So, last week, I forgot to tell you that Elder Bednar came and I got to shake his hand. He said, “Good morning, Sister Holladay.” At first I was geeking out that he knew my name but then I remembered we always where name tags. The wedding was postponed until the letter of permission arrives but it should be here today or tomorrow. I think they still would have done it last Saturday if it were at all possible but the letter couldn’t be faxed; they need the original. The whole thing has been really stressful. At one point I even called the AP’s, because I couldn’t get a hold of my district or zone leaders (the zone leaders did eventually get back with helpful info). In the end an extra week really doesn’t make too much of a difference, and in the mean time we’ve been trying to help get things a little bit more organized.
We have a new investigator Karim (11) who has a baptismal date for the 27th. His cousins are all members of the church, and his brothers are both members but less active. His parents aren’t members, and his mom told us very directly that she’s not interested in being anything but catholic, but that we could teach her son. We’ve actually known him for a while but he’s recently started coming to church with his cousins, and he loves it. We started teaching him on Saturday and by Sunday he had read the first 2 chapters in the Book of Mormon. I give him star stickers to put by the chapters he’s finished. His Sunday school teacher brought him and his cousin to the vc to see JSPR and they loved it. Hopefully through this process we’ll be able to reactivate his older brothers as well.
The other date is for a lady named Olga. Right now we’re not sure how sincere her desires are. Her life story seems to change pretty often, and I know she’s received financial help from the bishop before. Hopefully she will read in the Book of Mormon and the spirit can start working on her and changing her desires.
Things are going well and I’m excited to be with Hna Noble again. I’m struggling to know how to work with the members still, and I’m a little bit frustrated with the leadership. I feel like they’re blaming the missionaries for the lack of retention. Our bishop asked our ward mission leader to talk to President about the interview process for baptismal candidates, because they don’t feel that the people being baptized are sufficiently prepared.
Along with being super frustrated with my ward leaders. I am pretty stinking sick of my district leader, and the AP’s. The new AP’s thing is never giving permission for anything. There’s nothing more delightful than 20 year-old boys on power trips.
OK, so what we do in the vc… well, depends on how busy it is, but I’ll just tell you about when there’s people there. So, in the vc there’s 3 main things we do for people; start movies, play the Christus narration, and show them God’s plan. There’s 3 theaters where we can show movies, but one of them is most often used as a gallery for either paintings or the nativities when it’s Christmas time, and two teaching rooms. Missionaries come in with investigators throughout the day and we present movies for them and help teach. Members also come in to watch movies, we testify, and invite them to fill out referral cards.
We also work on the phones/chat. When we’re on phones our first priority is to contact the referrals that members have given us. We get hung up on a lot, or told they’re not interested, every once and a while someone is ready to meet with missionaries, and sometimes we just teach them over the phone until they’re ready to talk to missionaries in their area. I’m pretty good at getting people to talk to me on the phone, but I’m never sure how to really help my phone investigators progress. Right now I’m working with a couple of Hna Noble’s friends which is really fun. We also take incoming calls from people who have questions, or want copies of the Book of Mormon or other church offers. Most of the people who call in with “questions” just call to be rude or as a joke. Then there’s chat. People who talk to us on chat are generally on mormon.org, and we used to just get people who were joking around, but more and more we’re getting people who sincerely want to learn about the church. Especially since they launched mormon.org in Spanish. All the time people say things like, “Vi el profil de mi amiga y ella dice que es feliz. Quiero ser feliz tambien.” Unfortunately internet connections in South America are awful and we get disconnected a lot.
Anywho, I feel like I have typed another surprisingly long email, but that this one is a little boring. So, sorry.
Love you!