Special Conference with Elder Klebingat

Hola mi familia! This week was really exciting, we had some really interesting things happening in the entire mission this week and have had some incredible things happen to myself and my own personal testimony, and had some really awesome miracles with the work.

So on Monday we played basketball like usual and then we had exchanges with the district leader for that night, Tuesday, and we were exchanging back Wednesday morning. Monday night we went to Lizards Thicket to eat dinner since I hadn't been there yet and needed to get a taste of some real southern cookin. So we did that where I got the 1 meat and 3 vegetables plate, with country fried steak, Mac and cheese, fried okra, and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was super good, and super unhealthy. Then we tried to visit some different less actives and other people that we might have been able to see at that time, but we weren't able to see any of them, but we did get a call to service for the next morning, so that was good.

Tuesday we started the day, someone we do service for often wanted to take us out for breakfast, so we went and had breakfast, and talked a bit and such. Then we went home had some studies up until we had our service. The service was raking up about an acre of pine straw and moving it out into the front and such. It was long and hard, and really convinced me that I really really don't ever want to live in South Carolina ever, because you have to deal with that, no thank you. We didn't finish moving all the piles to the front, so we have to go back and finish that up as well. 

Then we had dinner with hermana Escobar, and it was her birthday, so she was having a party and there was a woman there that was going through a rough time with her son, he had just had surgery. She was not a member but was very faithful, and so Hermana Escobar asked her if she would like a blessing for her son. So I had the opportunity to bless her son, and that was a really cool experience, it really helped strengthen my testimony of the power of the priesthood, because after the blessing the woman told me that she could really feel something and that she knew that God's hand had just touched her son. Or something like that. So that was super cool, and has given us a super solid potential investigator, so that was a super cool miracle. Then later hermana Escobar was wanting a blessing after the party died down and everyone left, so Elder Wolfley felt prompted to give that one, and that one you could also tell that he had said everything that she needed to hear, so that was a super cool day.

Wednesday morning we exchanged back and not much happened that day other than we had English class where we had someone come that used to be a regular and seems to be getting back in the habit of coming again.

Thursday not a whole lot went on either, we had dinner with one of the members, and we scoped out some areas that we could potentially knock.

Friday was a day of planning and some other stuff. So we have this extremely large event going on next Friday.  It is a party with every Spanish member in the state, so all of the members from west columbia and Charleston and everyone are coming up here for a noche de salsa. So the Columbia missionaries {us} have been mostly in charge of it so we've had to plan it a bit and work on a musical number that we are doing and some other different things. We also had to set up chairs and tables for mission conference that was happening the next day with another set of elders. And of course we also had English class, but no one came😭.

Saturday was the day that we were all anticipating. It was the day that the entire mission would be getting together all at once for one special conference. Elder Klebingat was coming to our mission to tell us everything that we were doing wrong and everything that we needed to fix. If yall don't know who Elder Klebingat is I would exhort you to read his October 2014 general conference talk, to really see how bold and direct and non politically correct and without any care for anyones feelings that he really is. It was pretty awesome. First I got to see all my mission buddies that I hadn't seen for a long while, and talk and such. Then the conference started, where he gave us some background information about why we are here and our premarital covenants that we made to gather Israel and many other things. He also gave some of the biggest roasts of the century to just about every missionary in there and committed us to really be consecrated missionaries. 

To give you more background on him, he is German, and he served in the German army, so everything that he said had a lot of power behind it and really felt more like a command then anything else. He was also super funny as well, so it wasn't all bad.  It was actually my idea of a perfect conference, I've really come to love boldness and directness way more than I have beating around the bush and such. He really hit agency hard, and about while we are out here, we don't have it. We gave it up when we accepted our call to be a missionary, and how about no one is forcing us to be here, if we can't handle the obedience and the call, then the best choice for us is to go home. It was weird because it sounded much more like he was telling us to go home more so then he was motivating us to do better, but somehow that motivated us to do better. 

We also had some good training to by president about the book of mormon. Then later we had a Q&A with him, and that was pretty awesome and at some points pretty entertaining as well. Like when one elder asked how to always have a prayer in his heart, Elder K looked at him funny and said "you just do it, like you know the little voice in your head, you just start talking with God. Like--Next question". So yeah he shut some questions down and did not care about offending anyone, so it was really good. But the conference itself was really good, and I'm pretty sure that everyone there got something out of it. 

