Missionary Thursday

Hey All,

I forgot to mention one thing last week; since Sister P. was a big success in converting Sister A., we decided to bring her to another investigator we have. This was a great idea, shes a true fellow shipper. She will be key with this new investigator as well. The investigator that we are teaching is worried about change and losing all her friends/family, but we know that Sister P. will be a great friend and help[ as they both actually come form the same church. Another key for her is getting her to pray to know the truth. She refuses to do so because she has a personal testimony of prayer and doesn't want to get the answer that it's true, because she doesn't want to change and has been in her church for over fifty years. It will take a bit more work but we'll get her in the water eventually, hopefully.
Wednesday we did the ear candles thing, I had more wax then the rest of my district and my hearing has only slightly improved. Thursday was zone conference. It had been a while since the last one and nobody was looking forward to hearing the same old stuff President R. always talks about, but we still tried to do our best to get something out of it. The Pres seems to think that the key to doing the work is being perfect little obedient angels. Wrong! The key to the work is hard work. Do that and be blessed. That and we are 21 year old boys; perfect obedience isn't in our vocabulary.
Friday was my birthday and it was a good day (Editors Note: I forgot to mention that didn't I? Oops). It started with the baptism interview for Sister P.; she passed. Then I got a most awesome surprise; Elder S., my deceased mission father resurrected to pay me a visit. For those who don't know what I just said was that your mission father is the companion you have who trains you when you first come out, you are born into the first area you serve and die in the last area you serve in. When you resurrect you come back to the place where you served your mission. So basically my trainer Elder S. returned to Chicago to pay some friends a visit. He heard it was my birthday and that I was still in Beverly, so I was lucky enough to talk to him for a few hours before he left to visit another part of the mission. After that we had another good appointment and picked up five new investigators. Later that day we also had some district fun. I loved the joke about how when you turn 21 around I'm 12 and that's how old I look. All in all it was a very good birthday and one worth remembering.
Saturday was Sister A.'s baptism which went very well. Unfortunately, due to complications she was unable to be confirmed Sunday but will definitely be here this week. After the baptism I got my birthday package and loved all the good stuff inside.
Sunday night one of our investigators had tickets to a theatrical worship service at his church so we decided to go. The service wasn't that great and the play was absolutely depressing. In it it basically said that no matter what you do you will go to hell if you don't accept Christ as your personal savior and its a permanent damnation too. In the play a little boy who went to church with his mom got sent to hell just for looking up to his cool dad who hadn't accepted Christ. A mom too busy for church got sent to hell and they tried to make it look good by sending her daughter to heaven. It wont be all happy when you go to heaven and your loved ones don't. They also endorsed deathbed repentance with an old woman and a construction worker who was buried under a brick wall. The only good part about this play was the reunited family and the occasionally funny lines that were thrown in. My favorite line was how the streets of heaven are lined with silver, gold, and angels with perms. This play was absolutely horrible and inaccurate. We walked out of there feeling extremely depressed. I love this church, it never makes me feel depressed.
Monday was district meeting and President's interviews. The Pres gave me the usual self-improvement tips and told me basically I would be a more powerful tool in the lords hands if I became a mini Pres-R. According to my comps I'm already a powerful instrument in the hands of the Lord. President R. was a banker before the mission and is definitely not a people person. All he really talks about is good numbers and how by being perfectly letter of the law obedient to everything he says that we will be blessed and the mission will prosper. It doesn't help that he compares us to other missions that get more baptisms. We aren't those missions, the people here are completely different. He also talks about how there are going to be fewer missionaries coming out and how we will need to work that much harder in bigger areas. I think he was put in charge of this mission so he could learn to understand people and that life isn't always about good numbers. Hopefully he will realize this soon enough.
Unfortunately with Monday being a holiday none of our appointments went through, and Tuesday only one of our appointments went through, but it was a good one lesson.
Today at Sister C.'s we talked about subcultures in the priesthood, like the tower of Babel and the Gadianton robbers. They once new the truth but are now possible sons of perdition. There is one piece of false doctrine floating around here about how Christ went to hell after he was crucified and wrestled the keys away from Satan. That was a huge twist from the doctrine of Christ organizing mission work for those in spirit prison. Also it possible to die as a spirit but you're not completely gone because your elements are still there. The scripture about Christ crushing Satan's head is both literal and figurative.
That's it for this week. The gospel is still true! The end!

love Elder Fields