doing important things

Dear Family,

This week was super busy. We did a handful of visits to our missionaries in the zone (taking advantage of being in a threesome so that we could work in two areas without losing productivity), supervising and helping them reach their goals.

That's one thing the mission has been changing. Goalsetting had become a routine process that rarely resulted in achieving those goals, and nobody really seemed to pay it any attention. Ever since we started actually focusing on the goals we set and then working towards achieving them, things have turned around. We're achieving more than triple what we were doing three weeks ago. On Saturday, six people were baptized in the zone (with six companionships of missionaries). All of 2009, that was the highest this zone had reached in one month. In our branch, a young man, Franco, was baptized. His parents are soon to follow - they simply need to organize some paperwork about being legally married. That shouldn't take too long.

On Friday morning, the assistants called and told us that we would have a meeting that afternoon in Trujillo at 3pm. That meant we would leave right after lunch at 12:45pm and arrive about 2:45ish in Trujillo. There went Friday's plans. We left Elder Huancapaza with another companionship here in Pacasmayo so that he could do baptismal interviews, and we headed to Trujillo. We had a meeting with President Mora in the office with the other zone leaders of Trujillo and the nearby areas. It was a powerful, faith-building experience. That was what we talked about, too: faith. We got back to Pacasmayo at 10pm.

On Saturday morning, we left the room with a prayer. We prayed for the Bardales family. They investigated the church about 5 months ago but for some reason stopped coming. We walked a little over half a mile to their house and found them at home. At our insistance, they dropped what they were doing and sat down to listen to us. We started with a prayer and testified of our purpose in being there. It was one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission. My companion and I both felt as though we were surrounded by fire. The family resisted, but they accepted to consider the invitation we left them. We left slightly saddened at the hardness of their hearts.

I'm analyzing a bit my own faith right now. I've been reading through some choice parts of the Bible and the Book of Mormon in English (which I don't do too often) to remind myself of some of those precious promises extended from the Lord to His ancient people. He extends those same promises to us. That makes my faith grow.

I hope you are all doing well. Are you reading your scriptures every day? Are you praying morning and night? As a family? Are you having family home evening every week? I hope so. Let's all keep the commandments - it's better that way, anyways.

Oh! This week's inspirational teaching - why do we have problems? To learn to solve them. Engineers don't exist to eliminate problems, they hang around to fix them. That's how they hold onto their jobs, I suppose. No problems = no work. And when we solve problems with the Lord's help (involving miracles), our faith grows. I love it!

Love,
Elder Withers

Dear Family,

Here's a picture of Franco's baptism.

Love,
Elder Withers