Well it's only been 5 days since last p-day, but it's been a great 5 days. Elder Hodgkiss and I have spent a lot of time and effort this week preparing this massive zone competition that we hope will help missionaries improve their skills and become better "Preach My Gospel" missionaries. The way that we have the competition laid out is that each week focuses on a different aspect of the work. The first week, which is this week is all about finding. And in each week, or phase, there are different things that you have to do to earn points such as contact 50 nonmembers in a day, invite 25 people to church, tract an hour a day for 7 days straight, etc. The second week is all about teaching and some of the things in that phase include teach an investigator on a p-day, use 3 scriptures in every lesson that you teach in a day, bear a preposterous amount of testimony in one day, and so on. The third phase is member involvement with tasks like have a member visit an investigator during the week, have a member at 3 lessons in one day. And then the last week is just setting a baptismal date. I think putting it into a form of a competition (with a cool theme and everything) will really help motivate people to take it seriously and work hard and hopefully it will instill some good working habits with all of them, including us. I'm pretty excited to do the competition myself.
I have a funny story from Friday. Elder Hodgkiss and I decided to bike to district meeting because we were running low on k's and we didn't want to ask for more just to prove that zone leaders can ride bikes. He didn't have a bike though so we ended up borrowing one from the Hita family but we had to do some fixing up on it before it was ride-able. So we took it to get some air in the tires, tightened all the screws and it seemed ride-able. This was on Thursday. So Friday morning we get ready to bike to District Meeting and along the way, this dinky old rusty bike that Elder Hodgkiss was riding decided that it didn't want to work anymore. The wheel was bent and by riding it halfway to district meeting it got bent even more and eventually the wheel wouldn't even turn because it was crammed up against the frame. We knocked on a random guys door and asked if we could borrow a spanner to try to fix it, but it only made matters worse. So we ended up walking the rest of the way to district meeting and Elder Hodgkiss decided to carry his bike because it was easier than dragging it along. Well, that's what he said at first, by the end though, he couldn't quite decide what was easier. Lucky we left the flat plenty early and didn't live too far from the chapel, that would have been funny, try to set the example by biking to district meeting and contacting people along the way, but instead show up late, hot and sweaty, carrying a bike on our back. Lucky we were still on time though, just barely. District meeting was good too. There's a YSA in our ward named Chris Terepai who returned from his mission just last year and he was having a bad day, and he called us up and asked if he could spend a couple of hours with us. He said he just needed to be around elders. So he came along to district meeting, and then afterwards we went with him in his car (the Lord was watching out for us) and visited a few less active members as well as tried to see a couple of investigators. He spent probably about 5 hours with us, and bought us lunch. And he felt a lot better afterward too, he was going to go to the temple later that night as well. That's what I like to see, someone that knows what to do when they're feeling down. Go teaching with the Elders and go to the temple. Just get that spiritual buzz.
I don't have a whole lot of time to email today. We moved house this morning from a house to a flat, but I think the flat might be bigger than our house, so that's kind of cool. And we actually live in our area now. Our old house wasn't even in our ward boundaries, just because the missionary boundaries changed recently.
Elder Hodgkiss and I have been working hard out this week. We got 6 new investigators! The rest of the zone as a whole only got 4 all together, so hopefully they can follow our example and have a better week this week. Of course, we're hoping that this competition will help with that as well. And if it doesn't, then we'll have to go to plan B, after we figure out what that plan is. Only 2 of those 6 new investigators that we got came from finding from our own efforts though. The other 4 were all member referrals and part member families. One of them came to our sports night at the chapel on Friday and we showed him around the chapel and he thought the family history centre was the coolest thing ever. He was going to come to church even, but the member that brought him to sports night got sick and wasn't at church on Sunday either. We're really excited for what lies ahead for us in this area. This is exactly what I needed to help me get back to enjoying this area again. We have so much going for us, it's amazing. Elder Hodgkiss and I have so much fun too. We pretty much spend any free time we have just laughing at something. Or when we're driving too and from places, we just talk and laugh. We get on really well. We're going to have a great transfer together, hopefully two.
Mother's Day this week! Every missionary's favourite time of the year! Calling home! Well I'll talk to you all soon! Have a great week this week. Pay your tithing!
Love yous!
Elder Tanner
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