Happy Birthday to Me!

Dear family, 

I will send you some parts of my letter to the mission president today. It sums up a little bit of the week pretty nicely.

Right now it seems as if my companion is struggling a lot with stress. When I talked to Sister Wada last night she mentioned that the intensity and way that we dendo might be getting to him a little bit. We have been working pretty hard and I think we have gotten to work inspired together a couple times. We have seen tons of miracles together with a lot of new investigators. I have really learned about how hard work, though at the time might not seem productive, will pay off in the end. Three of last week's five new investigators were people that we met a while ago and then were able to set up lessons with this week! Really exciting stuff! 

We also got a referral from the ward a couple weeks ago. He is a 13 year old boy name T. His mother is very active but due to his father's opposition he hasn't been able to get baptized. His father is now out of the picture so we were able to meet up with him on Saturday and teach him a lesson. He said yes to a soft commitment, so we are excited to help him on to the covenant path here in the very near future!

Two months ago this district had 4 new investigators. Last month we tripled it with 12, and now we have already surpassed 12 by a lot this month. We are starting to see the fruits of that with some more progressing investigators coming into the mix as well! We need to start working on our church attendance though. That number has been hovering around 1 and 0 for that past couple weeks. I'm going to push member present lessons a lot and make sure that all three companionships are doing everything they can to help investigators build relationships with the ward members. 

The Kamiooka Ward, despite our suggestion of 20, has set the yearly baptismal goal of 10. That is unfortunate, but I have made sure that they are well aware of the missionary goal of one per companionship per month. However, for this small ward 10 is still a lot and will take a lot of effort on the ward's part. I think what they are really trying to do is create a need for a new phase 2 building. I feel like an increase in church attendance has two main parts to it, that is reactivation and bringing in new people. I have made two suggestions to the ward. 

leveled up "Meet the Mormons" activity.

- This movie is centered around families and the influence that the gospel has on family life. It seems to be targeted specifically at families and is very appealing.

- I suggested that a movie night would be a very easy event to invite member's family friends (entire families) to. 

- After the movie the member families can invite the nonmember families to church or to hearing more from missionaries.

- This activity would be far more effective as a member run event, scheduled for times when members and nonmembers can attend. 

- If the members are bold and it is effective, this could be done every other month, and possibly result in entire family baptisms

- I also had the idea of assigning certain families to actually bring their friends, becoming a calling or responsibility and not just an idea. That might be a little bit extreme

Remembrance meeting 

- following quorum and relief society, meetings where they brainstorm up a few names of people that should have been at church but were not.

- this is primarily aimed at reactivation but could also apply to finding new people

- The group decides on two or three names and assigns members to visit them that week with missionaries

Those are ideas that I was able to tell my ward mission leader, the first councilor in the bishopric, and the Elders Quorum President, yesterday. It was received well by the first councilor and the Elders Quorum President, but not super well by the ward mission leader. I plan on talking to the rest of the bishopric and the relief society president over the course of the week. 

That is a picture of some of my ward planning! We have our work cut out for us here in Kamiooka! But it is a lot of fun. I have come to really like this place! This Saturday we have transfer emails! I will probably stay here, but I think my companion will leave. If he doesn't he might go crazy! 

Love y'all! 

Elder Siebach

Three of our progressing investigators: