Week 82--Work and Learn

Dear friends and family,

So this week has gone by rather quickly, this transfer in fact is going speedily by, and it reminds me that I have little time before leaving this assignment to serve in the Arkansas Bentonville Mission, but this gives me even more motivation to work as smart as I can these last months.

We were blessed by the presence of Elder Cornish of the Seventy and his wife on Monday, which is why we're emailing today, but next week will be back to normal.

He taught us and instructed us on some significant things for our mission. In short, our mission finds a lot of people to teach, but the number of those who continue meeting with us, continue coming to church, and those who are baptized and stay faithful is much fewer. He taught that the way to widen that funnel is by improving teaching and member involvement, and he went into great detail. Two things that stood out most to me were:

1.Teach at their level

2. Pray to know a family that can "adopt" the investigator as he says, to take them in and love them, then show the family how.

Some of the Arkansas Bentonville missionaries with Elder and Sister Cornish

Elder Ostler getting pictures of his dental work, maybe?

As far as teaching goes, we visited with our investigator Carol and read the Book of Mormon with her. We invited her to baptism and she said she will if she knows it's true, she has a desire to follow it. If you will, pray for her. She's been smoke free for over 2 weeks now! We're so happy for her.

We also met with the Hartgraves, some newer investigators of ours and taught them part of the plan of salvation, how we lived with God and he taught us this plan, and how we needed to learn from our trials and experiences to find the happiness our Father in Heaven knows. It also went well.

It's been a good week, lots of meeting, lots of exchanges, and more coming up this week, and I'm always learning, always improving. I appreciate the prayers and love, I feel that as I serve.

Love from
Elder Rodgers