june 15, 2015 letter

Dear Family:

This week has probably been one of my favorite and most eventful weeks that i've had on my mission!! So sorry if you can't follow all of my thoughts or what I'm trying to say, but I'll word it the best that I can!

Well as you know, we had an awesome stake conference this last week with one of the 70 and I was able to receive a lot of revelation from it of how I want to run my family and a business when I get home and how to base it off of principles of councils. But this last week we were able to be with another 70 and I received even more revelation!! So I'll start out with talking about zone conference. It was so awesome. Elder Johnson of the 70 taught us. We were able to ask him questions and he taught us more about how to better our work as missionaries. There was a lot of revelation received during that meeting, but I don't have time nor space to write about it all, but the one that stuck out to me the most was the phrase "the field is white all ready to harvest." He explained that missionary work has to change. He said that knocking doors, like we've done in the past was good for the Lord, but doesn't suffice any longer and we have to change. He quoted Elder Bednar saying "If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always gotten." so the question is, are we going to keep up with the hastening of His work? He said we have to change.  The way we work with our wards, the way we think, the way we find new investigators.  The stake conference was geared more towards changing things to work with our wards better, but this Zone Conference was based around finding new investigators. He basically did away with tracking and knocking on homes unless specifically moved on by the spirit to do so on a specific house. And it is so true. We've wasted so much time tracting to find no results. And i said to myself, "but wait, aren't we're just planting seeds in their hearts at least so they will be ready for later missionaries?" and luckily someone voiced that in the crowed and was swiftly rebuked by the 70 and said "The field is white, all ready to harvest. We harvest, we don't plant seeds." He said that the lord will prepare them, we just have to find the ones that are ready and went on to promise that their are hundreds of people that are ready for baptism in the coming weeks, we just have to find them. So how do we find them? Through the members. I had always kind of wondered what the line was between full time missionary's responsibilities and the member missionaries responsibilities are. he explained that the missionaries responsibility is to invite ALL THEY SEE to come unto Christ, and the Members responsibility is to invite ALL OF THEIR ACQUAINTANCES to come unto Christ. And he went on to explain how little any of us knew. He did an exercise where he said (and this is in a little later meeting with all of the leaders in our stake and missionaries) "how many of you know someone that you were almost positive they were so ready for the gospel and they would be baptized and be the next bishop or branch president, but never were baptized?" and about half of the congregation raised their hand. And then he said "how many of you know someone who you never thought in a million years they would accept the gospel, but are now baptized faithful members of the church?" and about 3/4ths of the room raised their hands. And he said "That proves to how much we know..." So this tactic of tracting that we now are implementing within the mission is actually very very simple. We go to their home and basically explain everything we just said to you and tell them to clear their mind and promise that as they listened to our message, a name will come to their mind,  And it doesn't matter who it is, whether its your neighbor who drinks all day everyday, there is a reason they will come to your mind. We then pray and teach them one basic principles and testify of its truth. it takes about 3 minutes to teach and the spirit is so so strong when we are there. We then ask them what names came to their mind and have them write it down, and commit a date with them to come back and teach that person in their home. It has worked so well the past day that we have had to implement it. We have received over 10 names!! So this is our new way of finding. and the biggest part is that we bring the spirit with us to the lessons, especially when teaching the first lesson with that new person because we have to give them the opportunity to hear the voice of the lord and if we come and we don't have the spirit, they can't hear the voice of the lord, and that will be on our heads. and if we come in strong with the spirit and they don't act on our message in the first lesson or two, we have to drop them and move on to new ones. We are super excited about it!! The lords work is hastening, and the field truly is white, all ready to harvest!!!

We also had a sweet Spanish conference that I was able to go to. It was the same 70, Elder Johnson, who is actually from chihuahua!  It was after the zone conference and the member meeting, so we were there at that church for 12 hours!  We didn't get done till 10:30 so we had to stay in Woodburn with Elder Perryman and Joly and Carbajal! haha so there was a total of 8 of us in one apt, so we were just spread out all over the floor. It was awesome and I'll send a photo! 

After sleeping at the elders home we went to MLC with the 70 again and he explained the tree of life story over again in a whole new light. Study it again and look at the 3 different groups of the people and what happened with each one and why they got where they were. 

At the beginning of the week we taught an investigator a non smoking lesson and she stopped smoking! It was so sweet. She has been clean for close to a week now (: Oh and we found an awesome new investigator. She was atheist just a few weeks ago and said that her life just changed and she can't deny the feelings she gets when she comes to our church and read the book of Mormon and we asked her to be baptized and she said she would be!! So we will set a date with her this next week on Sunday so don't forget to ask about her (: She is dating a member who is less active right now. 

After MLC president Samuelian pulled me aside and said, "don't forget your Spanish, because you're still going to need it. We can't keep your skills out of a Spanish area, you will need to go back soon." So that was super awesome, but I'm nervous to go back to Spanish again!! haha but I guess we'll see if I get transferred sometime soon! That would also mean I'd probably not be a zone leader anymore which is actually super normal in this mission to get moved around a lot and get taken out of leader positions and then put back in and then all the sudden you're the assistant and then taken out again! Haha, but I'm ready and willing to do whatever the Lord has in store for me! 

Back to the first part of my lesson, if you aren't actively involved in hastening the work of the lord, get on it and invite all of your acquaintances to listen to the gospel!!! I love you all so much and bear my testimony that this work is being hastened faster than we can imagine and we have to keep up with it and change or we'll always get what we've always gotten. 

Love, Elder Romney (:

This is all of the leadership in our mission! This was at MLC (: