Sent May 5:
Hello there. Itsa me, Mario. Not really, but it is Elder Gudmundsen. Did i surprise you? nvm..
Great week so far. Probably one of the most normal weeks ive had being here in the office/pakkret branch. Wednesday was a very enjoyable and productive zone leader council.. super long, and lots of preparation for it. Took a while to get home the night before.. but it went well. It took so much time because its preparing zone leaders for zone conference and then for the following months specialized training too. We also had a group follow up about how the month of april went, in terms of the family history trainings. For the most part the general consensus was that it was great.. really great, but no one has done a thing with it yet. Except for us! We had a family history class on thursday.. booyah! 21 people there too. Not bad for the first one ever in the country. Anyway, the zone leaders were in agreement that the trainings went well and everyone felt the spirit, however now that is passed, the missionaries have forgotten about it. So, everyone is going to follow up more and really get it going. I dunno, personally i think it went really well. It was not perfect by any means, but for the first time? Not bad. They were all investigators (current for the most part) and some were brand new. Starting to realize that the students going to Family History classes will be those from the english class. I think it works nicely because we already spend time and money on passing out flyers for english, which pretty much just serves as our pool for getting people to the family history class; add that on to any other pass-outs we do for family history specifically and you got a good thing going. One thing that i see working well is how this will play in for our key indicators. Those key indicators lead to baptism, and the way we have activities set up at church now, they lead to the sacrament. Tuesday: English with a small spiritual thought... Thursday: Family History with a VERY LARGE spiritual thought and then all that leads them straight back to the church 3 days later. I really see it working well. Now if only everyone can get on the boat here and stop procrastinating!! Just kidding (but really).
Had a nice exchange with Elder Merrill (from my group) and it was way fun. Hes seriously way good at teaching. I really enjoyed it and i think we learned a lot together. Thats almost everyone in my group that ive had a chance to work with.. the only one left is Elder Hess! But hes a district leader else where.. kinda far.
As far as real missionary work (ha) i felt like we made a lot of progress. Weve taught and find a lot these past few weeks, and are trying to get people to stick.. been struggling a little bit. Met a really nice old man (who is 81 and can play the violin like a BOSS) who turned out to be islam. Doesnt actually mean anyting cause hes open to listening, but he loves talking and comparing everything, which just causes mind destruction on a large scale. Last night was an amazing experience.. we were inviting in this neighborhood after dinner and Elder Kambanat made a suggestion to try this one area.. i didnt even realize it until after the fact, but it was exactly like Nephi said; that he was lead not knowing beforehand where he was going. the place we went to wasnt even in our plans, and we found a family. A husband and wife in some of the poorest situations ive seen in a while... very humble, extremely contrite and broken, but not down; happy with what he has. He immediately let us in to talk to him and we could already feel that it was going to be a good experience. He almost instantly started asking questions because heh had a frioend years ago that would always talk about christianity. but never got a godo chance at learning. He sincerely thanked us for coming saying, "ive always wanted to understand more about this Christ being our savior, but ive never had anyone come to tell me what i NEED to do.". Basically "kept from the truth only because he knows not where to find it.". As we started to pray he stopped us and said he needed to put more clothes on (i didnt think much cause we're used to half naked people in towels). After much speaking and listening we found at that he feels like a sinner that needs help.. so we taught a simple lesson about baptism, since there is one today, and committed him to come. We showed him a picture of Christ that made him feel very close to the Savior and wanted to be like him. Hopin he can come today and that work doesnt conflict. Very sweet man, and his wife is actually interested, contrary to our judgement.. she ended up teaching her husband how to pray haha.
For other investigators we have a lot of progressing single women.. i dont know what it is about the world today, but its just impossible to find men! We have Noke, Jiab, and Rabbit, who are all doing fairly well. way busy, but super interested and way motivated and dedicated to understanding the gospel. Just an hour ago i called Rabbit and she picked up saying, "hi! You're calling to ask about how my reading in the Book of Mormon is going, right?"... hahah. Awesome! Follow up is so important.
What else is going on... we went to a crocodile farm today.. that was cool. There was also an elephant break dancing there too. I dont think ive ever seen anything like that. At the same time they had (its raining right now) another one of his friends running around fondling everyone for cash... man, those elephants sure know how to get tips (or steal them depending on how you look at it)!
Thanks for the inspirational messages Dad.. they are super lon---i mean way good :) Personal study this week has been fantastic.. feel like ive learned a lot and it is nice to actually have personal study.. some days it seems like we can never find time, but we made goals and are really working on ways to make being here in the office not such a burden/full of rules being broken. Feels good. Love the work, love the people (love the rain) and i sure hope thats not a hemorrhoid (too much info haha)
Love you!
Elder Gudmundsen
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