Week 16

Monday

Nothing much happened for preparation day. We only knocked on doors in the evening, but we didn't get to talk to anyone.

Tuesday

We spend most of the day trying find more people.

Wednesday

We tried to contact people that we have not seen before, but we didn't find anyone one who was home. We got a referral later in the day. She wanted a Bible. When we called to set a time when we could go over, she told us that she didn't want to talk to anyone and was just going to buy one instead. We went out in the evening with Bishop Staus and visited a recent convert who is planning to go to the temple soon. We also saw a less active member and talked how the church can help her through her problem.

Thursday

We went on exchange with the zone leaders. Elder Bierman went to try to content as many less actives that we knew about. My partner and I went to try to talk to people who have talked to missionaries before. We did not meet anyone. Elder Newbold was able to get an appointment for him because someone we talked to spoke Spanish and not much English. We also talked to a less active son of a member that they think would come back if we start meeting with them.

Elder Newbold

Friday

Weekly planning took forever, but we were able to teach a couple of lessons. We taught a less active member and she said that would come on Sunday. We also had a lesson with the Wertz family. We shared what we have been studying that day. We invited them to come to church the following Sunday.

Saturday

We had four lessons planned, but two of them got cancelled because of personal matters. We had a lesson with a lady who wanted to know where the Book of Mormon came from. She was not really interested in anything else. When we asked her when we can come back, she told us that she didn't want us to come back because she was happy with her religion. After the lesson, we got a text that the cars were to be grounded, but we got permission to stay out with our car. We were already at our next appointment, but we had to go straight back home after the lesson. The person we were planning on have a lesson with was not there, but his wife told us to come back in a hour, so we walked about nine blocks to talk to some other investigators that lived in the area. On our way, someone stopped us and wanted us to preach to him. Due of the weather, we gave him our number. He said that he would call us later to set up a good time that we can meet with him. We later had a lesson with the person who we were planning on talking to and got a return appointment for next Saturday. Later we did some tracting in the neighborhood that we live in. Then we met a man that told us to come back the following day.

Sunday

We went to church as we normally do and found out that it was cancelled because of the weather. We had to take some time to figure out what to do during that time period. We found out the Reading 2nd Ward was still going to have sacrament meeting. We attended sacrament meeting so we were still able to partake of the sacrament. We had a lesson with the man from the day before, and he is interested in learning more. He was really impressed that we responded to his body language the day before.

Monday

The mission had a mission wide conference. The last time a mission wide conference was held was about five years ago. This particular conference was the first of its kind in any mission because of its content. Elder Evens of the First Quorum of the 70 and Executive Director of the Missionary Department and Elder Allen of the Fifth Quorum of the 70 and managing director of the Missionary Department lead the conference. They taught us and trained us on how to use the iPads effectively. We also were told that we were going to get new iPads that we need to pay for, but at least we get to bring them them home after our missions. The church is expanding the use of iPads to other missions, so 80 missions in total will be using iPads. They are also going to redesign how we are going to use the iPads. For a couple of months, we are only going to be able to use some of the things that we have been using on the iPads. When we get more training on how they want us to use them, we will use more functions.

On a personal note--It has been very cold. Somehow I have started to think that 40 degree weather is pretty nice weather. I must have been here too long. :-)

From Elder Morgan--Zone Leader:

New things are being implemented into the mission. Over the last 3 years, the brethren have been testing different mobile devices throughout missions to see which would prove most effective, and to see where they want to head moving forward in the hastening of the work. As part of that, the PPM (Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Mission) was chosen as 1 of 28 missions to test these devices. The mission received iPads about a year and a month ago now. We didn't receive much training on those initially, and because of that, there were some imperfections and mistakes made. In the conference yesterday, we were told that we will be turning in our current devices and receiving new ones. We'll be starting completely over with online proselyting, and now there are manuals, training courses, and new apps/ways to proselyte using the mobile devices. The coolest part? The Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission is the first mission in the world to start this new program. We'll get our new iPads within the next week! They'll be the newest model, and bigger in memory. We're SO excited about these new changes!

