41 Weeks Remaining-June 16, 2013

June 16, 2013 

41 weeks remaining 

Hey everyone, 

The highlight of this week was probably the training we had with Elder Watson and Elder Ruan of the seventies (leaders in the church.) They were laying it down on people and it was funny. They asked us what the purpose of the church was. One elder gets up all professional and quotes President Hinckley (a past prophet of our church) about perfecting the saints, redeeming the dead or something like that. Then the seventy sarcastically responded,  "yeah when President Hinckley was the prophet" and starts laughing. I was like, "ouch that's cold man." But then the seventy was like "no thanks elder, great answer, that's right but something else too." After that they had a few missionaries come up and give talks. Luckily I didn't get picked because they evaluated them afterward and told them what could have been improved. They were pretty blunt. Then we had to do some role plays. That was pretty funny! My last companion and his companion had to role play teaching the seventy who was acting like a less active member. It was just funny and awkward because  he was super rude to them. They asked him how he was and he responded by saying I'm bad.  He ended up just scolding the elders the whole time. Another even funnier one was a role play where an elder introducing the role play was like "ok, this elder is playing the role of a less active priest." Then Elder Watson stops the whole meeting was like "Don't say it like that. He's a priest! He has more authority then most people who have ever lived on this earth!" haha They pretty much trained us on working with less actives because they were saying how Taipei has enough members for 9 stakes but only has 5 stakes. This is because there isn't enough active tithe paying Melchizedek priesthood holders. Then they pulled out a list of all the people baptized in each of our ward from the past 3 years and showed how only a few of those people have the Melchizedek priesthood . For example, one ward baptized 29 males in 3 years but only 1 of those 29 had the Melchizedek priesthood. So they want us to start working with less actives and Aaronic priesthood holders and help them prepare to get the Melchizedek priesthood. 

Other than that meeting though, we just visited tons of less actives this week. Our golden investigator got sick but hopefully gets better this week so we can help him prepare for his baptism in 2 weeks.  

But yeah don't give up on less actives. I think having member friends inviting them to church and activities is the key. 

  

Anyways that's a rap. 

Love, 

Elder Chatman