Monday, November 14, 2016

Rockford Bound



This week was really good. The M*s are doing well, same old with them. They are progressing nicely and are keeping commitments and learning. They were really sad to hear that I was leaving and I'm sad to be leaving them as well. Luckily we have a lesson with them tonight so I'll get to see them before I head out tomorrow morning. It's been quite the journey with them but I'm sure the future missionaries will take good care of them.
   We received a reassignment from the Naperville 2nd missionaries. His name is Adam and he was referred by a member who is also his boss at work. We found out that a member from this Ward knows him and his daughters. The member’s kids and their kids are good friends and were super excited to hear that we would be teaching them. We have a lesson with him tonight and we're praying really hard that this lesson goes well because he seems really awesome. Also, we found out he loves magic and tried out for Americas Got Talent over the weekend. Not sure how he did but we should find out tonight.
   As we were street contacting one day we talked to a lady who we found out was a former whose record had been deleted. We had a lesson with her on Sunday morning before church. When we showed up initially she wasn't home so we did a few stop by's and tracked a little and then tried again. Literally right as we touched the handle to the complex she opened the door and walked out. We sat down right there and taught her a lesson about the Book of Mormon and of the importance of baptism. She wants her children baptized and even though she has already been baptized we explained the Priesthood and she said she would be baptized again. Good stuff!
   I'm super excited for this new transfer. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up and that means a new initiative. It's called #LIGHTtheWORLD. During Zone Conference Elder Royce and I went up on the stage and read a long PowerPoint about it, so you could say I'm sort of an expert now. Just kidding. If you haven't heard of it look up #LIGHTtheWORLD or "In 25 Ways. Over 25 Days." hopefully there is something on that somewhere. I'll give more details as it gets closer. I'm excited for it though. It gives us wonderful opportunities to share the light of Christ throughout the Christmas season.
  That should be about it for this week. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you. Rely on the Lord and he will direct your paths for good.
Weekly Hymn: Press Forward, Saints #81
Weekly Scripture: 2 Nephi 31:19-21

Have a great week!
   - Elder Eddenfield
 The Smith's
 It's getting cold!


Ward Mission Leader and his wife. The Monson's.



Sunday, November 13, 2016

Seeing the Good in Each Other



Mon 11/7/2016 1:11 PM

This week was really good. We taught the M*s a couple of times and they are really progressing nicely. As I mentioned in last week’s letter the Ward Council talked about ways to help them make friendships. One of the ideas discussed was having some young women come to a lesson with us, and one of their fathers to a lesson so that they could invite Monika, the 16 year old to activities. Well, it worked! They invited her to church and she finally said yes. It's amazing what happens when members get involved in people's teaching and conversion. It takes time but it's well worth it. We already have two lesson set up with them for this week. Tonight we are bringing the Young Women's President to further help Monika and on Thursday we are having Krish over to a members home so we can start teaching him on his level. The family has a daughter his age so we’re hoping to build a friendship there as well. Speaking of a Krish he told us that he has started to pray on his own daily and he loves it, his mother confirmed this as well. Ganga has been listening to the Book of Mormon as well and she is definitely understanding more than we think. The problem is that she has trouble explaining what she is learning back to us because of the language barrier. It's tricky but definitely worth it.
   Something we are starting to work on is having the members pray for our investigators by name. It stems from a Conference talk, I don't remember which one, but it talks about a couple that was having relationship problems and their Bishop told them to pray for each other and as they did they felt a greater love for one another and would start seeing the good in each other. It went something like that. The idea is that if we can get them praying for our investigators a few things will happen. 1. The investigators will be receiving more blessings because of the prayers of the faithful members. 2. The members will start thinking about the investigators more and will have a desire to interact with them. And 3. Members will ask US about them instead of us having to go to them, hopefully. We'll see how it works but that's what we're sort of focusing on. 
    Vince dropped us this week. His life is kind of a mess so he doesn't want us to meet with him until he can focus on what we're teaching. He was very nice about it.
   I think that's about it for this week. Plenty of other stuff happened but it's not exciting so I won't mention it here. Have a great week everyone!

- Elder Eddenfield