White and Nerdy

This week was a really good week filled with good things. On Saturday I got to go on interchanges with the Zone Leaders, and on Sunday as well. I was able to learn a bunch of good stuff. Sunday I got to talk with my family. It was kind of weird though. I kind of feel like they're strangers but it was really good though. Sometimes it feels like the outside world doesn't exist. It's also weird talking to white people. When I see white people in the street I think to myself "What are they doing here?" or "Gringos? Go back to your country" but then again that is probably what people think about me.

On Monday we had a really good day. We were in the office until 6:00 at night. We had planned a Family Night Attack that my companions and I planned. We had 7 family nights planned for 3 hours. We had these families bring non-members to learn. In 3 hours we had 6 lessons with member, 5 in house, 2 other lessons, 4 references received and 5 references contacted with member, 9 new investigators and one lesson to a less active. We went on divisions to do all that. It was a really good day. The Secret? Preach My Gospel. We have now been carrying Preach My Gospel around all the time. We use it to teach members and get references and help them get psyched to do missionary work. It works too. We get tons of references doing it. For all my missionary buds out there if you aren't doing that, do it. I am going to try not to knock on random doors ever again, because it doesn't work and I hate doing it unless of course the spirit tells me too. 

 On Wednesday we had the opportunity to go to the temple. It was awesome. I definitely miss being able to go to the temple every week like I did before the mission. I learned there that giving reports is something very fundamental. There are a lot of missionaries that don't like reporting numbers because they might not have done very well. Reporting what we do is important. One thing I've heard President Cordón talk about that missionaries need to do is to be able to report to yourself. After the mission you won't have a District Leader or a Zone Leader asking you what you did everyday. In Preach My Gospel, President Monson said, "When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates." If we can keep that up after the mission in our daily lives we will be better.

To finish off the good week, yesterday we had baptism. The lady that got baptized is named Maribel. She is extremely shy. Her sisters are members and they brought her to church and then we set up an appointment and we taught her for a couple months and she got baptized. She was pretty prepared and didn't really have any problems. It was a really small service. She didn't want people to come which is alright with me. Anyways it was pretty cool. I love seeing people get baptize and join the church and make that crucial step towards salvation. 

-Elder Rowberry

P.S. Love you all