The mission here is definitely going to change for the better. It's been looking up for the past little while, but it will continue to do so and our success will hopefully triple in the next couple of weeks here. After the conference we went on home and had dinner and planned what to do next. We decided to hit up some trailer parks that have never been knocked before that some other missionaries let us know about. We went out with a new found desire and with the spirit still in us from the meeting. We first went to one trailer park, and started knocking. The second door that we knocked had a man, who spoke English but wanted a book of mormon, so we gave him one of those, beared our testimony of it and asked him to call us if he had any questions. Then we went on to the next door, who had aw oman that had been searching for a church for quite some time, since every church she went to left her with unanswered questions. So we gave her a book of mormon, bore our testimony, and promised that any question that she has the book will give her the answer, and that we will always be here for her to answer any questions that she might have as well. We also promised to do service for her whenever she needed it, since she's a bit older and had a broken wrist. Then we moved on to the next door, who had a girl about 23 years old that lived there, she also was very faithful and wanted her relationship with Jesus to be better. Her grandmother had just joined the church about 2 months before she had passed away and always had said good things about it. She loved her grandma a lot and had always wanted to be more like her and follow her example. So we gave her a book of mormon, bore our testimonies, asked her to read it, and asked her to go to church, which she said she would the next week when she was off work in the morning, and we asked if we could come back some day, which she said we could. 

Everyone we had talked to was English speaking, and by this time we had run out of English books of mormon, but we kept on knocking. A couple of doors later we ran into Melissa, who said she was looking for a church and had heard some really nice things about the mormon faith. At this point we were pretty sad we didn't have a book to give her, but we promised that we would bring one to her soon. She also said that she would love to go to church and that we should expect to see her there, to which we said we wouldn't see her there, since we'll be in a different building, but that there would be to awesome sister missionaries waiting for her there instead. Then after we had knocked every other door in that trailer park, we moved on to the more Hispanic looking one. And the first door we knocked had a man around our age answer the door and invite us in. There we taught him the restoration and committed him to read the book of mormon and pray about whether or not it was true. He told us that he would and that he would come to church when he was off work. We set up another appointment with him for the next Saturday and went on our way. So we had some unbelievable miracles that night. More success then we had been since we've really been here. And it's all because we rechecked our desire to serve God, put some things on the altar to get rid of, and commited to be better instruments in the hand of God. We then called the sisters that would be getting those four referrals and set something the next day to go back and hand them off to all of them.

Sunday was really good as well. We had a great church meeting, even though all our members showed up an hour late, it was still really good. We had a great sacrament meeting where we had someone from the stake come and give a talk about becoming one and gave some great examples, I was sitting up on the stand and from the looks of all the faces of the members, they really seemed to be inspired, and slightly embarrassed. Then after that we had interviews with our zone leaders about what we had learned at mission conference and what we are willing to change to become better and have more success in our area. 

Then we went with the sisters to hand off the people that we had met the day before. Only two of the 4 people that we had met opened their door, but the two that did, one of them we had a great lesson with, and she was super interested and really just an all around solid investigator, and they were able to get a return appt with her and all was good with that. And the other one we weren't able to teach right then, but we talked with her for quite a bit and they were able to get an appt with her later on in the week as well. Plus I'm pretty sure if they talk with the other two soon as well, they will definitely be some solid investigators as well. So that was super awesome and we loved every moment of that. Then we went home to eat lunch/dinner and to start making calls to get appointments with people later in the week. One thing that is happening later this week is that we are having a branch service project type thing to help one of the members move closer to the church so that should help with unity and all that. It was pretty awesome because everyone we called we were able to get something set up with them, even with one of the less actives that isn't super easy to get an appointment with. We have a lot of service planned to help with members of the branch and some others as well. We have appointments scheduled with investigators and members and we have Spanish conference with the party coming up this week as well. So this next week is set on becoming our busiest week yet.

Today we have some errands to run, some cleaning to do, and service tonight.

Elder Bertoch 

New Challenge

Have you ever appreciated just how good it is to be in a ward, to just think that no matter what really ever happens there's really no chance of of things falling into chaos. That if someone happened to drop their calling, there's another 35 people that could easily take their place. Well, I've been thinking a lot about that lately, because I miss my ward, and I miss everyone who makes it such an awesome and safe place. What I'm trying to get at is that the branch here in Columbia is struggling a ton right now, and unless we can get it back up and running semi-smoothly again, there is a chance it may collapse. Lets run through the situation really quick: Number 1 is that it is a hispanic branch, so what does that mean? It means that there is drama at every corner, and everywhere that you look, Hispanics love creating drama, more so than any other group of people ever in the history ever. Number 2 is the lack of communication, they all refuse to communicate, or delegate, which makes the whole presidency thing very difficult. The branch presidency is very individual, if you want the presidency to know something you have to tell each member, because if you only tell one, he will not tell anyone else. Number 3 is the fact that there are 2 teams in the branch, and people will not accept callings if you put them close to someone on the same team, and if someone betrays the team you are on, they will drop their calling in order to be as far away as that person as possible. Number 4 is that our branch president is gone for a couple of months, and next month our 1st counselor will be gone, leaving someone who talks in broken spanish most of the time because he is from the english ward serving in the branch for a time. 

