Another great day in Colorado!
It is amazing how when you are in the hunt that you feel so good regardless of what the results are! What I mean specifically for me is that every week myself and Elder Hendrix, my companion, are going out and finding more people to teach. We developed a new key indicator for us to track how we are doing in finding called "new potential investigator." In the last area I was in, we got really caught up focusing on doing 10 hrs of service every week and teaching 20 lessons every week. I didn't realize it at the time, but that didn't really stretch us very much - we were very complacent. This last week we found 4/5 of these NPI's and converted some NPI's into investigators and some investigators into progressing investigators. We are definitely getting some traction out here! And it feels good to really have stuff happening.
It is so funny before you are in the hunt with how scary being in the hunt looks! In the last area thinking about finding and talking to new people was scary. But when out here we just started doing it, it has felt great! By no means do we feel like we are doing anything special. For example, we were at a neighborhood garage sale Friday and Saturday a couple blocks from where we live. We sucked it up for most of the time. We were scared to REALLY approach people and asked them about religion or if we could share a message or if we could come back another time. I felt like we wasted a lot of time beating around the bush with people because of being scared to be direct. Finally after being at the last house for 20 mins we ask the lady if we could come back another time and she said yes! So in 2 hours of wandering garage sales, we got 1!! It was exciting.
I definitely was having mental battles inside during that time. I have thought about it a lot in the last couple days and realized that I need to relax more! Sometimes when I'm sharing God's word, I get more nervous and see situations as a really big deal and that failure is fatal. Turns out, it isn't. I just realized this while I was writing, but I, Elder Jeff Campbell, cannot frustrate the plan of our Heavenly Father, Almighty God. An all-powerful, all-knowing God trusts me enough to minister to His children. Probably part of the reason is because He knows He can fix anything that I mess up out of ignorance - at least in the eternal perspective. Sooo what I'm trying to say is that I need to laugh at myself and have more of a good time talking to people I have never met about God. Overall, I'm relatively comfortable doing that but sometimes getting the courage to approach people is hard. Anyone familiar with that? Haha. I know I have felt that in lots of different scenarios - meeting girls, meeting friends, calling for sales appointments, whatever. That initial part is always the hardest!
I'll close with actual stuff from this week. :) We have met with 2 families each week for the past 3 weeks that are some of the most awesome people I know (but sometimes that makes me want them to like me more than share the Gospel - working on it). They are starting to progress and it is awesome. We did some landscaping for a family in the ward - building a back patio by laying some "flagstone" on top of "red breeze." That was exciting - never done landscaping before! I even mowed a lawn the other day for an investigator (on top of weeding for another now-investigator a few weeks ago). We also made a sign for the aforementioned garage sale for a single lady member who is moving soon. It looked pretty good! We had a great meeting with an investigator who is really starting to seriously ponder what we have shared. We also visited a couple less-active families with the ward missionaries. It is fun doing stuff and having new experiences out here. I sure do love being a missionary!
Have a great week everyone!
Elder Jeff Campbell :)
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