Another Week As A Missionary

Hello all!

 

This week was really quite uneventful, but it was still good. I am happy to still be here in good 'ol Issaquah, but it will be interesting to see where else I will serve in my mission. On Wednesday I had Zone meeting, which we have at the beginning of each transfer. It is an opportunity to meet our Zone Leaders and meet the new missionaries who have been transferred into the zone. The meeting is also a time when we set our goal for the number of baptisms we want monthly. In the past we have set numbers that we basically knew we couldn't reach. We would write down the names of the investigators we had and the ones we thought could be baptized during the next month. That number would generally be our goal. Needless to say, some areas didn't have people they could truly baptize and some investigators written down didn't make it to the waters of baptism. So this month we were realistic. Bellevue zone's goal this month is 7, which I actually think can be done. We already have 5 on date for next month and getting a few more on date won't be too hard, but we'll leave it to the Lord and see what happens in February. 

We also decided to start a zone testimony meeting every Sunday night in an attempt to help our zone become more unified. I think it is gonna work. Missionaries rarely see other companionships so when we all get together it is always a lot of fun!
 

We continue to teach regularly. There are many people that we see each week and we have a few investigators we are working with, but no one close to baptism. This week we are starting to teach Jack, a 9 year old boy whose mom is less-active and is finally okay with him being baptized!
 

After the meeting with Elder Kearon last week we had Eva go up and meet him. He told her that she needed to make good friends in the Church, which she does, and that we (the missionaries) needed to help. So tonight she is meeting us at the singles ward FHE for the stake. It is gonna be fun to do stuff with a singles ward once again.

Each week we have a member lesson with the Browns. They are awesome member missionaries whose goal it is to have someone taught by the missionaries in their home in 2011. They are doing great! It is even good for them because they are getting to know their neighbors better. Sister Brown even had the courage to give a Book of Mormon to her friend. It is great to see them excited about sharing the gospel. 

Anyways, as always, I love you and know that the Church is true!
 

~Richard

Progression

Hello all!

This week I had my first REAL convert baptism! On Saturday, January 22, Eva was baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! It is remarkable to see her progression over the last couple of weeks as she progressed towards the date. She was so ready to be baptized, but as always, there is opposition in all things. The last few days before she was baptized, she doubted herself, thinking that she wasn't worthy to be baptized. But she continued to fight through her temptations and was able to overcome those challenges.

Saturday night Elder Ouassil and I attended the missionary fireside, where Patrick Kearon, of the Quorum of the Seventies spoke about the atonement to investigators, returning members, and recent converts. He compared it to a beautiful park, which was on top of a landfill. He told the people that you could bury your rubbish (sins) in the landfill and that the savior would make it beautiful again. It was a really neat lesson on the atonement, from one of my now-favorite general authorites!

At the meeting, Elder Kearon asked audience members how they felt when the missionaries taught them. A microphone was passed around to volunteers. One woman compared the spirit to warm clothes out of a dryer, another said it was like coming home. Then in the front of the audience, Eva raised her hand and stood up. She said that her missionaries (I can't believe that I am anyone's missionary!) made her feel comfort. "Brilliant!" Elder Kearon said, in his British accent.

As a missionary, I am so happy to see how she feels about the gospel and the happiness it is already bringing her. She saw sister missionaries at the meeting and said that she went home that night and prayed about it. She wants to serve the Lord on a mission, helping people get out of the hole she was once in. I can't wait to see where she is in a couple of years as she makes friends in the gospel and continues to progress. 

Lastly, we had a couple of miracles this week. On Tuesday we got a referral of a less-active man and his girlfriend who would like the missionaries to teach them lessons again. We went over and invited him to church, which he hadn't attended for many years and he actually came the next day! I am hopeful for now that we can continue to teach them. His non-member girlfriend even showed up at church!

The real miracle happened after church. There is a less-active woman in the ward who is allowing her sister, who is also in the ward, to take her son to church. Sister Polk, who is the sister, came up to us and told us that Jack, who is the son of the less-active woman, would like to be taught and baptized AND that his mother was finally okay with it. It is good to see this less-active woman's heart begin to be softened.

As always, the church is true.

~Elder Fetzer

Elder Fetzer, Eva, Elder Quassil

Elder Fetzer and Elder Clayton

Elder Fetzer and Elder L. Whitney Clayton
at a mission conference held Saturday, January 22, 2011 in Seattle.

Another Week Gone By

Hello all,

This week was interesting. Our on-date, Eva is still steadily progressing towards baptism this saturday! It is amazing to see her progress towards her baptism. She had nearly no knowledge of God or Jesus Christ until a couple of months ago when she entered rehab. She has gained a lot of knowledge during the last couple of weeks and in turn, I have seen a change in her life. Because she insisted on having her baptism on Saturday morning, we got special permission from President Larkin to go ahead and miss part of the General Authority's talk and do the baptism in the same building! In other news, Eva asked me to perform the baptism and my companion to give the Holy Ghost. They are both firsts for us and I especially am excited because I have never done it before.

I spoke in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. I was asked on Friday night to speak on Ch. 8 in PMG about planing and setting goals. It was a pretty boring subject, but I hope that someone out there got something out of it. I included the Dutch Potato story and talked about how the Mission President set goals and had the faith that they would and could be accomplished.