That's really the main difficulties happening right now, so unless people get their act together it could be quite more of a situation in quite some time.

So our week this week was figuring out ways where we can help strengthen the branch and get it back running good again. We had meetings with the stake presidency and many different other things. The consensus was basically that we, the missionaries, have all the responsibility on us to make sure that the members feel loved and appreciated, and that hopefully from us sharing that love the members can catch on and share their own love and appreciation for the other members. So that the branch can be much more unified. We are also pushing Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching hard. So we wont have a whole lot of time or energy to teach investigators, the stake president wants us to reactivate instead, so that we have more people that already know the gospel, to fulfill callings. So we have a lot of work on our hands, in ways that I never imagined I would. Something cool that happened is that we ate dinner with the dominguez, tacos de lengua, where i learned that toungue is gross. That is really all. People are pressuring me to go. 

Elder Bertoch

So if you recall from the last week I had a slow week to start off but a great day to end on, this week was the opposite, we had a super exciting week to begin and a pretty disappointing day to end on, but at least we had some good happen first to help extinguish the agony of that fire 😅. 

So on Monday, we had that zone pday thing in the morning which was really fun, we played volleyball and chair soccer and had a good time there. Then after that we went on home to eat some dinner and finish up some other things before we got on out and worked. We worked for a little while before it got super dark and there wasn't much we could do afterwards, so we went back on home.

Tuesday we had ddm, where we had our last time together as a district before transfers, strangely though only one person would be leaving our district and we would still see her all the time so it didn't even matter all that much. We also found out what was happening with transfers that day, and the branch would be getting hermanas back!! YAY!! Hermana Daniels and hermana chappell would be coming back to the branch, after hermana Daniels only being gone for 6 weeks and hermana chappell being gone for 12 weeks. So that was weird, I did not expect that at all. So that was exciting news, we went ahead after ddm then and typed up some white wash notes for them. We also received 2 different referrals while we were at ddm so that was cool too.  We were planning to go with the STLs that night to see the person that they were giving us. We did some studies after the white wash stuff, then we later had dinner at the escobars where we were pretty rushed because we had to go see that one dude right after. Then it was an adventure getting to the guys house. The STLs met him in some trailer park to learn that he didnt actually live there, so they followed him some miles to his actual house, all the while giving us directions on the phone about what streets they were turning on and everything, so it was pretty sketch. Finally we arrived and went into their house with them only to find out that the guy was super drunk, so we talked with him for a bit all while trying to get out of the house, but we eventually ended up teaching him and his non drunk roommate something and set something else up for this week. So it was all worth it in order to get 2 new investigators.

Wednesday we studied and such in the morning/afternoon. Then we went to gather up some addresses of places that we never wrote down that could have some potential in the hermanas area, so we could pass that on. Then we had dinner with the Perez's, where it is super difficult to keep enough time at the end to share something with them.  The topic this time around was Native americans, and the native tribe of the mound people, so that was interesting I guess. Then later, we had english class which we ended early, so we could go do some service late at night.

Thursday we received the hermanas!! We helped them move into their apartment in the morning, carrying their 200 pound bags up flights of stairs. Then we had a little meeting about everything that was going down in the branch at that time. Later nothing super important must have happened because I cant remember what happened. 

Friday I cant really remember what happened.

Saturday we knocked and found a guy and taught him the restoration, he was super interested and wants to know more so that was super cool, said he would try to go to church if he could get out of doing something in the morning. Then we went and tried to hit up some formers and less actives, failing at each one. So we went home and texted and called everyone about church since it was going to be combined with the english ward yet again.

Sunday we went to church and translated, then we had classes and such which were good. Then we went home and planned some stuff up about working with members and such, then we were trying to see who we could visit at night, and we texted noelia to see if we could see her. We didnt get a response, until a couple of hours later. But the response wasnt from her it was from the hermanas, who said they had seen noelia that night and she told them that she no longer wants to take the lessons, saying that she doesnt want the pressure of making commitments and doesnt think that she wants to change her life at this moment. This was puzzling to me since the only thing we committed her to do was to pray whether or not Jesus was the Son of God. So I guess it just aint her time to be taught. 

ANYWAYS, its time to talk to all yall. You see I had a vision this week that we should really only work through members, because nothing else has worked. So we planned quite a bit about what each member should do . 

1. Each family should have family prayer in the morning, specifically for a missionary opportunity, not a place where you can teach, but a place where you can bear testimony and invite them in some either bold or subtle way to get them in contact with the missionaries. For us its having them invite them to english class, or to dinner when we come over as well. Look for opportunities to serve, and then invite the missionaries to come and help. You the members can not convert some one on your own, you do not have the authority to teach, so help us get in contact with your friends and neighbors. 

