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