We continue to teach other Less-Actives in our ward. Anne and her 4 kids are probably my favorite. We send her scripture reading assignments every day and I have seen increased faith in her life and more power to overcome temptations. Her testimony of the Book of Mormon has increased and in turn, my testimony of the Book's power to truly change lives has increased. We have started reading the Book of Mormon with the people we teach and I have realized that the doctrines taught in the book and the spirit felt while reading it has the power to change people more than just I can. Yesterday in church we talked about the scriptures a lot and the importance of "likening" the scriptures to yourself and of taking time to think about what we read as we study.

On Saturday Elder Ouassil and I spent some time at Habitat for Humanity. We put siding up on the house. As much as I love donating time doing that, the process takes much longer than it should and there are way too many mistakes done because much of the building is done by people who don't know what they are doing. In the morning we spent 2 hours putting up 3 large siding boards beacuse they had to be cut for windows. But it is always good to donate your time to a good cause like that. 

This is going to be a great week with 2 exchanges with other Elders, a baptism, and 2 general authorities coming. I love and miss you all. The Church is true!

~Rich

Baptismal Commitments

Hello all,

We have a baptism coming up! Our new investigator Eva is getting baptized on Jan. 22nd! She has one of the most sincere desires to change. She recently got out of rehab and moved in with her father and step mother. She wants to completely change her life around. She told us about her experience in rehab and how she found God lives and truly blesses her life. She is willing to do whatever it takes! We are really excited about this news and hope the Lord continues to bless us.

So that is our exciting news for this week! In other news, Elder L. Whitney Clayton and Elder Patrick Kearon are both coming to visit our mission in 2 weeks! That is four general authorities that have visited the mission in 5 months! As a mission, we have a goal of 1000 baptisms for the year, which equals about 1 per month per area so as of this month, we are meeting our goal for number of baptisms.

This was a good week. We continue to teach Anne and her 4 young kids. She needs constant support so we tend to visit her many times a week so that she can feel the spirit more constantly in her life. We don't want her to go back to her old ways and the ward is helping her a lot.

Our friend Sue, who is still progressing towards the temple again told us some exciting news, she is engaged to another older man in the ward. The missionaries were the first people she told that she had begun dating, as we were kind of the people who introduced the two. We brought this man to nearly every lesson we had with Sue and that started their relationship.

The weather here has been getting colder an it has been trying to snow for the last couple of days. Right now there is a small patch of blue skies, but I think it is going to go soon.

The Lord is truly blessing our mission. We have so many things to look forward to. We have started out this year well and I hope that we can continue to do well. 

I know the Church is true!

~Elder Richard Fetzer

A Week of Ups and Downs

Hello all,

So this was quite a week. A lot happened. First off, we have another on-date! Jack is a 9 year old boy who is the son of a less-active woman in the ward! It all started a couple of weeks ago when his active aunt and uncle, also in the ward, took him to Church. After Church, his aunt came up to us and told us that Jack wanted to be baptized! So we started teaching him on Thursday night with the message of the Restoration, where he accepted the baptismal commitment for February 19th. We went back on Saturday morning and the family wanted to push back the date to March 5th so family could come into town. So it is kind of a bummer that we have no one scheduled for baptism in February, but at least we will have a baptism coming up!

We continue to teach Neesheri, the returning member I told you about last week and his girlfriend Corinda. Neesheri is coming back to church now and I think is liking it. Corinda for now is slowly progressing and needs to gain a testimony of Jesus Christ and the Atonement. She has a hard time comprehending that one man could take on the sins of the world.

We continue to look for new investigators. Surprisingly, there are a few investigators in our ward who prefer having sister missionaries teach them, which is kind of disappointing, but at least our ward will get to count the baptisms. Right now we have the biggest teaching pool that I have had here, but that isn't saying a lot because it isn't that many people. The Lord continues to bless the Issaquah 5th Ward. 
Things are looking hopeful for the coming month. As always, the Church is true!

~Elder Fetzer

Happy New Years!

Hello all,

This week had a lot of ups and downs. After tracting most of Tuesday and Wednesday, with no luck, we decided that we needed to take a different approach. By the time Elder Kitchen left, we were stuck in a rut. We didn't really have any investigators that were going to go anywhere and we taught the same people week after week. We needed to expand our teaching pool. We started with former investigators and started finding success with people who wanted to continue learning. Then we went to the ward list of Less-Actives and went by to meet them. Slowly but surely we are starting to increase the number of people we teach. We even found a woman whose ex-Mormon husband recently died and she wants to learn more! Then we found a less-active member whose records aren't even in our ward and she is letting us come back this week!

But the highlight of our week was yesterday. A recent convert's 19 year old's step-daughter moved in with her and came to church yesterday. We already had an appointment for Thursday with the recent convert, but she was asking if we could start on lesson 1 so we could teach her step-daughter. Then the step-daughter spoke, "I actually want to be baptized!" WHAT???!!! THESE THINGS DON'T JUST HAPPEN! She was even asking how long it usually took to do the lessons so she could be baptized! We're going to ask her if she will be baptized at the end of this month, before transfers!

Thanks for all the prayers in my behalf! After praying for weeks that we would find someone that we could really teach and wanted to progress and the Lord has finally blessed us.

New year's eve was pretty uneventful! We had to be in by 7 so we played games, wrote letters and listened to music! Hopefully yours was more eventful!

Anyways I love you and know the Church is true!

~Elder Richard Fetzer