Big things are changing!!

Last week I wrote about a guy named Joe I talked to on the phone line from Mormon.org and I said I would explain more about him next week… So to explain more about Joe, like I said, he's addicted to chewing tobacco and came on to chat on Mormon.org and asked me to call him. So I did and he said he's been to church lots of times and that he was taught by the missionaries and had a baptism date but got anxious about it and it fell through. The people in the ward he goes to and the missionaries he’s worked with all love him. He studies the Bible and the Book of Mormon and is fantastic! He'd be a great asset to the missionaries because he's so well versed in the Bible and knows where some of the stuff that correlates to the Book of Mormon is. So we'll see where that goes. Apparently he has a lot of online missionaries helping him including Sister Muench at one point back in July or August.

Monday: We had Zone Conference!! I loved Hearing Sister Frandsen's talk about humility and always remembering to submit to His will and that we can't do anything without the Lord's help. "We should pray like everything depends on the Lord and then go and work like everything depends on us." President Frandsen said we need to teach repentance better and that when we're inviting investigators to do something we're inviting them to repent. He also talked about how going to church is essential for investigators to develop a stronger desire for baptism. He delivered a "State of the Mission" message about how the California Oakland/San Francisco mission did for 2016 and what our goals for 2017 will be:

"Dear Elders and Sisters: Our 2016 Baptismal Goal was 400 individuals. We finished 2016 with 339 baptisms. This is just 4 fewer people baptized than in 2015, yet with approximately 22% fewer missionaries.  Although we did not achieve our goal in numbers, what a blessing this has been to our mission and to those missionaries who worked, prayed and exercised their faith to achieve this goal! Many missionaries have shared with us how they have come to understand better how faith works, how their faith has increased and how they saw specific miracles in their work as a result of their efforts to achieve this goal.  The issue, of course, is about individual people coming unto Jesus Christ and receiving His gospel with all the associated blessings, guidance and hope. Sister Frandsen and I want to thank all who have been praying with us this past year - missionaries who completed their missions and returned home, parents and many others. Given the blessings associated with this baptismal goal, we will be establishing another goal for our mission for 2017."

Our investigator Linda is SO cute!! She said that she posted on Facebook saying she loves the Book of Mormon and can't put it down!! Then we taught a lady named Flora who requested a Bible from Mormon.org and we were able to set a return appointment for her! YAY! Her little boy took my hand and walked us out the door and wanted to walk us to our car! He's so cute!! :D

Tuesday: So we had a worldwide missionary broadcast where our daily schedule as a missionary was changed to help missionaries be able to be more flexible and use our agency more. It also helps prepare us to keep the habits we learn on our missions when we go home. Our schedule allows us more freedom to choose. Our daily schedule is anytime between 6:30-10 we need to exercise for 30 minutes, have our daily planning for 30 minutes (Sister Muench and I are doing this in the morning now instead of at night), personal and companionship study 30-60 minutes and get ready/eat breakfast. Our lunch is now 30 minutes instead of 1 hour so no more member lunches. This new change is super nice because we can actually wake up at 6:30 instead of 6 or 6:15 and then we get home between 9 and 9:30 depending on lessons and appointments. So now we can go to bed any time between 9:30-10:30 :) Also, our P-day starts at 8 am instead of 10 am and we don't have to exercise that day :) Our key indicators for performance changed too. So now we only report on 4 key indicators and not the 9 we were doing before. The 4 we still report on are: Baptism and Confirmations, Baptism Date, if investigators attended sacrament meeting and new investigators. They also talked about how we need to teach repentance and baptize converts. These changes allows us to focus more on teaching and helping our investigators instead of trying to fulfill numbers. After the missionary broadcast we ate dinner at the Ralph's house. We had Russian Pasties and had an amazing discussion about Faith :) Then we met with our recent convert, Ben, and helped him overcome his feelings of inadequacy as he is preparing for the temple and he said "Thank you for inspiring me!" on our way out :) Then we went to the Sister Training Leader's apartment for exchanges.

Wednesday: MIRACLES!!!!!! Sister Chiang and I went to visit some potential investigators and then we went to Berkeley campus (yes, THE Berkeley College campus) to people contact. Because we spent time seeing those referrals first, even though they weren't home, we were able to meet these people!! The first person we talked to was a girl. We taught the story of the Restoration of the Gospel in 4 minutes and we got her contact info and set up a return appointment (she has no background in God or religion). Then we also were able to get 2 other people’s contact information. One was a Christian and looking for a church to go to and another I thought I'd try to talk to even though we were about to leave for a lesson and we got his info too! Then we taught a member about sharing the gospel on social media and I want all of you to do this as well. Get on one of your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and pull up your friends list and pray about who you should share your testimony and/or a church video with and do it! :D One of the lessons we taught tonight happened because a girl reached out to him even though she wasn't very good friends with him and invited him to church! He had just been to a Bible booth because he wanted to learn more about Christianity. He had no knowledge of Christianity and it was his first about lesson God and Jesus Christ that we taught and then the other lesson we taught was basically the same, no Christian background or knowledge and first lesson. I learned that I CAN teach people with no Christian background. Also, have you ever had an Indian burrito!?!?! It's amazing!! We had one for lunch here!

I'll have to tell you more next time :) Sorry!! Love you all!! Also, check out this amazing article about journaling!!