14 Oct 09 - 22 Oct 09

Date: Thursday, October 22, 2009, 12:57 PM

Chapter 27

"It was a mild week in the land of Salt Lake. With a heavy coat of only one color on my back, the perspiration caused me great anguish as I tried to find an uplifting attitude as I served the people... " - Scholar Artemis

So, I've been teaching a lot more... I think. Most of the lessons are for eight to nine year old kids. That and Less Actives.

Abbey Dalton is nine and shy. I've only been able to teach her the first two principles of the first lesson. Near the end of it, she started to open up a bit.

Issac Postlethwait (Postlewait. The th is silent.) is nine too. His family is Less Active so we're teaching the lessons to get everyone caught up on the basics of the Gospel. He'll be baptized soon within the next couple weeks. They want one of his Active older brothers to do it so they're waiting for him to get some time off.

Tori Procter is eight and her family is semiactive. I think the bishop and the ward mission leader want us to teach her the lessons to get her caught up before she get's baptized.

Jackson Marcum is nine and has ADD. His Dad smokes and is not willing to give that up and because of that, he doesn't go to church. Jackson looks up to his dad so this is a great stumbling [block] for Jackson. If dad doesn't go to church, why should he? His mom is reactivating and that's a big help. I hear kids only have a 30% chance of staying in the church if they're baptized into a less active family.

Symantha Hagen is... nine, I think and has some health problems as well. She's super funny though. I love teaching her because she has so much support from her relatives. Her dad is less active and I don't know about her mom. Her grandma though is beginning to be a hinderance. Last lesson she basically took over and went off on something or other thinking she was helping. It was nice of her to do what she was doing, but she was stoping the work from progressing. We're going to have to find a way to deal with this.

Carlos Hensen is eight and both of his parents are less active. He wants to get baptized on Halloween though. So that's what we're trying to do.

As far as everyone else goes, we're not teaching adults... that I can recall. They're too set in their ways so they reject us fast. The bishops and ward mission leaders for some of our wards are begining to be a pain as well. They're basically telling us to not do any work in their area at all because we might ruin the "friendships" that the members in the ward are making with those who aren't members. So their area's are dead. And if by chance we track into these people (which we don't do much of anyways) the reputation of missionaries goes down and even less work happens, if that's even possible.

My suggestion, throw a wrench into everyone's plans. Screw everything up and then let the Lord take over. Missionaries aren't here to wait for everyone to get ready. We're here to teach those who are. It's something that I have a hard time doing. I should be more bold. But as you all know, I'm an easy going guy. I don't like contention, but contention happens to the best of us. Sometimes I feel like in order to tell people how it is, we have to be contentious.

Once again, I was wrong. If we tell people the truth of the gospel, plain and simple and with love, then it's not contentious. Jesus Christ was never contentious and He was the best teacher ever.

I challenge everyone to find someone that the missionaries can teach. I love it when the members out here give me referrals. I'm positive that the missionaries out there would love it as well. Every member a missionary.

Talk to everyone later.

Hope this is more detailed Mom.

Elder Garcia