This week was more of the same for me, working hard all
day every day.
The hardest part about being a missionary is being a
missionary leader. I work with a lot of missionaries and it seems like
they just don’t have a desire to work hard, or they work hard but they aren’t
working in an effective manner so their numbers are low.
These numbers or "key indicators" that
we work with are baptisms, confirmations, investigators in sacrament
meeting, lessons taught with a member present, other lessons taught, "progressing" investigators
(they are reading the Book of Mormon and praying and trying to keep the
commandments), references received (from members), references contacted,
new investigators, lessons taught to less actives and recent converts, and
contacts on the street.
The goal of a good missionary is to work hard to
increase these numbers every week, because as you do so you will help more and
more people accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
The problem is when missionaries start to get satisfied with
low numbers. Let’s say that I’ve taught 4 lessons today (4 lessons is like
the minimum for a day´s work), I can 1) say that I’ve done enough for the
day and not really try hard to talk to people on the street or even go to a
member house to eat a snack for the rest of the evening. Or I can 2) still try
my hardest and teach another 4 before the night runs out.
The missionaries that do the first a lot of times get stuck
in the rut of only teaching a low number of lessons every day, so they
start lowering their goals and instead of teaching a minimum of 4 lessons a day
their goal BECOMES 4 lessons per day. Then they start teaching even less. . .
.and then start slacking off with the free time that they have because
they aren’t exerting themselves during the day.
But then there are other types of missionaries that have
good intentions but they don’t really know how to use their time wisely. They
start teaching instigators in a wide, spread-out area so they spend half their
time during the day walking. They arrive
in house tired at the end of the day working hard and obeying the rules,
but they don’t baptize often because they aren’t teaching very many
people. (I was like this at the beginning of the mission.)
Our job as leaders is to help people improve the
quality of teaching and planning (through training meetings and doing
splits to teach by example) and to motivate and inspire the
missionaries in the zone to work their hardest.
The hardest thing to do I think is to inspire people to work.
I’m not a very crazy and outgoing guy. I’m good at
teaching principles and solving problems, but when it comes to
getting up in front of 20 other missionaries and trying to motivate
them to work harder I’m like a fish out of water. I’ve been getting
better with practice but it’s still awkward.
O well, I hope by the end of the mission I get a hang of it.
But that’s what I’ve had on my mind today, love you all
I bought new insoles this week, Dr. Scholls all the way. I’m
gonna buy more this week too I think
até mais!!!
-Elder Leete
