Week 21 - Happy Easter!

We taught a really awesome lesson about family history to Jose. I showed him what I had with me and some of the stories that I knew. He got really excited and will be coming to the church building next Sunday to start filling out his family tree.

We didn't have an exchange last week, but the other elder companions had splits the night we wanted to do it. That means at some point for this transfer, we will be doing two exchanges in one week which will be fun. We did do a double in with the Kutztown sisters though. They didn't know if one of the people that they were teaching was interested in joining the church, or if they just like two young women coming over. So, the sisters sent us to judge what he is after in taking the lessons.

We just got a new video for Easter, “Because He Lives”, and we have been told to show it to as many people as we can. We also got special pass along cards just like for "He is the Gift" video for Christmas time. I really like the video. If you have not seen it, you can watch it at helives.mormon.org

Happy Easter to everyone!

Mom here -- The ward that Elder Bjerregaard is serving in does not appear to have the wonderful priesthood gathering (meal) before the priesthood session like Wickenburg Ward does. He says that he will be attending conference at different locations.

Sunday Dinner with the Burts

Elder Bjerregaard

#BecauseHeLives

Week 20

Friday, March 20 I thought that we were done with snow but guess what? It's Baaaaack! Sunday, March 22 never mind, it's gone again. It is nice to have this winter over with. I was getting tired of all the snow. I really hope that next winter will be a lot milder this winter then the one that I just went through. I don't know how I survived, but I did.

I had a really funny experience this week. We went to talk to someone who we thought was a less-active member. This would be the third time that we were able to talk to the person. We were talking to him like he is a member the last two times. This time he told us that we had the wrong person and that his name was Ed. It was really weird, but we were then able to find the person who we thought we were talking to. We are still planning on going back to teach Ed because he seemed like he really enjoyed it when we went over.

Brother Ricks gave a really awesome talk about the Atonement yesterday. I don't know how long he had to prepare for it, but he didn't have any notes with him and he did it all off the top of his head. He was able to pull up different scriptures and use them in a way that he could relate them to the Atonement. He told a story from his mission. He ran into a person who was passing out anti-religion pamphlets. To make a long story short, the guy told him that he is doing it because he can and that God would not stop him. Brother Ricks replied that the reason why God would not stop him is because that would make the sacrifice that Jesus made in vain and would destroy that man’s agency.

We had a really good lesson with Jessica and Jason. We were planning on teaching The Gospel of Jesus Christ, but instead, we answered her questions. She wanted us to share our testimony on how we came to know that this church is true. It was a really powerful moment and the Spirit was there. They are still a little hesitant to commit to anything firm. They don't know when that will be able to come to church because of their crazy work schedules, and Jason finds out each Friday if he has to work on Sunday.

Over all, I think I had a really good week. But this next week, it will be even better.

Elder Bjerregaard

Week 19

This is last week of my third transfer. I don't know why, but this transfer seemed like it went by very quickly. Mom here—Missionaries count their time in terms of transfers. One transfer equals six weeks.

I was on exchange with Elder Miller this week. Elder Miller is an awesome missionary. It is too bad he is going home at the end of April because I would like to know him better. He is an “odd” missionary because he is from Alabama and most missionaries here are from the west coast. We taught two less active members. One is difficult and refuses to read the Book of Mormon because she does not want to read it.

We had five lessons planned for yesterday (Sunday) and two of them didn't happen. One of them had to go to the hospital. The other had something come up, so we could not visit. Sunday is a day of rest unless you are a missionary. My past three Sundays have been my busiest day out of the week, but I am in the service of Jesus Christ and helping people come closer Him. That makes it all worth it.

I have been discovering that I need to rely on the Lord, because when I depend on my on strength I have found that very little work is done. When I follow the promptings of the Spirit, much work gets done. It is hard to rely on Him, but I have learned and am still learning that it with His help, I can do great things.

Elder Bjerregaard

The District

Elder Bjerregaard with Gerald

Week 18

I went on an exchange with Elder Leavitt this week. We had a really good lesson with Gerald about following the prophet and about the general conference we are having at the beginning of April. I cannot believe that I have been out long enough for it to be time for General Conference.

We have been teaching a person whose name is Jose. Jose lives by us. He has not really been going to any church, but he says he has been enjoying our visits. We have invited him to come to church, but he said it might be better to wait before he comes. He thinks that when we visit him, it is more "real" than when he comes into a church. He says that his dad must be a member of the church because as a kid they talked about a lot about topics that we cover in the plan of salvation.

Friday I will find out if I will be transferred. I would like to stay here in the Reading area because we are starting to get some really awesome investigators. I would really like to see them progress all the way to baptism, but I would also like to go somewhere else and meet new people. I just hope I will not be like Elder Thomas and stay here 9 months, 6 months is long enough I think. (He arrived in Reading four months ago Wednesday.)

I have been trying to be 100% obedient in my mission. It is difficult at times, but what is difficult is normally worth it.

week 17

The time is quickly adding up. I have already been gone for four months. At this rate I will be home before I know it. For the people who do not know how time passes for a missionary, I will enlighten you. For missionaries, a day feels like a year; a week feels like a month; a month feels like a week; and a year feels like a day. I don't know about the last part, but for the first three I can testify that it is true because I am living through it.

I am going to try a new format for these emails/blog posts. I am not going to write about every single day, but I will only put in highlights to see if I like this format better.

The zone leaders gave us a person who they got from mormon.org. Jessica is a person who wanted a bible. She is really excited to learn more about the gospel and what our church believes. She was asking questions about topics that we normally don't cover until later lessons. We should have answered them, but we were running short on time so we are going to answer them next time we go over.

We went on exchanges this week with the Pottsville elders. (Pottsville is northwest of Reading.) One thing I like about being a companion with the district leader is that I get to go on exchanges with all the elders in the district. We have two golden elders, or in other words elders who are being trained. (You are golden or new for the first two transfers. I am in my third transfer period, so I am no longer golden.) It is really fun to see what they already know as a missionary and therefore to see how much I have grown since coming into the field.

We also had a lesson with a person we found a couple of weeks ago. His wife understands English but she can only speak Spanish. She had a few questions, but she needed to ask them through another person. We got a little frustrated because we could not communicate with her easily, so we are going to give the teaching over to the zone leaders. They speak Spanish, so they can talk directly with her without relying on someone to translate for her.

This area is really awesome. I am really glad I have the opportunity to serve here. I am still not sure why I am in this area. I don’t know if I am here for someone in this area or for me, but I know that I have something that I need to do here. By the time I leave, I will know that I did the best that I could do in this part of the Lord’s vineyard and fulfilled His purpose for sending me here.


Elder Bjerregaard

Grandma here ~ We are so excited about this new opportunity Michael has in his mission. When we found out that our techie person is in a mission that is the first to do all of this digital work, my first thought was that is why he went to this mission. Then today, we read that he is wondering why he is in that area, but he knows he should be there!

Michael wrote that he “is going to get my mini iPad 2 tomorrow during the zone training. I am looking forward to getting a new iPad that I will be able to take home after my mission (even though I know that it will be outdated or almost outdated when I come home).”

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