2. When studying the scriptures you should look specifically for examples of how you can share the light of christ and invite others to be more curious about living christ like lives as well. 

3. Look for specific people, think of people that are having hard times right now, that have had a major change in their life, that has a desire to change no matter how small. Think of these people and then think of something that you can do for them, SERVING GOD AND SERVING EACH OTHER TAKES AWAY ALL FEAR OF THE UNCERTAIN. You may wonder how people will react about trying to fix their life or getting all up in their business, well I promise you that nice efforts are appreciated by all, as long as you look to serve with sincerity and look to serve with complete love you will be blessed and your efforts will not be in vain. Ask to yourself, what would christ do in this situation, then this is the important part, DO NOT HESITATE AND GO AND DO GOOD, serve your fellow people, serve your God. 

I testify that if we do these things we will be blessed, that our efforts will not be in vain, and that we will gain our reward, both in heaven and in earth. Our testimony will be strengthened and we will literally feel ourselves changing and becoming more like the savior every day. You will wake up and have more respect for yourself and the savior than you did the previous day. Please answer someone else's prayer, because whether you know it or not someone is praying for you to act. The missionaries in your ward are praying for you to act, the families of those missionaries are praying that their elder or sister can have success, and this is the most successful way. But most importantly, the people that you see every day, strangers all around you, they could be praying for you to act, to help uplift them and to ease their burdens. Please do not hesitate to do good.

These words are brought to you by,

Elder Bertoch ❤

Patience Pays Off

So this week was just like any other week. We knocked a bunch, hoping to finally find someone new to teach and get some investigators progressing. We've been here 6 weeks, but haven't really been able to teach many lessons or feel as if we've had a lot of success. But we've been pushing along and trying our hardest. It has been pretty hard to see any results from our efforts, and at some points it seems as if Satan was just taunting us, like when we found someone super solid just to find out she was on vacation and leaving in 2 days. But this week we really tried to push forward and put all our effort into making this week successful. 

First of all, birthday dinner with Shellie and Lizhet didn't happen, Shellie got off of work way too late so we're planning that for another day. 

Tuesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders so that they could pass an investigator to us. So that day was a lot of fun. We just tried to visit some former investigators and less actives, then we went and taught the recent converts after that.

Wednesday we had some stuff, I can't really remember, we had apartment inspections that we passed with flying colors. And we had English class which wasn't successful yet again.

Thursday we tried to contact a bunch of people we've gotten a lot of times to come back, but never got in. We also had dinner with our branch President. He leaves to Mexico in a week to get his visa renewed so we were talking branch business and such while we had some bomb food.

Friday we had weekly planning.  Our lesson with Griseyda didn't happen - it was her son's birthday. So we went to find, but got a call from the zone leaders saying that they wanted to exchange again, so we did that.  And we had English class which was semi successful. 

Saturday we knocked around in the morning and had studies and such, then we went to meet someone at an appointment who wasn't there. Then we drove an hour to Sumter where one of our members invited us to a family reunion where a lot of non members and less actives would be and we were able to commit a less active to go to church the next day, so that was cool. We never heard if he actually did though or not. 

Sunday was the best day of the week.  We had church which was really good.  We also learned there that stake and mission boundaries are being changed a bit. We now have part of North Carolina in our mission, and the Columbia stake just got part of the Florence stake as well. So our area just got a bit bigger. Then after church we did some studies, then broke our fast. Then we had an appointment with Noelia, our investigator that I have the best feeling about. So we went over there at 5 and talked with her and her roommate for a while before her sister came to help us out in the lesson. The lesson was super stellar. The spirit was super there and she told us that she really enjoys coming to church and that she would love to keep hearing our lessons. Her roommate was also just as accepting to the lessons, so we finally had some super stellar success. It was awesome. 

Today we have a zone party p-day where all the zone is getting together and having a fun time. In the morning from 9-11 we had a mission wife push up contest, to see which zone could do the most push ups. I contributed 125 pushups the first hour and then was too weak to even do 1 more after that. MVPs for this zone were Elder Woodley with 2200 pushups and Elder Wilkins with 1500 pushups. But we definitely still lost. The results come in an hour. 

Oh we also learned about transfers this week. Nothing is happening in the Spanish world so far. President is still switching things around so well see what happens, but for now we still don't have any hermanas up here in the branch. 

This week I've gained more of a testimony of prayer and patience. I've really been praying to have success and to really have the ability to keep going at it. And God has helped me with that, it took the entire week to prove myself to him but the answer did come and I can start to feel the turn around come for this next transfer. 

Elder Bertoch