one and we had a lot of good things happen but I am excited for this week because I know things are going to start to get even better!

Love, Elder Reisner

2 weeks of great stuff!!

Dear Family and Friends,

 

I'm sorry that I have not written for 2 weeks. Last week I had a bunch of meetings and exchanges and so I was not able to e-mail. I'll try to make up for it by telling you about the two past weeks of the mission! So for the week of November 5 - 11th it was a great week! 

We found some people and on Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elder Mendoza from Spain. He is a great missionary and he taught me a lot of things. 

The most significant thing that happened that week is that we had Zone Conference which was really great! We focused all about finding and that we don't knock on doors anymore. We rescue and we find we look at everything as a finding activity. 

Sister Becerra taught us about how we can use the baptismal service as a way to find. She said that we should have our investigator invite literally everyone they can to the baptism. They will have a lot of non-member friends and family and that will be a great place for them to have a spiritual experience. She also said there always needs to be refreshments so that we can talk with people afterwards.  

President Becerra taught us about how we need to talk with people and not at people. He said we need to ask EVERYONE for referrals. Who do they know that can benefit from the message? We need to be natural in sharing the gospel. It should be natural when we talk to people and not just teach them a lesson. We also learned we need to build our own faith and testimony. We can only help people become converted to the point that we are converted. We also learned about praying for another witness to what we already know. President Becerra told us that he went to the sacred grove when he was on a business trip. He knelt down in the grove and prayed for another witness. He said I know this is true but please let me have just one more witness that this gospel is true. It was really cool and I learned a lot! 

We also taught Seminary. The kids seemed to like it and we actually had a non-member there! 

This last week was also great! On Monday we had a good day and taught.

Tuesday we had meetings until 3 o' clock. In these meetings I learned the difference of being a good leader and being a popular leader. Aaron in the Old Testament was a popular leader whereas Moses was a good leader. Aaron subjected himself to the people and built the golden calf for them. He knew that it was wrong so he said let's have Sacrament Meeting that will make up for what I did wrong. But the people just started back up doing bad things. 

I also learned more ways to find and more ways to be a better leader and trainer for missionaries. With all the new missionaries coming in we need more trainers!  I also went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and learned a lot from Elder Garcia. We did service and participated in a Thanksgiving play for the ward. We had a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. It was a really good week. We keep finding and teaching, we are hoping to help people get baptized this week. It looks like it is going to be a really good week so I am excited!!

Love, Elder Reisner

November - It's still warm and the work is progressing

Dear family and friends, 

 

This last week was a really good week! We started off by visiting members to get to know them to help us find more investigators. We also taught a Family Home Evening which felt really good.  

Tuesday we taught a bunch and we worked with less actives as well. We also brought a member to a lesson with Brian and the lesson turned out really well! Brian really seemed to connect with the member so that was awesome! 

Wednesday we dressed up for Halloween! We dressed up as missionaries!! We actually taught some people and found a new investigator. Then because of Halloween that night we had district meeting and we were allowed to have a little volleyball activity for an hour. It was a great meeting and the zone leaders taught us a new thing that we can do with members that I think will really help the work to progress in our zone!

 Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Mclwain and we taught some people and found some investigators. We also got lost because he has a huge area! We also worked with members and did some service which was really great! 

Friday was a good day. We had a really good weekly planning session so we could plan how we were going to put into practice the things we learned in district meeting. We also found 2 new investigators! Also, we taught a family how to help us better the missionary work! 

Saturday we taught and found and worked with less actives and had correlation.  

Sunday was a great day. Brian came to church! Also, every single less active except for one that we have been working with came to church too! A part member family that we worked with came to church also so it was really a miracle! We also had some member baptisms. We are still getting to know some more members so they can start helping us to find as well! We also were asked to teach Seminary this Friday I am so excited! We got to teach the youth class for Sunday School that was really fun as well! I am really excited this week because we have a lot of good stuff planned! We are going to work really hard to teach find and baptize! I hope that all of you are doing well!

Love, Elder Reisner