Sat, 28 Aug 2010 (Nathan)

Hellllllllllllllllllllllo everybody!

What a busy week here on the other side of the world! With all of these new training modules we find ourselves quite packed in the office. We've got to plan lunches, do travel schedules, look up train times, book the chapel, plan exchanges, spend $$$, drive peeps around, and all that good stuff... But all in all it turned out to be very useful and effective. We basically had 3 days of training from 9AM to 5PM. And coming up this next week on Friday we will be holding Zone Leader Council... aggghh i can't believe how much training there has been lately... Well, basically the new training is the icing on the cake for Preach My Gospel. We've got everything that we need to know with PMG, but this new training teaches us HOW to use everything that we've got. Elder Holland said, Think of PMG as Santa's present, and the new training as the reindeer who help get the present where it needs to..." And that's exactly what it was. The eight new lessons that we learned were:

1) The Doctrine of Christ

2) Role of the Holy Ghost

3) Revelation through Prayer

4) Revelation through Book of Mormon

5) Revelation through attending Church

6) Teach People, Not Lessons

7) We Invite, They Commit, We follow-up

8) How to begin teaching

So we had about 3 lessons per day, except 2 on one day. The process of learning for each lesson was this:

1) Doctrinal based learning

2) Watch clip from the new PMG District #2 Movie

3) Role-play

4) Evaluation

5) Re-role-play

It worked out VERY well, I was very impressed. Because the first PMG movie was pretty much a joke I thought. My companion and I were able to try it out in the park yesterday. We were actually shocked how well some of the new stuff works. We stopped our car, grabbed our books of mormon and went straight into the park entrance where we saw these two middle-aged guys sitting on a park bench. So we went up to them and I started to talk to them. they were not impressed at all. They started swearing and saying all of this crazy stuff but we decided to stick it out anyway. One of the new learning techniques we learned was to just stop and listen, not to bud in and think of what your response will be while they are thinking. And then based on what the person says, be still and listen to the spirit to form an open ended question. So, one of the guys was asking why there is so much corruption, dirt, and crime there is in this country, and a bunch of other questions along those lines. Instead of responding quickly by saying that he could find happiness or a way to escape from it all, I stopped and waited about 5 seconds and my mouth just opened and I said to him, "You've got alot of questions for us don't you? But what if you could ask God? If you could ask God any question, what question would that be?" He said he would ask God why he was born in this crappy country.  I told him that he was born here because God puts us exactly where we can progress and learn the most, or where we need to be. They both agreed with that. We then went on to say that God put you both in our path so that you can continue to grow and progress through reading a special book. The BOOK OF MORMON! WOO! After talking for a little bit more, we gave them both a copy of the book of mormon, got their phone numbers, and set up to have a lesson with them at the chapel on Monday! YES! Later that evening, we had a recent convert lesson with Cristina. As usual, she's doing SUPER awesome. I've never met someone with a greater desire to learn more and apply the doctrines of christ in their life than her. She's so cool. But anyway, we had our lesson with her, and as we were talking she said she was able to get her mom to read the first 66 pages of the book of mormon. and her brother and sister are coming to the English classes we hold at the church today. And hopefully come to church in 2 weeks with her. Right now she's trying to convince her mom to take the lessons with us. how cool would that be?? a family! WOO!

The only thing that i'm waiting for right now with my BYU application is my Ecclesiastical endorsement. I payed the $35 application fee which was the 2nd to last thing. And my last companion said his Dad (who's an italian professor at BYU) would take my endorsement to the application office and put in a good word for me. He's got a buddy at the app office. so it shouldn't be a problem :) Hopefully I'll get accepted! Pray for me!

Last night my companion and one of the office Elders did the candle wax thing in their ears. They have never done it before so we did it for them and it was way fun to see their reactions. We're having a good time and trying to work hard so we can still get this miracle of 200 baptisms going :)

I'm sorry that you have to dress an old lady up into her burial clothing. But that'll be a nice service though. You'll be blessed. And that's way crazy that frontage road is done now. Sounds like there's a lot of changes going on around there.

I'm super pumped for the Kiev dedication tomorrow! I really like your rubber band card idea thing. That's a way good idea for people who aren't at home when you visit them. I told the Elders here in the office about it and they said that's a way good idea.

Well, love you all! Have a super sweet sick. Help the missionaries, give them referrals!

"Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings" - Victor Hugo

Love,

Vârstnicul Smith