This week was fantastic. We were super busy... Like I had no idea how busy a person could be. Wow...
We participated in another baptism this week. Her name is Nobelia. She has been taking the charlas for about 3 months and has only really been waiting to get married so she could get baptized. She got married this Thursday, then was baptized Sunday in the morning. We were afraid that no one was going to show up since it was so early, but we actually had to move the congregation to the chapel for all the talks because there were more than 30 people. She said she felt very welcome to have so many people there. I was extremely proud of my ward for all they did to help.
Then Élder Ve'e had to give 3 other baptismal interviews so we were on the bus at least 2 hrs almost every day. Then the branch in our district (Prosperidad) had a minor emergency; their church didn't have water to fill the baptismal font. We had just finished draining our font in our building after church when we got a call from the other branch president asking us to fill the font for them because they have a baptism planned in 5 hrs. Because of the water pressure it can take about 8 hrs to fill the pila (font). We ran over to the church and began filling it. The family that was getting baptized arrived for the baptism and the font had sufficiend (cold) water to baptize. It was a super awesome experience and we were able to invite some of our members and investigators and we almost doubled the attendance of the baptismal service. It was a super stressful experience. Thankfully we had the members there to help.
We participated in another baptism this week. Her name is Nobelia. She has been taking the charlas for about 3 months and has only really been waiting to get married so she could get baptized. She got married this Thursday, then was baptized Sunday in the morning. We were afraid that no one was going to show up since it was so early, but we actually had to move the congregation to the chapel for all the talks because there were more than 30 people. She said she felt very welcome to have so many people there. I was extremely proud of my ward for all they did to help.
 |
| They pronounce Nobelia like Novelia, in case you were wondering.
Her and her Husband (member) Hector Re
|
One thing I've learned since I've been out here is that missionaries without the ward members behind them; finding them people to teach, opportunities to serve, taking them to less actives, etc... are destined to wander the street, talking to people who don't want to talk to them.
On the newsletter that the mission sends out every week it has a list of the baptisms for the week and month. 78% of the baptisms that we had this last week were references from members, 13% were part member families, and the rest were street contacts. I don't mean to say that those people found in street contacts aren't valuable, that's not where the success comes from. Not to mention, the probability of retention of these converts is far higher than that of someone joining the church without a friend.
We had a broadcast from Argentina with President Ballard, from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He talked about member missionary work, with respect to the missionaries. One quote that I think he quoted from someone else was "If we do what we've always done, we'll get what we always got." He related this to the large surge in missionary service to 86,000 missionaries. That means that what we were doing to support the missionaries before the influx of missionaries, will only yield the same results as before the influx of missionaries.
On the newsletter that the mission sends out every week it has a list of the baptisms for the week and month. 78% of the baptisms that we had this last week were references from members, 13% were part member families, and the rest were street contacts. I don't mean to say that those people found in street contacts aren't valuable, that's not where the success comes from. Not to mention, the probability of retention of these converts is far higher than that of someone joining the church without a friend.
We had a broadcast from Argentina with President Ballard, from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He talked about member missionary work, with respect to the missionaries. One quote that I think he quoted from someone else was "If we do what we've always done, we'll get what we always got." He related this to the large surge in missionary service to 86,000 missionaries. That means that what we were doing to support the missionaries before the influx of missionaries, will only yield the same results as before the influx of missionaries.
I love you guys. I loved your emails this week. Record breaking snow, that's awesome. I hope everyone stays safe. Love you guys so much!!!!!
Élder Taylor
 |
| We had intercambios I went with Elder Torres, the missionary on the far left |
No comments:
Post a Comment