Daniel vs Falling Off Date!

Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:07:46 -0700
From: eric.feller@myldsmail.net

We had a crazy week.
So when I got to this area there was 5 people on date to be baptized, now there are zero. Its not my fault though! But were working on fixing it.
Three of them was Amanda and her two kids. One of her kids is 12 and is pretty typical. Kinda lazy and not really into anything. So its hard to get him into the lessons and keep him on track. But the rest of the family really wants to be baptized! We took her to the visitors center and watched the Joseph Smith movie, and after we went to see the statue of Christ, and she told the sister missionary there that she really wanted to be baptized. She said she would definitely be at church this week but she wasn't... I guess her younger kid was sick.. So she cant be baptized this weekend, but hopefully next. She's gotta get to church!
Then the next one was this guy named Bob. He talks a lot and gets off on tangents about how he's not a stalker and this girl named Carla needs to forgive him... Its pretty interesting. But I asked him why he wanted to get baptized and he said, "So I could hopefully get a job." Yeah... then we talked to him about what baptism means and he texted us the next morning saying "Tonight might be our last meeting, I think you guys are trying to convert me." So we made plans to go over, but the ward made me do splits with the priests, so I went with some of them to visit some poeple the bishop gave us while my companion, the ward mission leader, and a priest went to go teach Bob. The verdict was that he still wants to go to church, but doesn't want us to teach him anymore... So maybe someday.
The last one is Ada. She's an awesome investigator, but has some big concerns and is struggling with her family accepting her changing right now. She has two crazy concerns, the first is that she doesnt even know if she's feeling the spirit, or just her emotions. So we're building her faith to cope with that. And the other is she doesnt feel worthy to be baptized yet... And we're working on that too. She is excited to be baptized though. We took her to the Mission Presidents Fireside last night and she met President Howes. They both joked a little bit about taking the missionary who was here before me away, and then President asked her why she wasnt baptized, and then encouraged her to prepare to do so. It was pretty intense, especially when her family came up. But it was good, hopefully. She was kinda weird about it after, but I think it really made her think.
And were not the only ones with people falling off date. The whole zone is having a problem with it. I set a pretty high goal because we had lots of people, but we've lost a lot of them... so my goal is a little over the top now... The district is having a hard time, but were really working on it. Its just tough out there! But I've been praying about what skills we need to work on, and we're going to talk about it in district meeting.
Love,
Elder Feller