Elder Zachary Andrews: FROM PH: Elder Cook

THE VISION OF THE SOUTH

"Make no small plans: This is the vision I have for the South. I believe that one day the South will baptize more people into the church than all other English speaking missions in the world together....We will see the time when we will baptize hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands...In your day you will see a million members of the church in the South. There will be temples plural in the Southern States. What a great call you have to serve with these marvelous people." President Spencer W. Kimball

Sunday, February 1, 2015

FROM PH: Elder Cook

Elder Cook and Elder Halstrom
Sent Date: Sunday, February 1, 2015
Author: President Hansen

Dear Sisters and Elders,
It was such a pleasure to sit at the feet of God's chosen servants this week. Elders Cook and Hallstrom had some great insights that will help us to serve the Lord with more commitment and power. What did you learn from them that will make you more effective? Did you remember to do the study assignment that Elder Cook gave us?Let me know in your letter.

Here are some excerpts from letters that will inspire you:
------We set a goal as a district to get 80 lessons in one week this transfer and we accomplished it! My purpose for doing that was to get us to stretch and find more people to teach. And now the goal is find more people and use the members to help them. Basically get those 80 lessons into member present. That's our goal. I'm exited for the zone conference.

------One thing that we do is every nightly planning, we set our key indicators before we set specifically who we are going to see so we can plan accordingly. It completely changed our work! For example, we finally got one of our investigators to commit to a baptismal date. We got members to two of our lessons. We found four new investigators and two new referrals and got twenty one lessons. These are the highest numbers of my mission! We just set goals and we do everything in our power to make them happen, respecting others agency. It's amazing!

------I was In PEC talking about ______ to the Bishopric..... We told them that he had a Baptism date on the 24 and then all of the sudden Bishop asked me, "how are you going to get him to church?".... and I had no clue... I thought long and hard about it when all of the sudden an idea came to my mind..... Just ask him for a ride....

------We had a lesson with a new investigator this week, we didn't know which member to bring with us. So that night i prayed. the only answer i got was "Nicole." i was like...."Nicole who?" And the only person i know named Nicole is a member of the primary presidency. So we asked her and she came with us. turns out that her and our investigator have known each other for a long time!! It was so awesome! Amber, the investigator, said that the priesthood finally made sense to her and she's gonna pray about when to be baptized!! It was amazing.

------Something that I did while companions with (old companion) is whenever we would transition to the other person teaching we would share a brief testimony which the other companion could then affirm. I hadn't though about doing that with (new companion) for a while, but during a lesson that we were teaching Sunday night we started doing it without even planning to and the spirit exploded. It became one of the most spiritual lessons I've had on my mission.

This is happening all over the mission.
------We got a referral, and we talked to him, his name is Neil Gibbs and he said that he has seen missionaries two years ago, but just for the past three months what they said began to sink into his soul and he wants to join the church! He is brilliant and loves to learn. He was pretty much agnostic but (now)accepts what we say and loves the feeling of ... the spirit.

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Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission

The first branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in New Orleans with 334 members in 1841. The prophet Joseph Smith sent the first missionary to New Orleans in March of that year. After reaching 169 members in 1849, the New Orleans branch disbanded because of the threat of serious disease in the area. The Southern States Mission, which included Louisiana opened in 1878, but the first missionaries were not sent to the state until nearly 20 years later. Missionary work spread throughout the state during the early twentieth century and by 1930, there were 1500 members. The first ward was established in Shreveport in 1953 and the first stake in New Orleans in 1955.In 1975, the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission was created and by 1980, there were over 12,500 members in the state of Louisiana. By 1989, Louisiana had 22,000 members in seven stakes. In 1998, the First Presidency announced the building of a temple in Baton Rouge. That temple was dedicated on 16 July, 2000.The Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission extends from Natchitoches South to the East and West borders through the state including the Gulf of New Orleans. The mission also includes the South West corner of Mississippi including Natchez, Liberty, and Macomb.