Yep, still in Kansas. We got to teach in primary on Sunday and I loved one little girl's definition of faith.. "It's when you're room is dark and you don't want to sleep alone or go inside, that it's okay, because you have faith there's no monsters to eat you or anything." That's just so deep. Do you have faith the monsters won't get you? I know I don't always.
It's been a week for monsters, too. I'm pretty sure they've been eating some of our investigators, because even though we taught 35 lessons this week, not a one came to church. Understandably a few were out of town, but we realized we needed to really work with our ward mission leader, and not just tell him what needs to be done, but why we're doing it. If any of you are having missionaries over or have to sit in meetings with them, ask them what "Personal Daily Contact" (PDC) is and what activities they've got planned out for their investigators this week.
Por ejemplo, we call Laura Mon, we have an appt on Wed, she doesn't show, so we resched for Thurs, have the lesson, commit her to come to church and call her Sat night. No answer. She's not at church that week. Or the next week. Then she's not really investigating anymore. So, we've been asked to plan for members to go meet investigators, so it's not just her or him stepping into a building solo, not really knowing anyone or what it's like. That's a scary thing for people. Not for me, I've been to lots of churches, but I'm quirky. I'm glad we helped the mission leader/missionaries see why its so important, because now they're helping us think of activities to invite investigators to and who would be good people to fellowship, etc. Did you know we spend three hours every week doing weekly planning?
Dad, you're right. There is no such thing as an inside dog. Everyone in Kansas has a dog. We're 20 minutes into lesson one, and it's really spiritual and then. "Scooter! GET OFF THAT! What are you doin! Whaddya I tell you about being on the couch!" either that or "Oh wait, just one second, Mopsy's hungry."…30 mins later…so I like outdoor dogs now. I'm a convert. Especially, after holding a poodle puppy for a whole hour with very sharp little teeth and getting gnawed on to keep it from being a distraction. I love animals, but I prefer wildlife.
But I do like playing with the little kids while Sis. Cornell teaches. And I like those lessons the best, because I play out all the visual aides and everything ahead of time and they like to participate, they like to answer questions, even if the answers wrong, they like to pray, even if they need help. I've got lot's of cool object lessons and I'm going to start sending some of them to the Welleritos and the Parsonitos. Let me know how they go.
I think the best lesson I taught this week was to a referral we received. Sis Cornell and I had a RM with us and his sister so we went to try and see if we could catch Fernando at home again. He was there, along with 2 of his bros and a couple roommates. Teaching the Restoration to 5 Chihuahans at once, was not as intimidating as I thought it would be and the RM we brought had served in Mexico and the lesson was just really smooth and they had good questions and were super receptive. Sis Cornell read a scripture. They got called into work on Sunday morning. They sincerely wanted us to come back next week, though. I don't think they'd be able to get baptized until they went back to Mexico. We believe in obeying and honoring the law, even if it's a poorly written one.
It's an odd situation to be in and one bishop was pretty vehement about what a waste of time trying to build up a Spanish ward is in Lawrence, since there's so few legal Latinos here. That was a little discouraging to know there must be more then one person that feels that way, but I know I've been sent here for a reason and I think the mission president can see a bigger picture than a Univ. ward bishop. I think just like "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," "The Word of Wisdom," "For the Strength of Youth," all were written addressing issues that at the exact time of publication, weren't really even issues yet. I think I'm not the only Spanish-speaking missionary that's been called to an area without a lot of Hispanics to teach. Because, I think in the not too distant future, there will be a lot, and President Hacking has been made aware of that, even if he doesn't know all the details.
I was also asked by my ZL if I would prefer to be in a Spanish area, since Spanish study is very frustrating with no one to practice with as a greenie. I can't write letters to friends in Spanish during that time. I do appreciate the time to study, but learning a language alone is weird. I told the ZL, I needed to be here, because I really really miss spending time with Latinos and being part of the culture. So who better to find Hispanics to teach? I've never prayed so strongly for to Lamanites, because I think if I don't succeed in getting a progressing Hispanic investigator fairly soon, Prez is not going to put in another Spanish-speaking sister. We're in fairly limited number and if it's not going anywhere he won't waste resources. So I've actually started marking every person with a Spanish last name and first name from the phone book on a map at night. And finding excuses to go into Mexican restaurants and talk to the bus boys (Chachos). We had one contact at a Mex restaurant last week, but he lives in Topeka.
