To Steal or Not to Steal Missionary Wednesday

Dear viewers,

I will start this letter off by talking about my new district. When I left my last district it was ridiculously old; I was the youngest missionary in the zone and I had been out 14 months. In this new district I went from being youngest to third oldest missionary. It feels weird being on this end of the time-served scale and having that many people younger then me. It also feels weird because from the beginning of my mission on, there was always someone in the district that I knew. However, In this district for the first time I really don't know anyone. But I have 6 weeks to get to know them, and they seem like good people so I don't really have anything to worry about. (Editors Note: Unless they are serial killers in disguise)

I also learned some slightly disturbing news this week: Half of the members in this ward think of us as nothing more than dinner guests. We come, we eat, we leave, and that's it until next time or when we see each other in church. That's going to have to change. We need to get them to realize that member work is the most effective way of mission work, and we need their help to be more effective because missionary work alone just isn't enough most of the time.

Another bit of news that's good or bad, depending on your spin, is that I've learned from the Spanish missionaries who cover our area that they teach everyone they tract, whether they are English or Spanish speaking. No wonder the Spanish program is so much more successful than the English program, they steal our baptisms and work! When we find a Spanish speaking person to teach, we give them that referral. Their job is the Spanish program, shouldn't they be returning our favor by giving us their English referral. It just makes sense doesn't it? But then again, it really shouldn't matter so long as the person getting taught gets baptized. And maybe, just maybe, that set of missionaries could do a better job at teaching and bringing that person closer to Christ than we could.

Now the last bit of news before the events of the week; I found out that in the suburbs, not only do we have to call in to our zone leaders every night but we also have to call in to our ward mission leader. That doesn't make any sense at all! We didn't have to do that in the city and we report everything that's happened with the work to him on Sunday anyway during MCM. Why do we have to call him nightly when we already do that with our zone leaders? Calling in once a night was fine, but twice? Is that really necessary? Well now that I'm done venting, on with the events of the previous week.

Last Wednesday and Thursday we spent six hours of each day helping to set up for and clean up for the Napperville Mayor's Holiday Prayer Breakfast meeting. Our district is literally right outside of the Napperville zone, if the stake boundaries were slightly different we would be in that zone rather than the Joliet Zone. That's why they decided to have us help. Basically that whole meeting was a big advertisement for the YMCA, who hosted the event. It was a "this wasn't intended to be a fundraiser, but give us your money anyway" type thing. President R. was at the event, so afterward we had our president's interviews. It was full of praises for good work but also warning and suggesting that there were still areas I can improve on. There were three other churches involved in the event, but they basically showed up for the event. We were the ones that did all the work, including bringing and taking back the supplies, like tables, chairs, and other stuff used for the event, taking them to and from the churches that loaned them for the event. Surprisingly our supplies were the hardest to move, the other churches all had a really good system for moving their stuff that made it a load easier for us. After everything was done, we were exhausted so we went home and took a very long well deserved nap.

This Sunday was my first fast Sunday outside the city and I looked forward to seeing what that was like. In the city there were some people who know how to bear a testimony, then again, there are others who completely don't get what a testimony is supposed to be and are classic examples of what your not supposed to say. Ex., a lump on your breast, your awesome school week, subjects having nothing to do with the gospel, etc... this last week there was none of that, it was actually a normal testimony meeting, no crazy people or anything.

This monday we got a new investigator, a guy who wants to marry his girlfriend but she told him he would have to take the lessons first. We weren't sure if he was the real deal or whether he was just doing it for her. But after meeting with him we could see he was golden, he had questions for us and even started to read the Book of Mormon without being asked to. We know for sure he's golden (Editors Note: Golden in missionary terms means someone absolutely ready to be baptized as soon as possible.) because when we committed him to be baptized, he neither jumped into it nor declined. He wants to be baptized when he's ready. Our goal is to get him baptized by the first week of January, before the girl goes back to school and he goes back into the military.

stay tuned for next week
love, Elder Fields.