Monday Letter!

We had a great talk with Jared yesterday on the phone. He is doing really well and getting used to the area and working hard. Here's his letter for you!

Dear Everybody,

 

So the most important thing I've noticed about being a missionary is seriously just follow the rules. There's no reason not to. Wake up on time. And take planning time seriously, and fill your schedule. There's nothing worse than having nothing good planned so you just spend your time tracting. It feels like a waste of time.

I haven't had a lot of experience teaching actual lessons so far because we don't have a lot of investigators. Most of my time is spent contacting referrals and talking to people on the street. We can actually fill our schedule pretty well with just referrals and people from the Area Book, especially because it takes us so long to get places without a car. Johnson City is pretty big and we're responsible for all of it. We have bikes, but we like to walk and ride the buses because it lets us talk to a lot more people. And it usually goes really well! I haven't talked to any legit rude people. There are a lot of people that will sit and listen for a while. I have gotten a few fake addresses though... But yeah. Just gotta open your mouth. You've got to start somewhere.

Like my first day. We were unpacking the car to move into our apartment and we were almost done when we saw this lady coming down the street. I could tell my companion really wanted to talk to her and I was saying to myself "no no no...". I was way nervous. But my companion was awesome and took over. We found out she was having a bad day and it was totally a miracle that we were there to talk. She said we made her feel better and wanted to hear more of our message. We could have easily not talked to her, but my companion is a stud. This was the first day. We've been knocking her door every few days since then, but never seem to catch her, but two nights ago we were almost home when Elder Done said, "Should we go back and see Danielle?" It was 8:45pm and we had to be inside by 9, and it's been dark for a while, and Johnson City is hood so I was sceptical about bugging her so late. But we had just had a really great experience with opening our mouths right before that, so I was feeling very in tune with the spirit. I said a little prayer and the answer was yes, so we went to Danielle's. We knocked and waited but there was no answer. So I was like, "Well we're here for a reason, what is it?" Then we noticed there was someone behind the house listening to music, and we decided to go talk to her. Turns out it was Danielle's roommate and we got to talk to her for a little bit, and then Danielle showed up! We finally got to see her! Spiritual promptings man. They happen all the time. You just have to listen.