Josh's Country Roads Journey: TRACTING IS FUN

Dated: 4/1/13

HOWDY HOWDY HOWDY!!!!

Well, like you all have noticed, I have been gone a little over a month! UGH, it's already going by to fast. Only 23 left :*(. O well, I will make the most of all of it. So first off, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE EASTER CANDY!!! That was so much fun! Ill send you a few pictures. The candy has been a big help this week. Also, Daniel, Thank you so much for the Flashlight and the letter. It was so good to hear from you! Dad, we went and talked to a guy out here, and he took us into his garage out back. We walked in and he had a 50's Chevy truck and a 50's coup. It had a Straight 8 engine in it. They were in really good condition. They both run and he takes them to car shows. It made me think of you dad, you would probably love to see them.

So, a cool thing my mission is doing, We are calling it "Resurrection Sunday." We have several goals that every companionship in the mission is going to try to do. One of them is every day at 1:00, every companionship in the mission will get on their knees and pray for everyone in the mission to achieve the main goal of "Resurrection Sunday." The goal we are going for is 400 investigators to church over the entire month. Now, that is quite a good goal for the mission. It is stretching us, but it is also achievable. I am looking forward to seeing us achieve it.

So this week was a little difficult. Elder O and I did a lot of tracting. Tracting is what most people look at missionary work as. It is a form of missionary work, but it is the least effective. 1/1000 doors knocked on will result in a baptism. We try to get referals from members as much as we can. Elder O and I are going to be working hard over the next few weeks to really build up our relationship with the ward. Doing this will cause us to have better results in missionary work. Elder O and I did work very hard this last week though. We did our best and tried our hardest. We placed probably close to 15 copies of The Book of Mormon. We have a good group of people that are potential investigators (meaning that they showed some interest in our message and we are going to go over sometime and try to teach them a lesson). So we are hoping this next week will result a lot more of teaching lessons and less tracting. Tracting is fun, don't get me wrong, it is just not as productive as other things are.

We tried to follow up with a lot of people this week, but with it being Easter, and people not wanting to commit to return appointments, we weren't able to actually teach very many of our investigators at all.

Churck on Easter Sunday was awesome! Revelation though Church attendance is sweet! The ward here is great. A lot of the people are so nice and caring, especially for the missionaries. It has been fun to get to know people in the ward. Every Sunday we go to Sister Convington house for dinner and we teach them a lesson. Easter Sunday feast over there was great. We had potato salad, mac 'n' cheese, Deviled eggs, and Ham with a pineapple glaze all homemade. For dessert we had peach cobbler and ice cream. It was so yummy! We often get invited over to the Smoot's house for dinner every week as well. They are a great couple in the ward.

We were tracting the other day, and we ran into a guy cleaning his truck. He had a neck brace on, so we asked him why he had it on. He said that a month ago, he had been driving home late at night, fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. His car flipped over. He said he crawled out of this truck and got to the closest house, also, he did this with 3 vertebrata broken in his neck! He said that he knew something had saved his life that day. We gave him a BofM and invited him to learn more. We are going to go try to catch him and teach him a lesson. It's a cool story.

Another guy we ran into was also outside cleaning his car. It was a Cobra and very nice. He had music playing all loud, and we walked up to talk to him. He turned it down and we shared with him The Book of Mormon. He is a christian, Baptist, and so he believes in Christ and the Atonement and everything. I bore testimony of Christ and how he Lives again today. He asked me, "What do you mean he lives today? Like, you mean he lives in your heart, right?" I told him something like, No, Christ Lives, he has a body of Flesh and Bone, and He is alive today. He is an actual living tangible person. He was confounded. He was all like "man, you got me thinking now." I think we peaked his curiosity in what we believe. We were able to give him a BofM and we are going to go back and try to teach him as well.

Well, I love all of you, I look forward to getting letters from y'all this week.

Love,

Elder Spencer