I want to report yesterday. Starting first on Monday night. In our planning, Elder asked me about our Zone Standards, which Elder Buck had talked about in District meeting earlier. Last week, our Key indicators did not reach where they need to be, which is something I've been struggling with for a long time. And Elder Fuimaono pointed out the effectiveness of our planning, that sometimes we work in distant areas in one day, and travel makes the plan ineffective, or sometimes the length of visits, or lessons that do not happen, which three things makes planning less effective. First I liked how constructively he brought this up, because we were then able to make up a really good plan for Tuesday, yesterday. As in, we had four confirmed appointments for our day, a ward missionary working with us with a less active he's fellowshipping, a lesson with our IBD and a lesson to meet with a part-member family, all of which we had confirmed monday night.
Then Tuesday came along, we had a really good 12 weeks and language study where we prepared for lessons and how to learn throughout the day. Then as we were walking out of the house, the ward missionary called us and told us he's got a birthday party he forgot about. Right after, the less-active we were also going to work with texted us he had to go to Naga. We stopped as we were walking to the highway and said a quick pray for guidance. We decided to continue with the planned visits, even though we knew there would most likely be no man present, unable to teach. Throughout our day, we visited the people we had planned. Though we were unable to teach, we still got things done. We gave one less-active family a Book of Mormon because theirs was lost when they built a new house. Sister was very grateful for this. We visited with our Investigator who's being baptised this week, Sister Sanibel. We confirmed plans for Saturday and gave her some invitation cards that our Ward Mission Leader had prepared for her to give her family and friends. We visited an area that we have been working a lot at lately, and found a man who I had met two transfers ago, with his family, who wanted to be taught, and a less active potential Elder who live in Minglanilla, who we've given as referalls. At this point in our day, our part member family had cancelled on us as well, so we decided to try around at an area where we have many less-active and investigators. Again, no one was around. At this point, it was about 7:30 pm, and we had not yet eaten, nor been able to teach a single lesson, so I said "Let's start getting our way back home." As we walked down the street, Elder Fuimaono pointed down a street and said "Hey doesn't that one lady live down here?" I said yeah, a potential investigator. We decided to try. We ayo'd at the tindahan door, when a young man came to the window. We asked if Thelma was there, and he said she was asleep. He asked "But what are you here for?" We introduced ourselves, and told him we had met her, and wanted to share a message with her. The young man told us "Well, I'm her son, you could share to me." He let us in, and found him to be exceedingly interested in the message of the restoration. He was excited to learn more. We left him a pamphlet, and a commitment to read and pray if it's true. We are to return to him this week. We returned home and ended our day there, with one lesson, which was a good work. I felt at the end of the day, a lot of love, through the Spirit and from my companion.
The reason I wanted to record this entire day is because I felt so greatly confident of our plan. We had made a very effective plan, with many back-ups and every way to fulfill it. By forces outside our own, every thing we had planned fell through. But even through all this, I just had a good feeling about the things we had done. Even though we had planned to get good key indicators yesterday, that it seemed as though the Lord wanted us to do something else, and I feel like we fulfilled it. I still feel as though there were times we could have strived harder, there were still places we definitely could've improved in our work yesterday, but I feel I learned the lesson I needed to. Make a good plan, and then the Lord will do what he needs you to do.
I studied this week about people who have wrestled with God. I love the book of Genesis. The record tells us that Jacob literally beats the Lord at a wrestling match, because he sought His blessing. Enos and Alma say they wrestled with God as well. This is one thing here in the Philippines that I have took to thought a little; everyone prays every evening "dayon tulog (before sleeping)", but this mighty prayer is a great thing to teach. I know it's true.
Love you all so much.
Love,
Elder Dunford
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