Love Tuesday!

Tue, Sept 20, 2011 at 11:59 am

Email #51 – La Grande, OR

Dear Bevell Family,

  To start off, I too like Tuesday! It's the one day when I can just sit back and take a breath before plunging back into the work at 6:00 pm. I love getting to hear about you all and telling you about my week. This week did have some bummer moments but some really good ones too! I will start with the bummer ones. So two weeks ago while looking at our dinner calendar on Sunday I for some strange reason looked at the wrong day and set up dinner with the family who had signed up for the next week. Yeah. So about an hour before we were going to head over we get a call from the people who had signed up to feed us that night asking us if we still wanted to come over for dinner. lol, I felt so ridiculous as I explained what happened. They were really good about it though and just said, "We'll just feed you next Sunday then." Well, next sunday came and we were called up last minute to go to Enterprise because there were some families that wanted to meet with us! (We didn't find out on Sunday but during the week) So we went up to Enterprise and what happens...they all cancel on us!!  Luckily we had caught a ride with some members so we didn't waste any miles (thanks for the small blessings right?) so we just sat and talked with our Ward Mission Leader about what he and the ward could do to help get the mission work going up there. We gave him some family mission plans we had made and also talked about the 555 program which is a program that helps the ward have at least 15 people/families the missionaries can be teaching. Very effective when done properly. So we then caught a ride back to La Grande with some members and worked on planning what we would do the next day. It was then that I realized that I had not called our dinner to tell them that we wouldn't be able to come that night......yeah. I felt even more silly for having missed dinner with the same family TWICE!!! They were great about it. When I called to apologize they just laughed and said it was ok and they would just catch us on a different night. I love the members up here and how Christ like they are. The family we missed are the Bonds, the same bond who does chiropractic work on us Elders every Tuesday!  So that was the craziness of our week.

The good stuff that happened was that we got a call from the Bishop in 4th ward telling us that he had two new people who wanted to meet with us!! And while at one of those people's place we got a third person who wanted to hear the lessons! It feels so good to have new people to teach!  Brendon is doing great. He asked us to move his baptism back to Oct 8 so he could really digest all that we taught him so he could "feel"ready. He's doing so good, and his Dad might even start meeting with us!

  The inspection didn’t happen!! We cleaned the whole place and he didn't come! And on top of that the apartment is a mess again!!!  oh well. I'm just grateful that we have food and a roof over our heads. lol.

  As to tracting, yeah that is the most ineffective way to do missionary work here. Most people are already members, and the rest don't want us knocking on their doors. We use the members to find new people to teach, and that is the best way to do missionary work! Elder Bednar put it beautifully when he said “Missionaries are full time teachers, while you and I (aka the members) are full time finders." Remember that now ok and help out the elders near you!   We don't go on splits to often now, we are actually discouraged to go on splits! President Cannon talked to us on how we can teach more powerfully as a companionship, and that splits should only be used if appointments overlap each other. I like that better anyway cause it's sometimes hard to teach when the person you are with doesn't know how you teach or what the person you are teaching really needs. It can get frustrating at times to say the least. lol.

  Well I am glad you enjoyed the pictures, I loved the ones you sent last week! I'm glad the ranch is doing well and I really do look forward to working with you all there again!  Only 13 months left!!!!!...not that I'm counting or anything. lol. I love you all, I still pray for you every night and I look forward to hearing from you in snail mail! Take care and stay cool!!

                                   -Elder Bevell-