Hola.
Every week, I sit down at this computer and begin to write my weekly spiel about what’s happened this past week. But every week, I forget what happened this week. It’s an eternal struggle of mine. Slowly it comes back to me.
Oh, so slowly…
OH! THAT’S RIGHT! I remember now. We had zone conference this week. We also did a lot of finding…again! But it’s alright because we had many adventures in finding this week. We’ve mixed up our finding strategy and it’s yielded some interesting fruit.
First of all, we received 14 referrals this week, which is unheard of for our area. We usually get two or three max. They just sort of fell out of the sky, in a way. It was crazy!
Those 14 referrals get the Elder Pike and Elder Baniago stamp of approval.
There’s nothing really interesting to say about zone conference aside from the fact that it was about weekly planning and President Frandsen said he was gonna start sitting in on weekly planning sessions with missionaries to help them apply the training.
He chose us first. Was I stressed? I won’t answer that. I’ll just leave it up to your imaginations.
To jump back on the topic of finding, our new strategy is this: visit less-active members and then tract in their areas as we visit them. It’s helped us spread our labors out across our area and work in some places I didn’t realize we covered. It also took us to work in Hillsborough, the wealthiest community in our mission.
Hillsborough!
Before this week, I had never set aside any time to work in Hillsborough because it’s a tough place to work in and difficult to navigate. All the cities in our area are organized into blocks and are easy to navigate, but Hillsborough is full of winding roads and is very, very large. We got lost there a few times when we went there on Thursday. We also found this crazy looking home that looked like it belonged to a Martian!
The Martians live here in Hillsborough. It’s creepy looking up close…we knocked on the door.
This new strategy has kept us busy and has opened up relations with ward members here very well. We are able to work well with leaders in the ward concerning the lost sheep (another name for less-active members) of the ward (of which there are over 500).
So that was what we did most of the week. When Saturday rolled around, we had a zone blitz, which is when the whole zone gathers and tracts in a single companionship’s area. They came to do that here in our area and then focused on the Spanish areas nearby. That’s part of the reason why we received so many referrals (but only about half of them came from the blitz). During the zone blitz we also switch companions for each hour. I worked with Elder Perandos, my district leader, again, and then I worked with Elder Lotulelei from the Spanish program.
So that’s about it for this week. The Lord has taught me a lot in this area and it’s been a little rough at times, but I’m grateful for the things I have learned. During zone conference President Frandsen spoke a lot about character. Hyrum W. Smith, an LDS motivational speaker from the 80’s defined character as “the ability to follow through with a decision after the emotion of making that decision has passed”. Additionally, President Frandsen talked about it as the ability to do what you know is right despite opposition and without expecting a reward.
I feel that the Lord has been helping me develop character (and patience, but when isn’t the Lord testing our ability to be patient?). I’ve been working so hard despite the incredible amount of opposition being thrown at me. Have I grown? Absolutely! It’s been tough, but I know that the Lord has a greater purpose for all hard things we deal with. Paul teaches:
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
~1 Cor. 13:12
I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!
~Elder Pike
Letters from Lombard Street 