A Whole Hour on Mother's Day!

Dear Family that I Love,

Hermana Garcia did Lia's hair.  Mexicali Trensas!

I had to put your Christmas card picture away because I kept getting distracted. I get to call on Sunday the 11th at 6 pm my time. I’m not sure what time that is for you. And... we get to talk for a whole hour!!! In the leadership conference, one of the sisters asked: “President how much time do we have in the call, 40 minutes or an hour?” and before he can answer all of us sisters (we all sit on the front row) start mouthing at the same time and holding up our fingers. And he looks at us for a second and then says, “Oh... okay,” and the whole chapel cheers. I love our President.

Can we do more one-on-one conversations this time?

I typed up my presentation for the conference. :) It went SO well. I think people were not used to receiving practical, applicable advice in trainings so everybody got really excited about it. I’m attaching it too because I don’t know how well the formatting will send. For you future missionaries (and your names all end in 'a') and for member missionaries, too (all Lia's sister's names end in 'a').  (You can find these notes in a separate blog post below, “How to Contact Effectively”.)

I think this training will actually make a big difference. The reason we aren’t baptizing as a mission is because everyone just keeps teaching and teaching the same problem investigators that they never have time to go out and find the people that are actually going to get baptized. One of the reasons we are doing well in our area is because we contact a TON of people and drop a ton of people, and the ones that we keep are all de oro. Teaching is fun.

Baptism of  Juvenicio, Tuzcano (Harper's comp), Harper y Jesus

At first I felt bad because I was basically making decisions about who was going to be saved or not, but one of the elders in the conference was inspired with a great analogy: That in the emergency room, the doctors can’t treat everyone. They assess the patients to see who is the most likely to survive, and work on them first. If they don’t choose, they both die.

It’s true. We have a VERY precious limited amount of time, and if we waste it on people who are not going to progress, not only are those investigators not going to be saved, but neither all the people who WOULD have listened that you never found. It’s kind of like a treasure hunt for the prepared ones.

Look what we found at Church Distribution!  No more backpack.

I was also thinking about why it is that God prepares some people and not others. I thought “if he loves us all the same, why would he put things in the life of SOME people to prepare them to hear the gospel so they can be saved.” I found a great answer in Alma 5.

Nobody ever responded to my question about what was the difference between a full-time missionary and a member missionary.

Love,
Hermana Ludlam