There are also lots of other things that I'm not allowed to mention quite yet.. I'm not sure if stuff will come out in April conference, but I'd guess that they will wait for October conference or even April of next year before everything gets revealed. We'll see what happens! It's big stuff, though!

Mom here--This comes from Elder Morgan’s blog. We are so excited to see the new things in Michael’s mission. The mission appears to be on the cutting edge of missionary work. We can’t wait to find out the details. I guess it is true--Missionary Mom’s make great detectives!
 
Pictures from the MTC have been added to week one of the blog.

Elder Bjerregaard

Week 15

Monday

I feel like I was able to have a really good P Day. We were able to get everything done that we needed to get done and still have a little bit of free time. However, there was not enough time to go do something interesting. We also went to do some tracting in Leesport, but we didn't stay long. Everyone we talked to told us to go home because the weather was going to get really bad. We decided to play it safe and went to closer to our house. If it did get bad we didn't have to go far.

Tuesday

We went to Shoemakersville to try to find some of the people that the sisters talked to before the two areas were combined. We meet the Wertez family. They like the missionaries and they have an open invitation for the missionaries to come over for dinner if we are ever in the area and hungry.

Wednesday

I went on exchanges with Elder Covington. We went up to Hamburg to do some tracting. I think Elder Covington is a really good missionary for only being in the field for only a week. We went to Donna’s house and taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think that she took a real liking to Sister Pouge. Donna said that she was going to come to church in two weeks.


(Hamburg, Shoemakersville, and Leesport are in what used to be the sister missionaries’ area. Hamburg, the farthest away, is about 30 minutes north of Reading.)

Thursday

This was zone training day. We had a lesson with Gerald, and he says he likes and really misses the Sisters (who were transferred out).

Reading Zone

Friday

Weekly planning-- what more can I say. We did get it done which is good. We also had another lesson with Gerald and less active member.

Saturday

We talked to Charlie again. We learned that he is well versed in the Bible, so we need to make sure we talk to him carefully. We don't want say anything that goes against the Bible. We also had a short lesson with Rafael. He wants to go to the temple, so we went over some things he can do now to start preparing to go.

Sunday

Weather conditions were so bad church almost got cancelled. Bishop Staus didn't think it was bad enough and allowed people to make their own decisions about whether it was safe to come or stay home. In Reading, it felt like -12 degrees with the wind chill.

Elder Bjerregaard

Week 14

Monday

We spent most of the day emailing and getting Elder Thomas packed because he was transferred. The sisters who were in our ward were being doubled out and their apartment was being closed (meaning that missionaries are not going to be living there for a while if again). Elder Thomas had to go and inspect it to make sure that they had everything cleaned and that they were mostly ready to move out the next day.

Tuesday

Tuesday was the big transfer meeting. They said that it is one of the biggest transfer meetings for a while. It turns out Elder Weisler from my MTC district is going to be a district leader this transfer. Elder Thomas went to Logan which is north of downtown Philadelphia. My new companion is Elder Bierman. He is also from Arizona, and he been out for six months already. He completely understands that I don't like the cold because he is the same way. We spent most of the day introducing him to investigators that Elder Thomas and I were teaching before the transfer.


 

With new companion Elder Beirman

Wednesday

I finished introducing Elder Bierman to the people who Elder Thomas and I saw frequently. We went up to Hamburg to try to meet with the recent converts and less actives that the sisters were working with. We also went on a split that night because the sisters made an appointment for that night before they knew that they both were leaving. I went to Donna and started to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think she understands perfectly what we were teaching her, or she doesn't want to ask any questions. Every time we asked her if she had any questions she said that she didn't.

Thursday

We didn't have the district meeting on Thursday because they were having the carpet cleaned, and they didn't what anyone else in the church. The assistants to the president said to move district meetings to Friday because most of my district is in training. One of the trainers in the district came out from the MTC with me. She has only been here for three months and she is already training. President Anderson doesn't want weekly planning and district meetings on the same day, so we moved weekly planning to Thursday. We were able to let the spirit work through us to let us know what we should be doing in our area to help bring people into Christ.

