This week has kind of been all over the place, but there have been so many amazing blessings, some of which have really just come out of nowhere, but for all of which I am immensely grateful.
I've been really trying to emphasize member missionary work since I got here in the office and on Saturday and Monday of this last week we finally had our first lessons with active families to help them to share the Gospel. It was so amazing! They both had people that they were trying to prepare to receive the missionaries and we were able to help them to plan and feel the Spirit about getting started in Missionary Work. Familia Gamarra was especially prepared with lots of people that they wanted to invite and it was something that really strengthened me personally.
Then I received the biggest news just a day before it was told to everyone. I was in the office on Monday and President called me into his office and sat down to ask to see what it is exactly that we're reporting each and every week in every sense and then he just dropped a bomb:
We're getting rid of almost all of it.
No more lesson numbers.
No more investigators with baptismal dates.
We're not even going to report how many contacts we've had each week.
Instead, we'll report three different numbers:
1. Church Attendance
2. Percentage of Retention of Recent Converts in the last year
3. Number of Baptisms that week
And that's all.
It blew my mind! But it's such a good thing. It takes away any crutch we were using and lets people to look at the root.
The next day, President started telling everyone in our Zone Conference and told us a lot about the Area's (our Area is South America South and includes all of Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay) vision for this big change. It starts in January and the focus is that we keep ourselves consecrated as ministers who minister to people's needs with the Book of Mormon. It's a really amazing change and I left that Zone Conference just ready to get out and help people.
The next blessing was totally unexpected. On Wednesday, we couldn't really work much, but we went out and knocked once more on the door of a man that I've never seen before, but Elder Billings, when he was showing me the area, always indicated that house as a house of a less active member who was pretty cool. In all my time here, I've always clapped and rung the doorbell, but never once been able to find him.
He was sitting outside the office on Thursday morning and said he'd wanted to meet with the missionaries. I didn't even know it was him until Elder Valenzuela talked with him and came in to tell me who it was. My companion was gone getting the mail with the Cartero, so Elder Valenzuela sat down to a lesson with him in the waiting room and it was so beautiful and so inspired. We have a return appointment coming up here in about ten minutes and I'm so excited for him! He's had a really difficult history, and wasn't even looking to make a big change when he came to meet with us, but then we taught him and he just wanted to make a change in his life! It was amazing!
Other than that, the work moves on bit by bit. We're getting ready for a big Christmas activity, but I'll have to write you all how it goes next time! (Hopefully with pictures).
I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Harris
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