I like the challenge. I like trying to find people on Purple Wonder II without Mapquest or a GPS and only half an address and just knocking on every apt 7 until we find the right one. True story, we're teaching a Jordanian woman because we knocked the wrong apt. I like the challenge of the mission and getting up to run every morning. I'm determined to have a 6 pack by the time I get back. I like riding bikes everywhere and actually one of our investigators is selling a low-end mtn bike for $50. I'm going to go ahead and get it, if that's okay, if not call the mission office. Purple Wonder II actually belongs to a member and is cheap as free. The back wheel likes to fall off. I think I'll return it.
Well, thanks for the letters, the postage (Mom), and your prayers. I liked the ginormous stack of emails with pictures from Lisa. We have stupid possums here, I have yet to see one alive, maybe they're related to your chipmunks. "Do not go silently into that great night, like a possum, because you'll be road kill." Meggie I did get your original letter, feel free to chew out Kellen for sending it 2 weeks after he got it. The dinosaur picture is super cool. Thanks for the letter Sis B! No I haven't gotten mission cookies, but it takes forever for missionaries to get boxes. I love you all. Hasta ver.
Hermana Deb
TQM chilango mio
kd
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Hola familia y amigos,
I love teaching little kids. We went to a dinner appt Monday, and instead of us doing the spiritual thought I decided to ask the 8 year old of the house describe the pictures from the first discussion…we need to take her on splits. She taught it. She even quoted part of the first vision. We taught a 7 year old daughter of an inactive lady later thatnight, her sister volunteered her for the opening prayer, it was sosweet. I didn’t feel like I had anything to teach afterward. But we went through the lesson with pictures and saw The Restoration. At the end we asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon, it went something like this, “Heavenly Father…is the Book of Mormon true?...In Jesus’ name, amen.” Guess what? It’s true. I want to take her on team-ups, too. She could show people how simple faith is, instead of us just trying to explain it all the time.
We went out to visit Le Compton this week. Lawrence is a sub city of Topeka, and Le Compton is a sublet of Lawrence… TRAILER-TOPIA! There wasn’t as much corn as in Toganoxie though. We visited a new convert who was pretty quirky. I say we visited since, we never really said anything for an hour, he just kind of took it away. Well, we did teach two principles, sort of, but between long bouts of very random stories about ex-wives and trucks and how cool the sister missionaries who taught him
were (he was pretty attached). I still haven’t figured out how those sisters found enough silence to teach. It’s a pretty common problem. On one hand, I don’t want to waste the Lord’s time chatting about worldly things, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be rude.
Lisa said Tom mentioned Lawrence was pretty upscale in intelligence for Kansas. It is, just because of KU, and most professor types are agnostic or Catholic, it’s also very hippie Buddist, very low income Pentecostal, and very ultraconservative Baptist/Presbyterian. Not everyone fits in those categories, there’s even more, but I’ve noticed a lot of patterns knocking doors. College towns are interesting. I’m pretty happy we’re not serving in the University ward, poor Elders are barely keeping their heads above water tracting the sororities.
We went to a Mexican restaurant, with real Mexicans last week. El Mescal, it’s kind of like La Carreta or Red Iguana(SLC), upscale but authentic. The Mana was playing and I didn’t do a very good job of pretending to ignore it :-) I miss Mexicans. We made a contact with the busboy, but he's out in Topeka and all the hispanics here work like mad. We’re only teaching one at the moment. I haven’t been able to contact the one who went to church 2 weeks ago. My Spanish is okay, but it definitely has not improved a lot since I’ve arrived here. Not much of an opportunity to speak it. I’m reading el Libro and trying to do Spanish study, but it’s frustrating not having anyone to speak it to other than the rms on Sunday
and Juan Ortega, our one Hispanic investigator who I always seem to wake up. He’s too groggy to understand what I say anyway.
