Inspired Learning

July 18, 2016

Dear Family,

This was a week of inspired learning. You'll see why in a sec.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-
This was an interesting P-Day. A member came down from English IN to visit Elder Murdoch. Elder Murdoch was in English while I was in Corydon. That's where I met him the first time. So while the "Belders" were with this member, we were just on our own.

During our emailing a preacher came up to us and wanted to "pick our brains apart about what we believe". We actually had a good discussion with him. Most preachers that want to talk with us try to prove us wrong, but this guy just wanted to understand our beliefs. He didn't fight us on anything. He wants to talk with us more so we'll see where that goes.

Later we went to Books A Million. We had never been there before but we've heard it's a good place, so we decided to check it our. Found out there's an 8th Harry Potter book. Yay. Books A Million is a total nerd/geek store. It felt like Comic Con but much cleaner and much quieter. 

We finished the night at the Quint's. They fed us hamburgers.

-Tuesday-
This was a weird day. The "Tellders" came down and blitzed us all day. That's when there's 2 sets of missionaries in an area instead of 1. They said they wanted to give us a break and kickstart our area.

At the beginning of the day we all played basketball with each other. It was us, the "Belders," and the "Tellders." Normally I hate playing basketball but I actually had a fun time. I didn't suck as bad as I normally do. I even got the game winning point.

When we started working, I went out with Elder Blake and Elder Salazar went out with Elder Weyland, Blake's companion. Blake is the District Leader so he has authority to blitz us. Normal missionaries don't. We tried a lot of people but nobody answered. We met this lady waiting for the bus, talked to her, wound up sharing the first lesson, and extended a baptismal date for Aug 20. She accepted. I'm not sure how solid she's going to be since we haven't been able to meet with her since, but she accepted the date so there's some hope.

Later on splits, I went out with Chase and Elder Blake went out with Bro Emmert. Chase and I visited the Old Tins. I shared something out of the Bible with them because I thought they would accept that easier than the BoM right now. It's not often I teach out of the Bible only. You'd think I would use it a lot here in Kentucky but surprisingly, not many people read the Bible. Everyone will say they've read it, but very, very few actually do. 90% of the time we talk to people about the BoM and simply relate it back to the Bible.

Even though I don't use the Bible a lot I've read most of it and have learned a lot about it. By this point I've been exposed to just about every piece of doctrine than anyone could possibly use against the Church and have learned the truth of it. There is nothing in the Bible that contradicts the BoM. They're in harmony with each other. There is no belief we have that cannot be defended in the Bible.

-Wednesday-
The "Tellders" left and we played basket ball with the "Belders" again. I, again, got the game winning point. When we began working not a whole lot happened. You have probably noticed that I have said "not a whole lot happened" a lot lately. That's because we're struggling to teach lessons and get new investigators. It's not just us, the "Belders" have been struggling with the same thing. For some reason, Owensboro is not receptive to the gospel right now. Everyone says "no." No one answers the door. We've been working but little has happened.

When Elder Salazar and I first got together we were teaching a lot of lessons. We had a lot of investigators that we could meet with regularly, several times a week. We also had LA's that were the same. But all at once, everyone dropped off the face of the earth. Our investigators either dropped us or disappeared and our LA's vanished as well. Since then we've struggled to get things going.

Later on we got an official storm warning. The tvs were off, the radios were off, it was kinda scary. A few minutes after the warning there were some nasty clouds over Owensboro, but nothing came out of them. Elder Salazar said they must have already dropped off all of their water. Later on we met with Ro for the first time in forever. He's a Spanish LA. Elder Salazar talked with him and shared a short message. He still has interest in the church but he still works Sundays.

-Thursday-
We had a sweet zone meeting in Evansville. Elder Blake and Elder Weyland trained on something called "The Brother of Jared Challenge." I'll share details about it later but it's a way of preparing a Book of Mormon to make the answers of life's questions more accessible. It's actually really cool. It was slowly developed by several missionaries in our mission over the space of about 2 years. The zone leaders gave a nice training on going back to the basics. In the MTC and during your 12-week training period there's 8 fundamentals of missionary work that they teach you. However, after you graduate from the 12-weeks, it's really easy to forget about them. You still study things that relate to them but you don't study them specifically. The zone leaders challenged us to go back to the fundamentals and study them.

It's interesting they trained on this because in an effort to figure out what I can do to build Owensboro up, I actually started studying these a few days before the zone leaders challenged us to do so. I think it was Monday or Tuesday when I opened my PMG to begin studies and got a very strong prompting to close it and find something else to study. I was looking around at the books and things I had on my desk and my MTC book and my 12-week book stood out to me. I was led to the 8 fundamentals that are listed in both books, so I started studying them from both.

We got a table at zone meeting because we don't have a table in our apartment. I had to take it apart to fit it in the trunk. That was fun. When we began working we visited the Gom family. They want to be sealed to each other so Bishop called Elder Salazar to be their temple-prep teacher. He introduced the temple to them.