Friday

Elder Bierman seems to know how to run a good district meeting. It was his first one he did and he didn't have much time to prepare. The Kutztown sisters needed a baptismal interview in Mertztown which is far away so we spent the day after district meeting in Fleetwood. This is because that is the closest we can be and still be inside of our area.

Saturday

We had a lesson with a person who is hard to get ahold of to make appointments. He says that he is a member, but we cannot find his records anywhere. He also has a nonmember girlfriend who he wants to get married to in the temple. We don't think he knows exactly what he is getting into and what they have to do to be able to do that.

Sunday

Elder Bierman finally met most of the members from the ward. He doesn't remember most of their names which is understandable because it is a lot of new faces and names. We had another lesson with Scott. It didn't go well because we didn't plan as well as we should have. Right now, he has many health problems and he cannot be alone in case something happens and he needs to be rushed to the hospital. His niece was there but needed to step out because she needed to get some schoolwork from her house. We filled up the time answering any questions that he had. He had some really good questions, like how we know when we get an answer to our prayers. We told him that it could be a feeling he has if he is asking for guidance or people or events in his life might be the answer. In short we can get an answer in multiple ways.

Q & A

What has been your biggest challenge this week?

My biggest challenge for this week (maybe for a while) is that Elder Bierman and I have to cover the whole ward now. This is because we didn't get the same number of missionaries in to replace missionaries that went home. They had to close or merge three areas and they pulled the sister missionaries from this ward.

What has been your biggest concern?

My biggest concern right now is how we are going to cover the whole ward. It is a large ward land wise, and we only have limited miles that we can drive every month. We need to make sure that we budget our miles effectively.

Who has been your favorite person this week? Why?

My favorite person right now is Donna because she is such a sweet person.

How do you feel not having Elder Thomas as a companion?

It is different to have another person as my companion after the same one for three months, but I try to think of change as a good thing.

Elder Bjerregaard

Week 13

Monday

The cars were grounded because we had a forecast that we were going to have a once in a century snow storm that never amounted to much. (It went further east into eastern Long Island and into Boston and was a record breaking storm). President Anderson wanted to make sure everyone was safe but still wanted to make sure that we had time to do what we need to do outside of the residence. He gave us until noon to make sure we time to get stuff done. During the afternoon, I was able to get some things done that I kept on pushing back because there never seemed like there was enough time to get to them.

Tuesday

We went tracting and found someone that might be interested in learning more about the church. A lot of people we talked to heard about the Book of Mormon, but none of them have read it, and they didn't really want to learn more.

Wednesday

I went on exchanges with Elder Leavitt. We had a couple of lessons planned, but one person went into the hospital earlier then he thought he would for a surgery. The other person didn't answer the door when we came by, so I think no one was home because they are usually pretty good at answering the door. We also helped to members with their home teaching. The Reading 1st ward is having the missionaries go out with members to help them for two reasons. One is to help increase the number of families that are visited, and the other is to get them used to being with the missionaries so they are more willing to come with us to a teaching appointment.

Thursday

Sadly, I can't think of anything interesting that happened.

The District

Friday

We had an appointment with Chanel, but no one was home. I felt bad because we had a member with us, and we didn't have any backups. We were talking to someone who lives next door to her outside and it was cold. We also got the transfer call from the zone leaders. Not counting the zone leaders, only three missionaries out of eight are staying, and I'm one of the ones that is staying. The set of sisters that are also in the Reading 1st Ward are being doubled out, and their apartment is being closed. Everyone thinks they are going to combine the two areas and only have one set of missionaries to cover the whole ward.

Saturday

The sisters went to the temple with their convert, and they said that they really enjoyed it. We had a lesson planned with the person that we met on Tuesday, but she needed to cancel because she had something came up. We went to another person’s house, and she didn't answer the door which was odd because she is normally home.

Sunday

We spend most of the day going around and getting pictures for Elder Thomas because he is leaving and wanted pictures to remember everyone by.

Elder Bjerregaard