Renewed Vision and Energy

Hello mom and dad :-)

It was a really good week. We stayed pretty busy even though some kids were out of town for the holiday weekend. We drove to Price again to exchange with the Zone Leaders. I got to go with Elder Miller who is a great brother. We had a great time finding and teaching. We saw a lot of miracles even though it was Carbon County.

This week was Mission Leadership Council for us just like it was for Sister Stewart. There is a pretty big push in the mission right now to concentrate our efforts at working with members. President Center was surprised at the performance of the mission to be honest, with 200,000 member missionaries in the mission there is no reason that every single missionary in the mission should not be very busy. We do need to find and teach a lot more.

Let’s start with Sunday. Last Sunday a young man showed up to church for the first time because a friend invited him. We set up an appointment to go teach him last week, but he had to cancel and then we weren't sure if we were going to be able to see him again. But, he went to church again this week with a different friend, came, found us and asked "So....when you meet with people, what do you do?" It was a nice little tender mercy at the end of the week after we had worked hard all week long.

We kept teaching our investigators this week. R, K, and P are all doing well. It’s been kind of hard to get a hold of K2 these days, we hope that he is still good for baptism this month!

We have also been working really hard at finding using members as well. At times we as members of the church have a difficulty inviting or helping our friends become involved in the church or learn about the gospel because we don't know what to do. President Center helped us to develop a sheet that we shared with our Zone Leaders at MLC that is aimed at helping members get organized and have ideas for inviting people. The idea is that you put the name of a less active or non member down, and then you pick something that you can do to move them closer to the gospel, and you put a date in the box when you're going to do the activity.

Ever since we changed our own mindset from doing it all on our own to having members involved in our work, we have seen a lot of fruit. There are just people coming out of the wood work now!

I think one important thing I have learned on my mission is to love what I am doing. We put in long hours this week: on the road, in the area, and in the office. But loving the Savior, loving the missionaries, and loving the work makes every single sacrifice worth it. 

Well, I’ve got to go! But I love you all and I love this church. It is true.

Love,

Elder Michael Stewart