Feb. 27 2012

Dearest Family!!

Hello!! Sorry I led you all astray thinking that i would e-amil you on
thrusday. . .  as you can see I'm still trying to get the missionary
mode down! ;) Life is good! This last week was kind of a long one
cause it was cloudy and cold and stormy so nobody wanted to let us in
or keep their appointments. And everybody was sick!! Seriously I think
that we had atleast 10 people cancel their appointments this week. . .
. but we had a pretty good time tracting this week! Ha ha, i guess
that is one thing that i can be thankful for. . . when all else fails
there are about a million and a half doors to knock on and you never
know what is waiting behind the next door! We have been going around
the ward, meeting with all the members and sharing a missionary
motivation lesson. We are trying to get everybody really excited about
Gladys Knight so they can invite their friends. So one of the things
we always share with the members is the worst case vs. best case
scenario. Think about it . . .When you invite someone to church or to
learn more about the Book of Mormon; Worst case scenario: They say no
and think you are crazy so they don't want to be your friend anymore.
(Which is VERY unlikely! AND if they are that way, then maybe they
weren't really a true friend.) But then BEST case: They accept your
invitation, come, feel the spirit, LOVE IT!!, meet with the
missionaries, get baptized, their family gets baptized they are all
sealed in the temple, their children have children who go on missions
and all the people that they teach. . . . the effects of missionary
work are endless!!! When you compare the two scenarios, there is
really no comparison! Of course when you look at it that way, it makes
it much easier to extend the invitation in the first place! :) Wow-
sorry that was kind of a tangent. . . . But that attitude has helped
me a lot the last week as we have had ample time to be out knocking on
doors!  The other thing that is so great about this is the fact that
as long as you invite then you are sucessful! I'm sure you have heard
the statistic that it takes 7 times of coming in contact with the
church before  they will seriously investigate it. So, even those
doors that aren't interested  or the invitation that is rejected gets
them one step closer to accepting the gospel! :)

Whew! Now i will step down off my soap box. . . ha ha SORRY! :)
Tomorrow is zone conference and i'm super excited!! We have been
studying a case study and a talk by Elder Bednar called "Becoming a
Preach My Gospel Missionary." (SUPER SUPER GOOD!! You should all read
it for FHE or something!) But one thing that i really noticed as i was
studying it this morning is that it talked about how we MUST teach by
the spirit. Of course i knew that! But as i looked and studied a
little more it referenced 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul is telling the
people how the spirit is essential. Elder Bednar went on to explain
that if we are just teaching a lesson and spewing information then we
AREN'T teaching that person and we AREN'T teaching a lesson, we are
merely talking in front of an investigator! WOW!! That hit me so hard.
He laid out a pattern for how to follow the spirit and really focus on
teaching people, the funny thing is that it focuses more on listening!
First we listen, then we discern THEN we teach! I think i still get
way to nervous thinking about what to say next instead of really
listening and trying to follow the spirit. It was really cool cause we
discussed this as a companionship too and we decided that we HAD to
listen more in lessons. I never realized that the biggest, most
important thing about teaching is listening!! Listening to your
investigator, listening to the spirit and listening to your companion,
it's all so important!! :)

So funny story. . . . (Hopefully you guys think these stories are
funny and it isn't just the "Missionary Humor Syndrome!") We found a
guy last week as we were tracting and he sounded interested and said
we could come back. So we set the appointment but when we stopped by
he wasn't home. We all felt like he was really golden so we thought we
would try again later in the day. So of course we did. . . this time
when we knocked on the door it was slightly open. It looked kind of
sketchy cause there were no lights on and the door was kind of hanging
funny, there was no answer so we left it the way we found it. We
decided to pray and see where we felt God needed us and possibly try
again later. Sister Klingler and I both joked about just opening the
door and seeing if he really was there but Sister Hoopes wouldn't let
us!! Ha ha, She insisted that if there was something wrong, we would
get the blame. We tried to reason that all they would have was our
knuckle prints from knocking on the door, but she wouldn't even
listen!! Ha ha! Lol, We did stop by later because we all felt really
good about it, and i think that he pulled up in a truck right behind
us, saw us and drove off! Yeah, we still haven't caught him at home
yet, but atleast we know that he is okay! :)

We had stake conference this week, it was really good! The theme this
year is strengthening our families. Saturday night they talked a lot
about how to strengthen our families by: reading the scriptures,
praying personally and as a family, attending the temple and
attending church. As i reflected i realized how blessed I am for
having a family that has done all of those things! You guys are so
great!!! :)  I felt so blessed because i have personally seen how all
of those things really do bless and strengthen our family.  The temple
president's wife talked about her family and some of the traditions
they had started and how those traditions had blessed their family. It
wasn't anything big, but i could totally relate! I thought of you guys
all night. I really am SO blessed!!! :)

Once again there isn't much here about the people we have taught, but
that's cause they all cancelled on us this week!! Ha ha. But,
yesterday and today the sun has been out and i feel like it's going to
be a great week! :) We have decided to make this our BEST week yet, to
work as hard as we possibly can and be "DO-ERS!" I am so excited,
there are lots of people waiting to hear the gospel and we are going
to find them!! :)

I love you all super-mucho!!! With lots of diamonds and hearts!!! :)
Keep being awesome!

Love,
Sister Bishop