We’ve got an activity we’ve been putting together all week tonight. “The Cottage Meeting,” is a mini fireside where we’ll introduce investigators/less actives to some members and have a short lesson and Sis Cornell will sing and the Lathroms will bring cookies. I takes a lot of time to plan an activity. I hope it works out and gets more people here on Sunday. If not, there’s still cookies at the end. I’ve made
about 40 phone calls though. Speaking of the Lathrom fam. He’s a ward missionary and I love going to that house, because they have homemade ice cream and goats and a tortoise and Sis Lathrom makes good enchiladas, and I get along better with converts. They’re more fun and easy-going with us, because they don’t really know the mission rules :0)
Next week we will be making a lot of return appointments with those we have found tracting and hopefully I can have some really good teaching stories. Love you all! Thank you for your letters and packs of greeting cards. I will use them. The church is true and there’s no place like home. Just tap your ruby shoes three times and you’ll be here.
Con carino,
Hermana Deb
I love teaching little kids. We went to a dinner appt Monday, and instead of us doing the spiritual thought I decided to ask the 8 year old of the house describe the pictures from the first discussion…we need to take her on splits. She taught it. She even quoted part of the first vision. We taught a 7 year old daughter of an inactive lady later thatnight, her sister volunteered her for the opening prayer, it was sosweet. I didn’t feel like I had anything to teach afterward. But we went through the lesson with pictures and saw The Restoration. At the end we asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon, it went something like this, “Heavenly Father…is the Book of Mormon true?...In Jesus’ name, amen.” Guess what? It’s true. I want to take her on team-ups, too. She could show people how simple faith is, instead of us just trying to explain it all the time.
We went out to visit Le Compton this week. Lawrence is a sub city of Topeka, and Le Compton is a sublet of Lawrence… TRAILER-TOPIA! There wasn’t as much corn as in Toganoxie though. We visited a new convert who was pretty quirky. I say we visited since, we never really said anything for an hour, he just kind of took it away. Well, we did teach two principles, sort of, but between long bouts of very random stories about ex-wives and trucks and how cool the sister missionaries who taught him
were (he was pretty attached). I still haven’t figured out how those sisters found enough silence to teach. It’s a pretty common problem. On one hand, I don’t want to waste the Lord’s time chatting about worldly things, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be rude.
Lisa said Tom mentioned Lawrence was pretty upscale in intelligence for Kansas. It is, just because of KU, and most professor types are agnostic or Catholic, it’s also very hippie Buddist, very low income Pentecostal, and very ultraconservative Baptist/Presbyterian. Not everyone fits in those categories, there’s even more, but I’ve noticed a lot of patterns knocking doors. College towns are interesting. I’m pretty happy we’re not serving in the University ward, poor Elders are barely keeping their heads above water tracting the sororities.
We went to a Mexican restaurant, with real Mexicans last week. El Mescal, it’s kind of like La Carreta or Red Iguana(SLC), upscale but authentic. The Mana was playing and I didn’t do a very good job of pretending to ignore it :-) I miss Mexicans. We made a contact with the busboy, but he's out in Topeka and all the hispanics here work like mad. We’re only teaching one at the moment. I haven’t been able to contact the one who went to church 2 weeks ago. My Spanish is okay, but it definitely has not improved a lot since I’ve arrived here. Not much of an opportunity to speak it. I’m reading el Libro and trying to do Spanish study, but it’s frustrating not having anyone to speak it to other than the rms on Sunday
and Juan Ortega, our one Hispanic investigator who I always seem to wake up. He’s too groggy to understand what I say anyway.
We’ve got an activity we’ve been putting together all week tonight. “The Cottage Meeting,” is a mini fireside where we’ll introduce investigators/less actives to some members and have a short lesson and Sis Cornell will sing and the Lathroms will bring cookies. I takes a lot of time to plan an activity. I hope it works out and gets more people here on Sunday. If not, there’s still cookies at the end. I’ve made
about 40 phone calls though. Speaking of the Lathrom fam. He’s a ward missionary and I love going to that house, because they have homemade ice cream and goats and a tortoise and Sis Lathrom makes good enchiladas, and I get along better with converts. They’re more fun and easy-going with us, because they don’t really know the mission rules :0)
Next week we will be making a lot of return appointments with those we have found tracting and hopefully I can have some really good teaching stories. Love you all! Thank you for your letters and packs of greeting cards. I will use them. The church is true and there’s no place like home. Just tap your ruby shoes three times and you’ll be here.
Con carino,
Hermana Deb
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Hi Family!
