7/30/12

Hello there!
You know, something funny about about life is that it is always changing. The only guarantee is that tomorrow things will be different from today. In life, those changes are small and many times not very significant to the bigger picture. Well, as a missionary, life is only 2 years long. It makes the changes of one day just that much more significant. A little change makes a huge difference and seems like the biggest thing in the world while its happening. In the case of a big change, well, it just shatters the universe.

Thats kinda what we are going through right now. As I mentioned last week, President Ashton has begun moving us away from street contacting. (We arent quite sure if it is to the same extent in the English or Spanish areas, but definitely for us and the Chinese). We never schedule time to just go out on our bikes to talk to people. We focus on teaching and finding investigators through the members. The ball isnt rolling at full speed yet, but we have seen a little bit of success so far with the strategy. In addition to finding through teaching the members, President Ashton wants us to find through activities. Yeah, like normal people activities. We wants us organizing activities with the members that they can invited their friends to, and he wants us doing it often, practically on a weekly basis. He shared a scripture with us (me and Elder Robison had a joint interview with him) from Alma 17 about Ammon. We all know he was an awesome and very successful missionary. President shared verse 29 with us. (maybe you should read it right now before you continue) He told us that we need to do the same. We need to win the hearts of the people. We need to be their friends. They need to see that we are normal people, just with a greater purpose, a greater confidence in the Lord. Ordinary people that have something more. The true and restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We have it and it shines through us. As we become friends with the people, they will see it and long for that same.

As such, our finding work is changing significantly. Its hard for us to get the ball rolling with this, because it is just so drastically different from everything we have done previously as missionaries. I'm at least a little nervous about how it will work, but know it will at least be a little more fun. Obviously activities are fun but the success that should come from it will be even more fun. This coupled with teaching more lessons to everybody will certainly be good.

Well, I hope everything back there is going well. It certainly sounds like things are good and those day to day changes are being dealt with well. Thanks for everything you do/have done to help me!

Love,
Elder Phong Manhardt