June 24, 2024 THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER LXXXVIII

we had zone conference this week.. and the point was basically that we need to be doing better in quality, and not necessarily so much in quantity.. for example.. we can easily find like 30 people in a week, and even if some seem pretty cool, they have a lot less likelihood to actually progress.. because, if you're finding 30 people in a week, and your ward isn't helping out on it's own (meaning that you have to beg them and try super hard to get just a little bit of help) that means that you have to set apart time to work with the ward and try to get them to help out.. therefore you have an imbalance in your focus, and you've found lots of people, but they aren't being strengthened by the ward.. annnd just finding randomly wOrks sOmetimes but there is a much higher chance that a member referral progresses to baptism.. that being said, i have had to begin to change everything i thought i knew about missionary work.. in my mission, i've been in a lot of areas at just the perfect time when things in the ward of branch are going quite badly.. for example, in my first ward, our attendance, as well as worthy priesthood holder count had dropped far below the amount required to move from a branch to a ward.. sooo it was a branch with the title of a ward.. the bishop was a sunday bishop.. meaning he only came to church or attended anything church related (including activities, interviews, and all of his duties) on sundays.. during church hours.. this created many problems, and basically the member help with the missionaries was very low.. along with the relief society pres living 2 hours away, and the elders courum president getting in a quarrel with one of the missionaries, and then stopping all communications with us.. anyways in my second ward we had lots of helpful members, but the majority lived far away, and my comp at the time had just had to deal with his last comp only wanting to waste time at members houses eating their food.. therefore, he didn't wanna be "working" with the members so much, as he saw it as a waste of time.. which made sense to me at the time, because i had gotten used to not having much help from the members in my first area.. and i was only there for 2 transfers, and didn't have much time to change my ways.. annnd then i went to the south.. and i started my 3rd area.. this was worse than my first.. the branch president, also only did any of his duties on sundays, but he wouldn't participate in any of the classes, or take any responsibility whatsoever.. as branch president he was supposed to be in charge of the young men, but instead of teaching them, he would either have them go in a room and just play freefire (knockoff fortnite) and then try to leave church early, orrr shove us in a room with them and try to get us to teach them.. and then try to leave early.. in this ward we had many members that were having problems with drinking, and other worthiness problems, and couldn't hold callings and therefore "couldn't go out with us".. this included the branch president who drinks.. and then i arive to my 4th area, where the branch president lives 2 hours away, and he's a "politician" so he only came to church every 3rd week.. and there were a lot more drinking problems in this branch as well.. and i came to learn during zone conference (when i saw my last comp) that our branch president and the relief society pres had done a nice little colab, and decided to steal tithing for years.. now i arive to my current area, and the ward is amazing! the bishop at least does some things, the members are good and have strong testimonies, the organization is good, the callings are filled.. buttt we're still having a little trouble helping them to help in the work.. annnd because of my other areas, i don't have too much experience knowing how to invite members to help out.. because most of our focus was usually trying to just keep the members from killing each other, and trying to fix the problems thEy had with the church, or why they couldn't get to church.. sooo we're trying to work on using the members more efficiently, in a way that's actually useful.. that will edify both them, and our friends.. soooo if anyone has ideas of things we can be doing to help our ward.. just break out of their.. ways of.. not wanting to help us grow their ward.. we could use some help.. buttt something that we've started doing, is just visiting the members that we want to help us, and then showing them how cool we are.. orrr at least that we arent thAt baddd.. and then talking about our friends specifically, instead of just asking "can you come out with us on this day" we're actually telling people specifically who we wanna go to, and showing them how they're doing and all that.. sooo we're working on it, but it's going well so far.. there was also a cool baptism of the other elders, and our friend came.. and then we had a family home evening with her in some members house.. sooo we're hoping she will be getting closer to baptism.. anyways, that's all for this week.. love you guys, have a great week! alma 48:7-8 Now it came to pass that while Amalickiah had thus been obtaining power by fraud and deceit, Moroni, on the other hand, had been preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God. Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land.