Hey guys!
Well, this week has been truly fantastic.
Numbers-wise, in general, it has been my best week on my mission so far! We
were able to set five baptismal dates, got seven new investigators, and got 23
new potential investigators throughout the week. Honestly, it's crazy. I guess
all I can say is that I am very grateful to see the work paying off. One of our
baptismal candidates came to church yesterday, too, along with one of our other
progressive investigators! Now, the name of the game is maintaining all these
people. I AM GOING TO MAKE SURE THESE PEOPLE MAKE IT IN THE
WATERS. I'M NOT LETTING THEM GO THIS TIME! I'm happy--no,
ecstatic--right now that we have people who have desire to be baptized, don't
get me wrong, but I will be hoping and praying and fasting and working and doing
my best to teach and calling to make sure we can get those desires fulfilled.
Now the work begins!
I'll spend a hefty amount of writing now
describing how awesome these people are. Most of them are brand new
investigators, though. But, here I go.
The first person, or pair of persons (???), I'll
write about is Emmanuel. I met him and his friend, Zack, on the street one time
while we were contacting. We shared with him what we were doing and exchanged
telephone numbers, then scheduled an appointment within a few weeks.
Unfortunately, I wasn't actually there for the first lesson with the two of them
as I was on a split in Grafenwöhr, but I got a wonderful phone call after the
lesson saying that they had both agreed to be baptized on the 25th of February.
Since then, I've met with Emmanuel, and I can say that it truly seems that he
has real intent. We taught The Plan of Salvation to him, and he said that it
was a "huge relief" (and also that this sounded a lot better than the concept of
"hell-fire"). He has promised to read the Book of Mormon, and naturally pray
about it, too, and he came to church the next day! Even though he only speaks
English, and we have a small German branch, I think he enjoyed it, and we have
another appointment with him scheduled for this evening!
Next, we have Bravedo! He is a student at the
university in Bayreuth and we found him while street contacting with our
Assistant to the President a little bit ago. Bravedo is a super cool guy and
really clicked on each part of the lesson. We emphasized the apostasy with him
and asked if he has ever wondered why there are so many differing Christian
churches, and he started laughing and said "SO MANY TIMES!" We then, of
course, presented God's response to this through The Restoration of the Gospel
through Joseph Smith. Even though no tears were shed by him, I felt that he was
touched by the message, and he told us that this brings him joy to know, and
that he would be baptized in the 25th of February as well. We will be working
with him closely to get him ready, and he actually suggested that to us before
we did to him. I think he is promising!
Next, we have Favour. We found her also while
street contacting with the Assistant to the President, and then met with her on
Saturday. We taught The Restoration and she expressed to us beforehand that she
has, as of late, felt distant from God. She said she would like to restore that
relationship, and we told her that this is kind of the greatest way to do
it. We promised her that by keeping commitments that we extend, and especially
through reading the Book of Mormon, she will feel an increase of God's love in
her life, which would be further increased by eventual baptism--which she agreed
to for February 25th as well.
And finally, we have Markus: The Only German
Speaking Man Out of Them. This was an interesting lesson. He says he grew up
as a Catholic but also drifted away because of the teachings. He is a scientist
apparently and kept speaking about "absolute nothingness" versus "nothingness",
parallel universes, antimatter, light versus anti-light, and so forth, and
managed to tie one of these in with every point of the first lesson. We did
what we could and taught him throughout, then extended our testimony and
commitment of reading the Book of Mormon to him. He accepted. We asked him if
he would have anything against being baptized in our church if he found out it
was true, and he said that "[he] already know[s]". He agreed to be baptized on
April 1st (there is a joke in there somewhere). We'll have to make sure we go
over a few things soon, just to make sure he knows what baptism would entail and
mean for his life, but anyways, he's a possibility.
That's all of them. Most of these people seems
like they really do believe, or have the desire to believe at the very least. I
really believe that they can and will be ready through their own efforts and our
contributions on the way. But, at the end of the day, we will remember that the
choice lies within them! We can only help to provide the means to gain faith,
and push them to receive it.
I just really hope these great people can turn
into converted members of the branch here! They could do so much good here!
One of the things I like about the small-branch dynamic is that there will be a
lot more responsibility there, both for us to work hard to strengthen it, and
for the converts to immediately feel needed in it. Also, even though only one
speaks German, we are working to...uh haha, teach them German...to become better
integrated with the ward.
Shoot. I have a lot to write about but I don't
want to make you guys keep your eyes on the screen for this long. Because
reading on screens is the WORST. Who invented Kindles, anyways? I'm trying to
crack a joke here but I am mentally exhausted.
Okay, one last thing. In an effort to practice
teaching in companionship Study better, and more enjoyably, we have created
fictional investigators. We're currently teaching a man named Eric. He
comes from Norway and is a Viking who fights dragons. He's hard to contact
because he is at sea so much, but our lessons with him so far have been pretty
interesting. He has a lot of odd beliefs but we're hoping to help him out. We
will keep you updated on his progress.
That's all I have for you guys! Please pray for
our wonderful investigators so we can help them in the waters!
Love,
Elder Wallentine
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