Not too much has happended this week. We're teaching a woman who is living with a recent convert named Lydia. She speaks very, very little English, but the recent convert translates for us. They are from Nigeria and she is also Muslim, so this if my first experience teaching a Muslim. She is progressing well, and absolutely loves coming to church because even though she doesn't comprehend what is said, the memebers are really friendly with her. She is scheduled for baptism for the 28th, but because of the language barrier she has progressed very slowly, evenwith the translation. It is very difficult when we don't hear the exact words of the investigator, because the way they respond tells us so much about how to work with them. She, despite being a Muslim, believes the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that Christ is the Son of God, but we aren't able to determine how she has come to that conclusion, againbecause of the language barrier. She left her glasses down in London and hasn't ready anything from the copy of the Book of Mormon she has in her native languate.
We are struggling to find new investigators and those we do find drop off quickly. It is frustrating when we have to drop someone so we don't waste our time. We know how important it is to see them and help them, but when they refuse to commit or talk to us, we have to make the decision to drop them. The work is moving by quicker than in Grimsby, where we were consistently having 9 hour finding days and not having second appointments with anybody, but it's still not moving at a stress-free pace. We have one other investigator who we frequently visit with. He is blind. He has the Book of Mormon on CD. We have really spiritual appointments and resolve the concerns he brings up, but he brings up the "You don't know how it is for me because you've never been blind" card and comes up with excuses. The funny things is that he comes to church every single week and has been long before me or my companion came into the area. He feels that it is "more true" than any other church on earth, but won't try to interpret the feeling he gets to let him know the responsibility he needs to take. Yesterday was the first appointment we did not invite him to be baptized, and surprisingly, it was the best appointment we've ever had with him. I'm on an exchange in North Shields, so maybe that's just the boost we need.
I really like the Sunderland Zone. There are some fantastic missionariers here. P'daysare really funwith all of them. We play a game called chair football every week, where everyone has a chair inthe cultural hall and they're the goalie for that chair, and they have to kick the ball into another player's chair while guarding their chair from being hit at the same time. Really fun game, not sure why it's not played in the States.Elder Bentley, my trainer, got transferred into the zone 3 weeks ago, so it's fun to see him and get to hang out with him again.
Well, I've got to be off now, so hopefully I get to hear from many of you next week. Please pray for us. We need a good week. Love you!
Elder Winder
No comments:
Post a Comment