Hey Mom,
We had a baptism
this week but I didn’t have my camera with me. iIt was kind of a freebee for me
because this is my new area and I didn’t really do a lot of the work. I just
showed up, but the investigator wanted me to baptize him so that was cool. His
name is Emmanuel and he is 16 years old. This new ward has a great youth
program and the youth have really good retention with our new members. This is rare in this mission.
After all the transfers last week, we had a zone
conference where President Dias spoke about several changes that
needed to happen in the mission. I got transferred because 10 missionaries got
sent home early. Many companionships and
missionaries had to get moved around to make sure everything was covered. I
think our president is finally realizing just how messed up the mission is. He did some ´´spring cleaning´´ and 10
missionaries were doing things so bad they got sent home, lots of other
missionaries are on probation and have warnings that they could be sent home.
They are really cracking down on mission rules and also how we handle our
investigators. Now people need to attend sacrament meeting 3 times before they
are to be baptized, along with lots of other new rules. We´ll see if things
change. President Dias is really serious. Normally he is a ´´softy´´ but I
think we have some general authority and area authority attention on this
mission now so he’s really cracking down.
My new companion
is Elder Antunes, we were a trio but our other companion (Elder Cipili, a Brazilian
living in Utah) went home last week after the first wave of missionaries left. Elder
Antunes has one transfer left, and then he goes home. So he is at the end of
his mission and he’s pretty tired. He
sleeps a lot and I read a lot - I think I will finish the Book of Mormon this
week in Portuguese. With Elder Antunes we don’t work anything like I did with
Kozlowski. Part of that is cultural and
part of it personal, I think. Antunes
likes to work with member’s references and Kozlowski really didn’t know how to
do that, and you know that I had no clue. So I am learning how to work
references with Elder Antunes. That will be good. I like it a lot better than
knocking on doors in the heat every day, and he has been getting baptisms so I
think it works. We´ll see.
I have been
struggling with getting good sleep, still. Sister Dias (wife of the president) gave
me some natural herbs that were to help after the zone conference. I have tried
them the past few nights but I still wake up 3 or 4 times every single
night. I’m not sure why.
A real quick,
a thought for the blog: I was reading in
Ether 9: 2/3 about the brother of Jared when he prayed for help to bring light
to the ships. The lord didn’t solve the problem for him, but encouraged the
brother of Jared to use his agency, knowledge, and the capacity he had been
given by God to do what he could to solve the problem for himself. In that light, the brother of Jared went and
got the stones and made a plan which he presented to God. He asked God simply to touch the stones so
they could give off light. The Lord helped him and fulfilled the plan the
brother of Jared had put forth. “Thus we
see” that when we pray for help we have a responsibility to look for ways WE
can solve our own problems with our own ability, and then the Lord will help us
with the rest.
Love you,
Elder Sork
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