Sent Date: Monday, April 13, 2015
Author: President Hansen
Dear Elders and Sisters,
We have really enjoyed seeing most of you so (two more zone conferences this week) far in the last couple of weeks. I love what is happening in the mission with the shorter lessons. Remember, It is not about making the lessons shorter or about using the pamphlets to teach, it is really about having the investigators do the teaching. That is a trick that most of the missionaries have not quite mastered. Let's keep working on it in your companion study. In the lessons I have witnessed over the last two weeks, every time the missionary starts to explain the investigator checks out and you can see his or her interest level wain.
Never the less, this is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I was with the Eunice missionaries on Saturday and watched a man who said he was not interested go to a commitment to be baptized in about 4 minutes. It was awesome.
Here are some letters you will enjoy:
------…and we just didn't have a good feeling. So we came out to this main road where a lot of people could see us. And so we cut back on another street and we had a great feeling of peace. And we were walking down and there was a guy sitting on his porch with his head down. So we headed over to him to contact him. And we started to talk to him about what we do and also started talking about the gospel. We started to teach the way that the mission department taught us to teach, and it was amazing. I have never had a more powerful lesson in my entire mission. He said that if he knew it was true for himself he would be baptized by someone holding this authority. We asked him to pray about what we had taught. And after his prayer he just kind of sat there and looked at us. He looked up and said, "You guys are the angels that I have been praying for, to help me out and guide my life."
------I absolutely loved what Brother Donaldson said about baptism and the temple. He said when we are baptized we covenant that "we are willing to take upon us the name of Christ or in other words, willing to make covenants with God. When we get a temple recommend, we are saying that we are doing those things that we had said we were willing to do at baptism". Never thought of it like that before. There is much, much more that I learned.
------We had a first lesson on Friday with a members referral. It was only about 15 minutes or so and she not only just prayed, but she accepted to be baptized! She had her prayer answered and she said she felt very peaceful. We have taught her once since then and did the Book of Mormon approach that we learned with helping her understand and learn the wording. She committed to read the whole thing in 2 weeks! She said that was the goal she wanted to make. I know this new teaching method is going to work. I am excited about it!
------Sarah got baptized last December. She use to say I don't believe in love, or I am lost at sea and I feel like I'm lost in darkness. Once the Light of Christ Brightened in her she realized God loved her and he rescued her from her never ending darkness. God and Jesus Christ are always there for us we just have to call out to them for help and look for the light in the distance. Sarah told me Sunday, I never knew God loved me this much, I feel him in my life, and I feel like since joining the Church, blessings have poured down from Heaven.
------We showed them all of the pictures and asked them what they (thought) and it really helped make it more of an awesome learning discussion than us just talking at them. In fact she said, "I feel like I am doing most of the talking here" the spirit could be felt really strong and she committed herself and her grandson to come to church and test it out. They also committed to pray and to read the Book of Mormon. It was an awesome experience. We also testified that President Monson was the modern day prophet of the whole world and she just couldn't believe that, and it was one of the most special moments on my mission when I got to look her in the eyes and say that I love and sustain him and know that he is God's prophet on the earth today. I love being a missionary!!
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