Later we contacted a Church HQ referral who took a tour of the Kirtland temple and wanted a Bible. Her name was Ms C. We delivered the Bible but it wasn't a good time to have a discussion because her life is crazy now. One of her friend's 5 year-old kid was hit by a car speeding down a neighborhood. Somehow he's still alive but he's not doing well.

-Friday-
We weekly planned at the church. Had a good planning session. We tried Ms S, the lady Elder Blake and I gave a baptismal date to on Tuesday, but she wasn't home. We tried some peeps around her but no one answered. As we were walking, we met a lady who knew the same kid that got hit the other day. We found out his name. She asked that we would pray for him.

Later on we visited Lil. She's an older lady we met a few weeks ago and had a few light gospel conversations. Nothing serious. She said she would come to church but we weren't expecting her to actually go through with it. She actually came to church a couple weeks ago. We were finally able to meet with her again and she said she likes what she's seen and wants to learn more. We had a good conversation with her about the BoM and touched on the Restoration. She might go far in the gospel.

-Saturday-
Started off helping Des with her house. She wasn't feeling well. While we were helping, her neighbor came over and Des started talking to him about the church. She had Elder Salazar and Gardanier help her. We have an appointment with him for Tuesday when we come over and eat with Des.

Later on we were walking by the Goms and they happened to be out grilling lunch. We stopped by to say hi and wound up having lunch with them. It was pretty good. I've learned that real Mexican food is actually really good. American Mexican food isn't.

After that we saw Ms H and finally got a quality L1 in with her. I'm not sure how well she comprehended it. We were going to extend a baptismal date but her friend Jo, the "Belder's" investigator, came over towards the end of the lesson and made it impossible to extend the invitation.

We finished the night at the Emmerts as per usual for Saturday nights. We were supposed to have a lesson with Lan, but he couldn't make it because he was working.

-Sunday-
We had another good church service. Elder Salazar gave a talk on taking upon yourself the name of Christ and related it to missionary work. After church we went to Bishop Manire's house for lunch. They had sammiches and Burgoo.

After lunch we went to see the Sums. It was just Vi there. He had a lot of questions about the BoM that we answered. He has a strong testimony of the BoM but knows little about it. After that we had dinner with the Ortons. The Quints were there. We did the "Brother of Jared Challenge" with them and they all loved it. They said they're going to do it.

Later that night we had to swing by the Quints home to give them the papers for the challenge because I only brought enough for the Ortons at the time of the lesson. As usual, Elder Salazar and Bro Quint started talking and we were there longer than I would
have liked. There is no such thing as a short visit with the Quints. Bro Quint borrowed a book from Bro Fedor to study. Bro Fedor loves reading books. He's got every book the church has ever put out and has read all of them. He's also read other religious books just because he wanted to. While Elder Salazar and Bro Quint were talking I was reading through a one of the books.

-> Small Plates <-
One of the 8 fundamentals in missionary work is "The Role of the Holy Ghost in Conversion". One of the things it has you read is a paragraph in PMG on page 97. There was a sentence there that stood out to me in a different way than it has before. It says "your confidence and faith should be in Christ, not in yourself." When you think of a missionary who puts his confidence in himself you would first think of a prideful missionary who thinks he can do it because he's been out for a while.

I learned you can actually put confidence in yourself without any pride at all.

When I first came out I relied on the Lord a lot because I didn't know how to be a missionary. Since I've learned how to kind of teach, I've realized I've relied less and less on the Lord. It was a very gradual thing. As I learned more, I seemed to rely on the Lord less because my own capabilities increased. I never forgot about the Lord, but I seemed to rely on Him less.

This is what the mission leaders are trying to point out with their trainings on going back to the basics. Almost every missionary has something called "Greenie Fire" when they first begin their mission. That is, they're excited to do missionary work, they acknowledge their own weakness, quickly repent, and rely heavily on the Lord. It's impossible for them to be discouraged because they haven't experienced anything discouraging. In all honesty, "Greenies" are the closest to being perfect missionaries of any other missionaries. That's because of their weaknesses, they are made humble. They are forced to rely on the Lord more and the impressions of the Spirit. It's normal human nature to "graduate" from things that teach you how to do things. You literally graduate from school, college, and other things. Because of this mortal condition, it's easy to think that we "spiritually graduate" as we learn the gospel or learn how to do missionary work. When really, we don't. There's no such thing.

It's interesting to see how progressing in the gospel is the opposite from progressing in the world. As you learn in the world, you move away from your teachers and support yourself. You "graduate". As you learn in the gospel, you actually grow closer to the Teacher and rely on Him more.

I didn't learn this until this week and not all at once. I've learned it as I've gone back to the basics of missionary work which was prompted by a lack of success in the field. It's also interesting how zone leaders trained on the same thing a few days after I began studying it.

This truly was a week of inspired learning.

I working to get my "Greenie Fire" back. The time I was a Greenie was the happiest time of my mission. If I can get back to that, then happiness will come more naturally.

-> Closing Remarks <-

What a week!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Tiny metal drum set