We are now teaching a dude named Andre, he is an awesome guy and we teach him with another set of elders and it's cool to see how the gospel has touched his life and he is changing little by little. He just downloaded the scriptures onto his phone so he reads them a lot. It's so cool! He is the only person that is really progressing in wanting to become baptized. Every person that we have been teaching has been slowing down so much and not really keeping the commitments that we have asked them to make.
We have been getting the shaft this whole month and it looks like there's more meetings and stuff to go to during the month and it is just getting in the way of the work and the colleges are getting out for Christmas so like 85% of the people we usually talk to are going to leave and we are going to have to rely on referrals and the ward is only about 25ish strong. I don't know what the work of the Lord is going to look like for a while in my area. We go trackting A LOT but everyone that we meet that is not YSA we get to pass them along to other elders. I feel like I need to be doing more or something. We seem to find a lot of people who like to slam the door in our face or speak a different language or try to convert me to their faith. Awesome. No one really wants to hear what we have to say. We did meet one person at the college at GGC that seemed to like what we had to say. We gave her a book of Mormon and she seemed excited to read it. That was cool.
We are talking to an excommunicated member, he is very cool. I don't know what he did, but it seems like he has changed from whatever and has repented and reads the book of Mormon a lot and is wanting to come back. He got into smoking so we are going to have to help him through that. But he has a good soul.
I left my trainer for a couple of days on exchange because he had to go to a 2 day long leadership meeting. So I was with Elder Cox and Elder Asher. While I was out with them I got soaked in the rain from my head to my toes. Splits are different. I got to sleep in a nicer apartment but I feel like the ghetto is my new home. It's weird but I like it and it's making me think I have a lot of blessings in my life.
They had a nativity this last week end and it was pretty sweet. The Elders helped with parking. Elder Fowers and I got to be in the quilt room helping out for a little while so that was cool.
I'm doing good.
Love you, Elder Bartholomew
It's been very cold here. Sure there is no snow, but the cold chills you to the bones! I never knew I could be this cold even with the biggest warmest coat I have ever worn.
Well I have to say this week has been pretty awesome. Sure, like always, I get about 90% of the doors I knock on don't want to talk to us or they talk down to us because we are missionaries for the MORMONS so they think we are going to hell or tell us we have a long way in life to find out the truth. But we had 70 meaningful contacts this week which was twice the amount we had last week.
There is a guy named Lawrence that we are now teaching and when we got to his home he had his girl friend there with his good buddy. We got to teach all of them and that was officially my first lesson out here in Georgia! So it was awesome. He seems like a good guy and seemed to really want to learn more. He actually called us yesterday to have us come over and teach him some more. SWEET! I am super excited. On Thursday I finally got to meet some investigators that were taught once before me. We brought a member with us to our appointment, Jason. He is 18 and putting in his mission papers soon. He wants to go out a ton with us so when ever we have an appointment, he jumps on it. He is going to be a great missionary. Back to the investigators-Amber and Ranaa. They really want to believe that what we are saying is true and this past lesson the spirit was so strong and we taught part of the plan of salvation with them. When we got to our life on earth, they were asking all these questions that were like how can I do better or change to feel like this all the time. I asked both of them if they wanted to be baptized and when I said it, it was like Wow-I have never spoke with so much power-but it wasn't loud. It was the power of God and I felt it and I knew they could feel it also. They said they would pray about it and we are planning on going over again this week.
Andre is good. He didn't show up to church but I know that he really wants to go but he can't get work off because he just got a new job. I think he knows it's true, he just needs some motivation of some kind. All the investigators are doing good. Akeia, the "Walking Dead" girl, she is off shooting another show right now that is coming out but we are trying to meet with her today. I hope we can get a hold of her. She just needs to come to church a few times and then she is all for being a part of the church.
It's great that you guys had an amazing time in some hot weather. I'm excited I get to talk to you on Christmas.
Love you lots,
Elder Bartholomew