Monday, July 13, 2009 - Doubling Baptisms

Hey!

How's it going?

It's been a crazy week.

First off, on Monday, it was Sister Carbajal's birthday, so we had an activity. Helen put together a Wal-Mart photo scavenger hunt. You have to do certain things and get a picture of it. Unfortunately, we're not allowed taking pictures in Wal-Mart. We didn't know that, one of the security asked us to stop. (They're dressed as normal shoppers and just walk around - it's pretty cool.) Anyways, Elder Lofgran (who's actually pretty good at cooking) made what is called a "death cake": it's two entire cakes stacked on top of each other, with ice cream and caramel in between and a layer of icing as thick as my finger around the whole thing. If I have no teeth by the end of my mission, you'll know why.

Monday night, we went to the Bryan family's place and introduced the Family Mission Plan. Basically, the family writes a list of every non-member they know, regardless of whether they think they're ready for the missionaries or not. Then, they kneel as a family and pray to know who to focus on. Naturally, we should be talking about the Gospel to everyone, but we can't focus on everyone. After they pray, they choose a few names that stand out to them, as guided by the Spirit. Then, they rate those chosen people according to how well they know them, etc. They then make plans to get to know them better, be better friends and warm them up to introducing the Church. So, it's a much more long-term plan, but it works wonders. It's great because not only does it help people have an idea of where to start in sharing the Gospel, but it gets people excited about missionary work and relying on Heavenly Father.

Anyways, we shared it with the Bryan family and they chose a couple names. It didn't make any sense to them because they had already tried to talk to them about the Church and it didn't go well. still, Their names stood out and they chose them. They made some plans to visit them. The next day, we continued tracting along a street we were working on the week before. The first person that we spoke with was the first person that the Bryans chose. It's amazing what happens when we put our trust in Heavenly Father.

As you know, we've been working on doubling baptisms. For six years, we've had an average of 20 baptisms per month. Then we reached 30 and President Robison set a goal to hit 35. At the end of June, we hit an average of 35, so he decided that we should celebrate. So on Thursday, the southern zones (Midland, Odessa, and Abilene) met in Midland for a fun day. We just chilled, played games, etc. At the end of the day, we had an obstacle course. Afterwards, we sat down and he announced that our goal is now 40 baptisms per month. We need to average that for three months for it to count. President Hinckley told the whole Church that we can double baptisms and we're going to do it. We are so close. It's really cool.

On Sunday, Elder Tuttle and I spoke in Sacrament meeting. His topic was the blessings of missionary work and mine was how to do member missionary work. Hopefully, when the family mission plan comes in full force to the ward, people will be excited about it.

Nathan's idea of writing a "day in the life" thing is interesting. I think I want to do that, if I have time.

And thanks for the package and cards. (The Canadian Ketchup chips are so much better than the American sorry imitation.)

I know that God is real, and that He's our father. He's aware of all our problems and progress. To help with both, He has established a church for His children to learn about Him and help each other. There's only one to which He talks directly and directs. That's The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you don't believe that, get to know Him and then ask Him. He will tell you.

I love you!

-Elder Brandon Wong