June 17, 2013

So last week we had Zone Conference and it was off the chain! Our mission president is going home so we sang him a song. Do you remember when I sang a song written by one of the other missionaries a few months ago? Well, he wrote another song and this one was just for President and Sister Schaefermeyer. It was pretty awesome. One of the Elders played guitar and we had some beatboxing on the chorus. We did it in the gym so it wasn't too irreverent. The mission president's wife was crying the whole time. It was really pretty cool because our whole zone, about 36 missionaries, were all singing. There were a few solos and the spanish missionaries sang their line in spanish. It was seriously awesome.
We have one person right now with a baptismal date. He is ten years old and his family are members. He didn't get baptized for some reason but we are teaching him now. We have taught him twice and the first time we went over the Restoration. He actually told us all about Joseph Smith's experience and the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool. This family has about 7 children and they are awesome. The youngest one is approx. eighteen months old and she is super quiet. However, Elder Riehle and I have recently got her to talk and play with us a little. She mainly will just bring us random objects but I also got a few high-fives so I am pretty proud of myself.
This last two weeks we have had a lot of appointments on our schedule. A lot of them fell through but that is irrelevant. Elder Riehle and I both felt like we needed to spend some time finding more people. On this last Friday we went on an exchange. Elder Lovaas, a missionary that came out with me, came into my area for the day. We had planned about 4 hours of tracting. Most missionaries don't like tracting very much and neither Elder Lovaas nor I have done much of it. We needed to find people so we did it anyway. Knocking on random peoples' doors is a little intimidating but when it comes down to it, I know this will make them happier so that thought makes it a little easier.
Elder Lovaas and I tracted into a few really cool people. One such human being(I know, shocking) is a nineteen year old kid. He is Christian and loves God a lot. He likes to read so when we told him about the Book of Mormon he was excited. We brought one by on Saturday and he was pretty happy. We are going to meet with him this week so I will let you know how that goes. His name is Bernard and he is super nice. I can't wait to teach him because he is really down to earth.
 One last thing I wanted to share with you. I have been trying to really improve my teaching skills. My mission president told me in an email to ask inspired questions, teach simply, and testify more often. I tried to do just that and it worked! Elder Riehle and I were teaching one of our investigators and he seems to have a problem with coming to church. He doesn't give us a reason but he just says no. This time I asked a few simple questions. I asked him if he would pray about it and he said yes. I then proceeded to testify to him that I knew what blessings come from church and that he can have some of his questions answered. It was pretty cool because when we left that lesson he had more understanding than I have ever seen him have. I have taught this investigator six or seven times with Elder Olaveson. The lesson is learn to be simple and the Spirit will have a lot more room to teach.
Love,
Elder Joseph Engelman