Tracting, More Tracting, Then Success!

Hi Everyone!

We had a really cool experience this week, trying to tract. I say trying, because we found an English family (members) the first door we knocked who needed some spiritual help, so we listened to them and then taught a quick lesson and left the spirit. The second door we left a pass-along card, then the third we found an inactive Spanish sister, who also needed some spiritual help. We talked to her and got to know her a bit, and she's an awesome lady who has a strong testimony and wants to help us teach. She just needs some support to make it to church and be strong in the church. We also taught her a lesson and then had to go to an appointment. We were really excited about finding her, because we've been racking our brains trying to figure out who we can take with us to teach, we have a good ward but nobody seemed to fit with our set of investigators. We came back a few days later to keep tracting in that apartment building, and the first door we knocked (the one right after the Spanish lady) we found a lady who was interested to hear us because she'd talked to missionaries in the past. So now we have a solid investigator, living right next to a member who wants to help us teach! It's amazing how the Lord works, to set things up like that. I've seen it time after time on my mission, and even though not every story ends in a baptism (because of individual agency), it's easy to recognize the hand of the Lord as he works alongside us.

We had a Zone Conference this week that was incredible, and our mission president took the opportunity to let us know how we're doing as a mission. During the holiday season we set a goal as a mission for 100 baptisms, 20 more than the year before, which was the highest ever for the mission. We got 117, blowing our goal out of the water. In January we had 53 baptisms, compared with 23 the year before and less the year before that. The average companionship is teaching 19 lessons per week, and also tracting (or other means of finding) 19 hours per week. The thing that blows me away is that it's an English mission, and the English missionaries are having just as much success and teaching opportunities as the Spanish! It's interesting for me to watch, because the Spanish companionships are actually lower on average (from what I've seen) in the numbers than English, and it reminds me again that it really doesn't make a whole ton of difference where you're called, it's just the attitude you have. For anyone who hasn't left on a mission yet, don't be worried about being called English speaking, because there's so many opportunities and people waiting here in the states, the field is still white already to harvest, no matter what people say.

Something interesting President Christison said is that 31% of our baptisms come from tracting, and that's why we track our hours and have a standard of excellence of 20 hours per week. Tracting isn't a dead program (even in English), and so we'll continue it.

I'm out of time, I'm loving being a missionary and learning the lessons the Lord has for me! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis