I may feel really inadequate as a trainer and as a missionary in general, but at least I can see that I'm getting a little bit better as the weeks go on. In companionship study the other day, I took a little tangent to re-examine what Preach My Gospel says about preparing for lessons. I don't think I've done nearly enough preparation for lessons with my companion. I know my trainer and I used to spend a decent amount of time talking about what our investigators needed to know, feel, and do as a result of our lessons. We had very basic outlines or lesson plans. But with subsequent companions, we would just think of a topic, and then we get there and teach off the top of our heads, of course drawing on our experience and speaking as guided by the spirit. My companion, on the other hand, doesn't know the content of the lessons and hasn't taught them very often, so I need to take the time to make plans for every lesson with him. I think both of us would benefit greatly from planning things out a little bit better. So there's one way I've seen myself improve.
Of course, we've been struggling to find the time to do that planning. Daily planning sessions are supposed to take place at night, for 30 minutes, ideally between 9 and 9:30. Well, the people who share their home with us like to talk to us when we get home about how our day went, and because of their callings and involvement in the church, they typically have some input on the people that we visited. So that eats up a lot of our evening if we aren't careful. In the mornings, we have two hours of companionship study, and part of that is supposed to be planning for our teaching appointments for the day. But we are also supposed to be working through the 12-week training program that we were assigned, and I'm horribly behind on that. It's week 5 and I haven't finished training him on the week 3 material. It's pretty embarrassing. But when we start talking about our investigators, it seems like that takes up all of our time and then we have to get out and do work.
On top of all that, if we have demands on our time in the morning, which we often do, we have to leave and then come back and finish up our studies later. Mission President does not like us skipping out on any of the study time allotted us for the 12-week training program. But our homeshare recently gave us a lecture about our time management skills, and told us that he was instructed that we should be out the door at 11am and not come back until after 9pm. So he doesn't quite understand our need to get the studies done, and thinks we are slacking if we are at the house during the day. I guess I could try to talk to him about that if he brings it up again. I know when I was trained, we would often be stuck at the house late if we had service in the morning, or an appointment before 11am. The zone leaders told me that my trainer was correct, and that we needed to come back and do our studies for the training program. So I think I'm in the right here.
In any case, things have gotten a lot better. We're still only teaching one investigator in the Murrieta Hills ward, but several recent converts, less-actives, and active families. Our investigators in Cole Canyon are not all progressing the way we'd like, but we are sorting through the way things are shaking out with Elder "E" and picking up some that slid through the cracks earlier.
Working with the Relief Society presidents was an excellent idea. I feel like our meetings with them gave us a lot of knowledge and helped out our effectiveness immensely. I'm still going through my notes from those visits and evaluating who we should prioritize next.
Our friend "RP" took us out to dinner this week and we taught him twice. He wants to get baptized as soon as possible, unfortunately in order for all his family and friends to be there, it might have to wait a few weeks. His interview with President Smart is on Thursday, and I think he is ready and worthy. It's been something that I've worried about for the entire month of January, but I think it's really going to work out.
I wonder how well I'm managing my companion's expectations of what missionary work is really like. In most parts of the mission, the people aren't as wealthy, and you usually teach more investigators, less-actives, and recent converts. Here we teach a ton of active families. I guess it's more effective than tracting at night. I wonder how these wards operated before I got here. It seems like it got thrown completely off track by the Christmas season. Or maybe it was just me and my former companion, who knows.
I also want to share this month's First Presidency talk with him, A Word for the Hesitant Missionary. Elder "E" saw in my Preach My Gospel where I write down the names and addresses of everybody I've baptized. He did the math and said I averaged two baptisms per month. Most people don't get one baptism per month, in fact in the US missions the average is .55 baptisms per companionship per month. That makes me a pretty good missionary, right? Well here's what Uchtdorf has to say about that.
"Sometimes we take upon ourselves too much credit or too much blame when it comes to others accepting the gospel. It’s important to remember that the Lord doesn’t expect us to do the converting.
Conversion comes not through our words but through the heavenly ministrations of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes all it takes is one single phrase of our testimony or about an experience to set in motion the softening of a heart or the opening of a door that can lead others to experience sublime truths through the promptings of the Spirit.
... Brothers and sisters, have faith. The Lord can magnify the words you speak and make them mighty. God doesn’t ask you to convert but rather to open your mouths. The task of converting is not yours—that belongs to the person hearing and to the Holy Spirit."
I feel like we've been in exactly the right place at the right time a lot this week. We visited a family on Wednesday, mostly because we had nothing better to do, and found out that they desperately needed our help. We have a dinner appointment with them soon, and hopefully we can help them hold their family together. We had a similar experience on Thursday: we showed up on a whim, found they had a need, and they were very willing to let us come back for dinner and a lesson. On Sunday, we were pretty bummed about the Super Bowl and didn't know who we could bug during the big game. Well, we visited one home that we knew was a part-member family. We didn't know that they had a member family over, in fact a member family that we had really wanted to see this week. They invited us in, paused the game (I think it was during halftime), and we had a really nice discussion. I definitely saw providence in that.
Hopefully I can keep on trusting God to work his miracles through me. I'm amazed at the things that have happened in front of my face so far.
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