So, as it turns out, this is my last week in Mesa! I got my visa, and I'll be leaving on Saturday! My flight plans go from here to San Francisco, San Francisco to Sydney, Australia, and then from Sydney to Port Vila, Vanuatu. I'll spend around 4 days there and then hop over to New Caledonia! I'm a little sad to not be stopping over in New Zealand like my original flight plans, but maybe on the way back. This week is shaping up to be quite awesome. We have a missionary training broadcast on Wednesday, and then Elder Neil L. Andersen will be speaking to the mission on Saturday! We also have a lot of teaching appointments set up for the next week. More on that in a little bit.
This past week was positively amazing! We had so much happen this week. We had more lessons scheduled than ever, and even though a lot of them fell through, we still taught more lessons than ever.
On Monday we found a new investigator named Joe. He's an older gentleman with a younger family, and he wants to raise his kids right and he really admires the Church's standards.
Tuesday I went on exchanges with my district leader here in my area, which means I had to lead in the area. I was really nervous because I didn't want us to waste time sitting around deciding what to do, but we planned well and we were able to fill all of our time. And we found another new investigator named Keira. She seemed really interested in learning more, and she's friends with an inactive member who had been meeting with missionaries before he moved, so we have some really good potential there.
Wednesday we had a zone training meeting which went really well and I learned a lot. We also taught a young man named Zach who is a fairly recent convert who lives with two member parents. (Long story) but the lesson went really well. He's having a hard time getting out to church because of his work schedule, but we encouraged him to try and find a way to get to at least a sacrament meeting, even if it's not his own.
Thursday was my first zone conference. A lot of time was spent on this new thing they're installing in missionary vehicles to help keep missionaries safe. It was cool I guess, but it's really not applicable to me since, especially now that I'm leaving, I won't be driving on my mission. The rest of our lessons were really good though, I particularly liked one that one of our zone leaders gave about why it's so important to keep a good area book, and he related it really well to the scriptures and gave a lot of scriptural references about record-keeping. I really enjoyed it, and it's so true. Accurate records are so important, especially in missionary work. We also taught a less-active member named Sister Smith. She has a lot of health challenges, but that's all that's been keeping her down. We had a great discussion and offered our help with anything else that she needs.
Friday may be my favorite day on my mission so far. We were able to commit an investigator to a baptismal date! Her name is Lexi. She was being taught by another set of missionaries, but she lives in our area and has started attending our ward, so we had a lesson to kind of hand her off to us to begin teaching and she is so ready. We just need to finish teaching her. We set a baptismal date in February, so I guess that means I won't be around to see it, but that's OK. I don't mind helping to lay a great foundation. We also had dinner with a less-active family. There are such a cool family, and I loved getting to talk to them. I hope that we can help them find a desire to come back to church because they are so awesome, and could be such a strength to the Kingdom of God. After dinner our lesson fell through, but we were able to talk to a lady named Tracy. She was raised in a non-religious home, but has had a lot of spiritual experiences that have led her to believe in God and Christ. We taught her a few principles there on the street, and she accepted a Book of Mormon and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. She was asking such great questions, and I wish we had more time to teach her, but she had to get home and so did we. Hopefully soon we'll get a lesson set up with her.
Saturday was a day full of contacting. Everyone seemed to be outside or willing to open their door, and we talked to a lot of people.
Finally, yesterday we went to both of our wards' sacrament meetings. All three of the lessons we had planned fell through, but we did find a new investigator named Rigo.
This area has so much potential, I don't know why there weren't more investigators when we got here, but there sure are now! We've finally gone from spending most of our time trying to find people to teach to actually teaching most of the time, which is definitely where we want to be.
I know that this work is directed by God, and that this church is true. I know that the message we share brings peace and greater happiness to people through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am having a wonderful time dedicating myself to spreading the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I'll see you soon,
Elder Miner
Fun fact about Mesa for the week, street names carry over through basically entire the entire city. Even though they may be totally different neighborhoods, if the streets are on the same coordinate line, they have the same name. This makes navigation rather tricky.
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