Life's great in the mission. I got your pics of Lori's lil chunk o Guatemalteco and Lisa's letter about their latest exploits on the east coast. Thanks. We're teaching people. We had just started talking about agency yesterday to Floyd Craigs and his wife and he stopped Sis Cornell and said ?Wait a minute, so somebody told me, that after I go to your church you're gonna want to get me baptized? Is that correct? Sis. Cornell's face was priceless, but she did a good job about not beating around the bush. She told him our purpose is to bring others to Christ, through faith, repentance and baptism, but that it would be his choice and something he would need to study and pray about. He seemed fine with that and he?s going to think about it. That was really neat.
We also taught a lesson last week with a woman named Teri. She didn't go to high school, but is a hard worker and very sweet. Her best friend dropped by half way through the lesson and we invited her to join and summed up the first half and we finished up and challenged them both to read and pray. We made an appointment to teach Teri again, invited Laura if she wanted, went last night and BOTH of them were there. After knocking doors all afternoon without seeing the slightest glimmer of interest in one person and then have someone voluntarily want to be taught again without even having set an appointment with her? That's a BIG deal. It was great. We kept the message simple and she asked great questions, like "What is repentance?" and "Where did the Book of Mormon come from?" Really essential things that told me she was listening. And Teri gave the closing prayer. It went great.
I also taught my first lesson in Spanish the other day. We only have a few female Spanish speakers in our ward, they are all busy a lot of the time. So we brought a 17 yr old with some high school Spanish (bishop's daughter) and a DVD, so I wouldn't be talking the whole time. We get there and there's no vcr or dvd, just Margloria and her cute baby. Which is great, because they don't have that sucking up their time, but I decided, okay first lesson it is, I'll just ask a lot of questions. The answers: "si, no, no se." I had had to talk 30 mins and I felt I explained things pretty well and the Spirit was there during the First Vision and Alicia's testimony, especially. We have return appt. But I have nooo idea what she thinks about any of this. She's so shy, hopefully we can just teach her again and maybe she'll start to open up a bit.
We're also teaching a man who is the retired head of the Classics department at KU and taught Western Civ, we didn't know any of this at first, just that he was very smart and didn't like the BOM, but was willing to meet with us again. We took Sis Murphree the smart Sunday School teacher and it turned out she had taught the exact same class he did using his curriculum. They hit it and talked for an hour about the
Dead Sea Scrolls and Virgil and the Enlightenment and Sis Cornell and I just sat there, happy to not be the ones on the other side of that kind of conversation. Then he opened the BOM and translated the first line into Hebrew and said that doesn't make sense, the syntax is all off. She convinced him to try reading the BOM like a novel, without a lot of analysis, to try and enjoy the story, and then see how he felt. Sis Cornell said something about faith, I said a prayer and we left. We saw him at the hospital yesterday on his way to senior exercise, he said hi and wanted our view on some Church History stuff. He didn't run away. Yea progress!
So we're teaching some really interesting people Latinos, academics, Africans (really-Tanzania and Kenya), people who's lives seem perfect until they tell us why they really let us in the door (divorce, laid off, death in fam), WWII vets, lotta Navajos/Pawnee, working class mostly though. It varies so much going from one door to another and it's hard to really figure out which part of the message they need to hear first. It's called GQing, golden questions, like "What?s my purpose?", "How do I
balance my family and work and beliefs?", "Why does God allow so many bad things?", "Does God even know me?". So I've been trying to figure out in 3 seconds which one of those questions matter the most to the person I'm talking to and I'm figuring it out. I mean, I can't teach without the Spirit, but just by seeing someone's face and asking them how they're doing today, you can kind of figure it out and bring up the issue. We're teaching the members to do that when they give out passalong cards. It's pretty neat.
Anyway, it's hot, it's August, but the Church is true and the answers to those GQs: Yes we have a purpose, Yes the Gospel blesses families, Yes we can overcome challenges and progress with Christ's help and Yes God knows each of us personally, cares about us and everything we do. He wants us back.
I love you guys. Thanks for the letters (even the semi-annual ones, Dad). Sorry the financial office has messed up and is sending my financial card tomorrow. I tried not to use too much on the debit today. I took some cash off just in case. Love you.
