Elder Kopishcke(?) came and spoke to us on Thursday at our Zone Conference and he is amazing. He winged it for 6 hours straight, yeah, it was really long. He didn't come in with any plan at all but to talk with us for a bit and then go by the Spirit. He had us all write down a question(s) we had and he promised that by the end of the 6 hours every question we had would be answered. He was right! It was amazing! Every person there had there answers questions by the Spirit so it was pretty cool.
Last week we spent a lot of time driving between District training, zone conference, a gig down in Wellington, and an exchange with a zone leader. So we only worked for about 3-4 hours a day in between all this madness. But it was all good. Elder Kopishke talked a lot about using our talents to proselyte. We as missionaries have a box to stay in, but within that box there are a lot of possibilities of what we can do. We don't have to be rote missionary robots, we can be ourselves and still be just as effective. I noticed that last week, I was not having fun at all, we were doing the same thing every day all day. I hate repetition, I need to mix things up a bit or else I get really bored and a wee bit cranky. So after Elder Kopishke spoke to us and told us that I was so excited to innovate new ideas of how to do things while staying within the rules.
Elder Whitney and I made a list of our strengths and how to use them while proselyting. We are now stopping at every game of street ball we see and are playing with them, it is so fun! and we found out that 10 people were baptized in our zone because the missionaries played street ball with them. After we play with them we gather them all up and say a prayer and invite them to Church and teach them a mini lesson, well, we've actually only done this once, but this week we will be on the look out for street ball games. Speaking of which we saw these black guys playing in their driveway and we asked if we could play. they were pretty good and thought we couldn't play because we were white, haha, they were short, so my team mate kept passing it so they couldn't reach it, then I'd shoot over their head and their outstretched arm that was meant to block me, so it was pretty fun and we gained their respect:) Then they were very willing to listen to us and hear what we had to say. They will come to church sometime in the future:) And the whole time we were playing there was a lawn mower across the street that was shooting out smoke like crazy, the whole neighborhood was hazy and smoky and yet the guy kept mowing his lawn . . . crazy Haitians.
Here are the miracles that happened this past week, these are excerpts from my email to President:
It was Saturday night and we had about an hour to go out and finish the day strong. We decided to go see a less active, but our car was having issues so we decided to bike there. Because we were biking we left our apartment complex out the back way instead of the usual way. As we were biking we saw a man fixing his bike on the side of the street, so we decided to talk to him. He was very drunk and smoking a cigarette, and we asked him if we could say a prayer with him. He said that would be wonderful! After the prayer we invited him to be baptized and he said that he would. Then the Spirit prompted us to start teaching right there. We started teaching about the Atonement and about Jesus Christ and we talked about the Plan of Salvation, as his mom had just passed away, and we even talked about the Word of Wisdom. The Spirit prompted me to ask him if he would give me the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He really wanted to stop smoking and we explained that by taking this first step of faith by giving away that pack of cigarettes it would be way easier to not smoke in the future. He fought himself for a few minutes then handed over the pack of cigarettes and said that he felt better. It was getting late so we offered to walk him home since he seemed kind of lost, as we were walking we answered some really good sincere questions he had and by the end he was in tears and was feeling really good. The Spirit was with us the entire time leading us.
On Sunday night we were just finishing harvesting and we were walking back to our bikes. My companion turned to me and asked if I felt like there was something else we needed to do, instantly we felt very strongly about this one house on the corner. We knocked and a husband answered the door and we asked if we could come inside and bless his home. He brought us inside and showed us to his family consisting of his wife and 3 boys, 2 of which are baptismal age. We left the blessing and invited them to be baptized and they said they both really wanted to and felt it was right! We met with them last night and they are elect, they are both still preparing to be baptized on March 2nd!
So that's what's happening up in Jupiter, it's amazing here! Austin you would love it here, this is where a lot of those shows you watch on Animal planet are filmed, or so I think, don't quote me on that:) And Randon how was your bday? I heard it was great! Well I love you guys a lot, and now that we are innovating new ideas for missionary work, I'll have a lot of cool experiences to share next week:) I love you!
Elder Spencer Bailey
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