September 16, 2013

Hello everyone,

... it was a really good week, and I wish that I had the time to tell you all the details.

So basically, for a while now our sort of "theme" for the mission has been REAL GROWTH. Which means that we've got to stop baptizing people who aren't going to be there in two months. No more seeds in the rocky place. It means convert those who are not converted, retain those who have been converted, and reactivate those who have left. And, the main way that we have been focusing on trying to make that happen? Well, we focus on our less actives. Get them to come back, and help them to do missionary work, so that their friends and family get baptized, and then all together they keep each other active. Ergo, more exalted beings.

So for at least the past three months, I have been bending over backwards trying my darndest to make this happen. And have seen very little. Shoot, even working with active members has been, at least, frustrating.

Then, this week, we found information for three inactive members-names, addresses, and phone numbers for people who I had never seen or heard of. We decided to go to their homes.

The first one was there visiting her family, although she no longer lives there (already a small miracle, cuz now she lives like two hours away). She didn't seemed too thrilled to see us, but she said that we could see her another time. THEN, her sister came out and contacted us, gave us a return appointment. In that return appointment, she accepted to be baptized.

Second one didn't live there anymore. But, her cousin, her cousin's husband, and their four kids still lived there. They let us in right away, and now we're going to have a family home evening with them tonight!

Third one didn't live there anymore either. The people that DO live there had never heard of us. But! They were still like "hey, but you can come back Tuesday morning!"

So yeah. Made me think of what Neal L. Anderson said during "The Work of Salvation"; "The Lord doesn't always give us the blessing that we want or expect. But, if we have faith in Him, we find that we usually get something much better that what we had imagined".

Anyway, I'm out of time. Dang it.

Thank you to everyone for your support! Momma Q, thank you for your letter! Love you all!

-Elder Santos