Hermana Deb
Life's great in the mission. I got your pics of Lori's lil chunk o Guatemalteco and Lisa's letter about their latest exploits on the east coast. Thanks. We're teaching people. We had just started talking about agency yesterday to Floyd Craigs and his wife and he stopped Sis Cornell and said ?Wait a minute, so somebody told me, that after I go to your church you're gonna want to get me baptized? Is that correct? Sis. Cornell's face was priceless, but she did a good job about not beating around the bush. She told him our purpose is to bring others to Christ, through faith, repentance and baptism, but that it would be his choice and something he would need to study and pray about. He seemed fine with that and he?s going to think about it. That was really neat.
We also taught a lesson last week with a woman named Teri. She didn't go to high school, but is a hard worker and very sweet. Her best friend dropped by half way through the lesson and we invited her to join and summed up the first half and we finished up and challenged them both to read and pray. We made an appointment to teach Teri again, invited Laura if she wanted, went last night and BOTH of them were there. After knocking doors all afternoon without seeing the slightest glimmer of interest in one person and then have someone voluntarily want to be taught again without even having set an appointment with her? That's a BIG deal. It was great. We kept the message simple and she asked great questions, like "What is repentance?" and "Where did the Book of Mormon come from?" Really essential things that told me she was listening. And Teri gave the closing prayer. It went great.
I also taught my first lesson in Spanish the other day. We only have a few female Spanish speakers in our ward, they are all busy a lot of the time. So we brought a 17 yr old with some high school Spanish (bishop's daughter) and a DVD, so I wouldn't be talking the whole time. We get there and there's no vcr or dvd, just Margloria and her cute baby. Which is great, because they don't have that sucking up their time, but I decided, okay first lesson it is, I'll just ask a lot of questions. The answers: "si, no, no se." I had had to talk 30 mins and I felt I explained things pretty well and the Spirit was there during the First Vision and Alicia's testimony, especially. We have return appt. But I have nooo idea what she thinks about any of this. She's so shy, hopefully we can just teach her again and maybe she'll start to open up a bit.
We're also teaching a man who is the retired head of the Classics department at KU and taught Western Civ, we didn't know any of this at first, just that he was very smart and didn't like the BOM, but was willing to meet with us again. We took Sis Murphree the smart Sunday School teacher and it turned out she had taught the exact same class he did using his curriculum. They hit it and talked for an hour about the
Dead Sea Scrolls and Virgil and the Enlightenment and Sis Cornell and I just sat there, happy to not be the ones on the other side of that kind of conversation. Then he opened the BOM and translated the first line into Hebrew and said that doesn't make sense, the syntax is all off. She convinced him to try reading the BOM like a novel, without a lot of analysis, to try and enjoy the story, and then see how he felt. Sis Cornell said something about faith, I said a prayer and we left. We saw him at the hospital yesterday on his way to senior exercise, he said hi and wanted our view on some Church History stuff. He didn't run away. Yea progress!
So we're teaching some really interesting people Latinos, academics, Africans (really-Tanzania and Kenya), people who's lives seem perfect until they tell us why they really let us in the door (divorce, laid off, death in fam), WWII vets, lotta Navajos/Pawnee, working class mostly though. It varies so much going from one door to another and it's hard to really figure out which part of the message they need to hear first. It's called GQing, golden questions, like "What?s my purpose?", "How do I
balance my family and work and beliefs?", "Why does God allow so many bad things?", "Does God even know me?". So I've been trying to figure out in 3 seconds which one of those questions matter the most to the person I'm talking to and I'm figuring it out. I mean, I can't teach without the Spirit, but just by seeing someone's face and asking them how they're doing today, you can kind of figure it out and bring up the issue. We're teaching the members to do that when they give out passalong cards. It's pretty neat.
Anyway, it's hot, it's August, but the Church is true and the answers to those GQs: Yes we have a purpose, Yes the Gospel blesses families, Yes we can overcome challenges and progress with Christ's help and Yes God knows each of us personally, cares about us and everything we do. He wants us back.
I love you guys. Thanks for the letters (even the semi-annual ones, Dad). Sorry the financial office has messed up and is sending my financial card tomorrow. I tried not to use too much on the debit today. I took some cash off just in case. Love you.
Hermana Deb
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