It's up to their Agency

I’m working hard as usual, I’m starting to go a little crazy, it´s been almost a whole transfer without a baptism. But you can’t force anyone to do anything, just got to teach your best and help them feel the spirit. Whether or not the people act on these spiritual impressions is up to their agency. But it is a little discouraging after a while when nobody seems to want the restored gospel truth that brings you so much happiness and purpose.

But that’s just the way things are, not even God makes people accept the truth.

As for my birthday, the only thing i want is the movie "Joseph Smith: the Profet of the Restoration " in Portuguese to show my investigators. It’s that one- hour movie about Joseph Smith

love you all,

-Elder Leete

Just Gotta Have Faith

i love you all, sorry ran out of computer time today my week went by normally, just this area is being a little harder to find interested people. but we´ll find them. just gotta have faith!

 

-Elder Leete

Spiritual Work Work Work

Well this week chugged along as usual, we have been having a hard time in this new area, i think ive never been rejected so much as i am being now, and thus i´m teaching less than usual

but thats okay, it just means that you have to change your tactics. we started visiting all of the members in the ward and teaching a little bit about the doctrine of christ and then asking for references, and in ward counsel on sunday we asked for all the leaders to indicate 5 families for us to work with that are less active or are incomplete.

with this i think we are going to have a lot more success this week, it´s been like three weeks since i´ve had a "BATISMO!" so i´ve got to work a little harder. i know that God has people here in this area that are ready, the "Elect" that just arent baptized yet because they dont know where they can find the truth

i´ve spent a little bit of money in the last month or so. . .  don´t remember how much. as you get older and older on the mission you care less and less about stuff like this.

ive realized that really the mission is more mentally tiring than anything. just the fact that you are constantly concerned about the spiritual well-being of your investigators and the  missionaries in your zone you get tired.

thats why you get P-day! the best thing to do is sleep to unwind. i´m excited about that in a couple of hours. P- day really just is to short, after you study, clean your house and do email and shopping you have like 2 hours to sleep before you are on the street again.

but thats the life of a missionary, just work, work, work, all the time. it’s great that it’s a spiritual work that has real worth and brings satisfaction, if you were living like this just for a normal job to get money it would be a really annoying life

love you all!

-Elder Leete

The Gospel Really does Change Lives

The transfer is going great, me and my comp (Elder S) work well together.  We aren’t really opening up a new area, this is one of the oldest wards in the city so it´s always had missionaries, but the both of the last missionaries to serve here were sent to other areas and me and Elder S arrived here without knowing the area at all. We have both served in Londrina before but not in this part.

We found a family this week that has been taught by the missionaries for over two years but never was baptized. We arrived and taught a lesson where the spirit was so strong you could cut it with a knife. The mom and the son accepted to be baptized this Saturday.  Everything was going really well, we passed there every day to teach and the spirit was always so strong, but when Saturday arrived the dad didn’t want to get baptized, fear of entering into something new and stuff like that. Wants more time to think and prepare (like 2 years isn’t enough). The wife and the son want really badly to be baptized, but they also don’t want to be baptized if the father isn’t baptized too at the same time. A little frustrating for us missionaries, but you have to respect the free agency of your investigators. Your purpose as a missionary is to teach the restored gospel with the spirit, and baptize the people if they want to follow the spirit that they are feeling. Sometimes you just want to grab the people by the collar and throw them in the water because you KNOW that’s what’s best for them, but you just can’t.

Preach my Gospel explains it something like this: you know you are a successful missionary if you can feel the spirit work through you as you find and teach people. Whether or not the accept doesn’t have anything to do with your success.

But one cool thing that happened is that we went to do a baptismal interview in the ward where I served 6 months ago. I took the opportunity to visit a family where I baptized the daughters  but the parents weren’t married at that time so they couldn’t.  They still are active and happy in the church and the marriage papers are almost done, so here in a couple of weeks they can get baptized!!! I probably will still be here which is good because S tells all the missionaries that the only person that will baptize him will be me. They even were going to name their baby "Kevin",  (D is 8 and a half months pregnant) but they found out that it’s going to be a girl. When I talked with them I got to see the great change that happened in their lives in the past six months since me and Elder P baptized them. It is one great testimony that the Gospel really does change lives. It’s amazing to see.

The mission is an experience that I can’t explain; you are changing lives for eternity every single day.

Love you all!

-Elder Leete

Opening a new Area in Londrina 3

Question: I hope your transfer went smoothly and that you are all settled into your new area.  So tell us who your new companion is and what you are up to.  Still a Zone Leader?

Answer:

This was a little crazy, we thought that we were going to work in the V Ward (which is the neighboring ward of were I served here in Londrina 4 months ago) but after two days president changed his mind and sent us to the "Londrina 3" Ward, so we had to pack our bags again and open this new area. so my first day of work in this new area was Saturday. We are the zone leaders of the "T" zone, which makes up about half of the city of Londrina. My companion is Elder S.

It was weird working close to where already worked a couple of months ago, I got to see people that I did baptismal interviews for and stuff. The missionaries there are going to baptize the granddaughter of an old man that me and Elder A found knocking on doors when we did a split like 6 months ago. (At that time Elder A was my zone leader, yes, the same one that was my companion in M last transfer.)

Also, now that I’m here I’ll probably do a split to see how my recent converts are doing in the S Ward; maybe a family that I tried to baptize finally got married legally.

I’m sorry to hear that summer has come and gone already, now it’s back to school for you all. I’m also sorry to say that winter is ending for me here, so it will start to heat up again.

I Love you all!!

até a próxima semana!

-Elder Leete

It is Just the Work of the Lord, Baptizing the Elect

This week was more hard work for us, we found a lot of people that had a good chance of being baptized, but every single one fell through.

Until Saturday morning at 10:30am

The bishop called us and said there was a young man that wanted to be baptized at the mutual activity that was going on!

We ran to the chapel to find C, a guy that has been dating a girl in the ward, apparently he has been going to church off and on for three years because his parents don’t authorize his baptism. But this week he turned 18! We didn’t even have to teach him anything, Elder A did the baptismal interview right then. He was baptized on Sunday by one of his friends in the ward.

It made me realize how a lot of times we, as missionaries, as much as we work and work every day in the end it is just the work of the Lord, baptizing the elect. Where there are humble people who listen and accept the gospel there are baptisms. We just have to find them.

Love you all, Transfers are this week but I don’t know what will happen because the secretaries haven’t called yet, but if I’m still on the computer I’ll send another email to tell you real quick.

tchau

-Eler Leete

Left to Right:  Elder A, D (member friend that did the baptism), C, and Me

Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 8:43 AM

Subject: transfers

I’m being transferred back to Londrina!! I’m going to work in the V ward, which is the neighboring ward of where I was working last time. It will be weird, I’ll use the same chapel and everything.

love you all!

-Elder Leete

The Hardest Part about being a Missionary

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