May 3, 2016

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This week was a pretty good one.

My companion made me run for realsies ( I run real slow) one morning (she
was in BYU track for all 4 years of college) then that evening we didn't
have any appointments and all of our investigators were MIA, so we decided
to ride the bikes to find some people. We spend way to much time in the car
going from potential to potential, why not bike and talk to everyone if we
have no where to be? I was dying the next day.

This week president Schmitt asked us in his weekly email,  "Is your mission
changing your heart and your life?" I thought I would share what I said.
Yes, I believe my mission is changing my heart and life. Not only has my
testimony and faith grown, but my desire to progress. During the course of
my mission, I have found a constant desire to always be changing and be
better. That is something I think I struggled with before my mission. I was
good, obedient, had a lot of faith, but I don't know if I was progressing.
I have noticed that as I have focused on improving my teaching skills to
help others, I've also had a desire to improve many attributes about myself
for them to be more Christlike, to treat them as Christ would. And not just
for them, but for Him. I want to change for Him. That is something I never
want to let go of.

I noticed a huge change in our area that week we fasted as a mission about
goals. I had also made it a personal goal to pray in every prayer about our
goals because I have never been very good at that. The past couple of weeks
haven't been as successful since then because we didn't really have goals
like the ones a couple of weeks ago. I noticed the correlation as I was
thinking "what went different that week?" I thought that this might be the
best way to redouble our works---setting goals that redouble our works and
sticking with them. This week our goals were: (1) Have 3 lessons with every
one of our current investigators this week (2) Add 5 new investigators (3)
Find a non-member to take to the family history center in Calexico (Our
bishop will be there every tues. and thurs. We want to improve our
relationship with him and feel we have received revelation that this would
be a perfect way because he is really excited about family History work.)
We have been praying about that since Friday. Yesterday we went to see a 17
year old potential. He had went on Mormon.org and said he wasn't interested
in organized religion, but he is interested in our genealogy efforts. He
agreed to come to the FHC this Thursday. My companion and I were blown away
by this direct answer to our prayers and hope that this will soften his
heart as well. We have also been teaching short, powerful lessons and I
feel much better coming out of them. As I studied the Book of Mormon in
Preach my Gospel, I found a quote that said, "Investigators must resolve
for themselves their concerns and objections. You can help as you focus
them on what will strengthen their faith in Jesus Christ—reading and
praying about the Book of Mormon. When they strengthen their testimony of
the Restoration, they will have the strength to overcome their objections
and concerns." It hit me that the longer lessons didn't allow the
investigators the opportunity to learn something for themselves and answer
their own doubts/concerns using prayer and the Book of Mormon because we
were answering them.

Yesterday we had a lesson with a man we met while we were riding the bikes.
He is 48 and has had 3 Heart Attacks, so he is in a wheel chair. He is also
divorced and alone. It was really sad and I wanted to cry the entire time
he was telling us, but he told us that he wants to open his heart to Jesus
Christ, because he hasn't really done that before. We shared the
restoration and talked about how the priesthood is restored so that he can
be baptized, the best way to open our hearts and accept Jesus Christ. He is
going to change his life with the gospel!

We also have been teaching a family we found when we fasted. Yesterday the
mom didn't want to come out (we think she might have depression) and we
talked to her 15 year old son. He seems hurt by a lot of the things that
are going on in his family and that was really sad. We taught him and he
said he used to be very into religion and Jesus Christ and all, but now it
has fizzled out and he's "not 100% there" in his own terms. He wants to
find peace. we found them because my companion and her last companion had
felt impressed to knock on the door months ago during power hour. The lady
that lived there at the time let them in. Well we went back to follow up
the other day and he answered the door. His mom set up an appointment with
us. He told us that he told his mom that the minute we step foot in their
house, everything is going to change. He has been praying every day since
we came and he told us that for him, everything is changing. I don't know
if his parents are changing, but I know he said that he his happier and
things are getting better for him, I know that it only is going that way
because he is doing the things that we invited him to do.

That's it for this week!
Hermana Lapp