Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Here is Travis's latest email.  They had transfers on Monday so he did not write that day.  Posted by Travis's Mom.

Dear Family,

As you may have figured, our preparation day was moved because of transfers. Nothing has changed. I am still serving with Elder Foster in Kirkland. I have been here since the end of April, and I'm happy to stay longer!

We will be having a special Stake Conference in conjunction with the visit from Elder L. Tom Perry of the Twelve Apostles! Our meeting is at 10am instead of 9am because of that. I will most likely be interpreting his address to Spanish for all the members and investigators in the ward. We'll see how that goes! What an opportunity, huh?

Elder Foster is doing super good, and forcing himself to speak more and more, even when it's hard. It can be pretty nerve racking to teach while learning both the language and the doctrine. Missionary service is quite demanding in that respect.

We are doing our best to involve ourselves in people's lives, and share the Gospel message; making it part of their life, and eventually who they are. I may have told you a few weeks ago about a man who called us, asking if he could do community service at the Church. He has come the past two weeks and brought his family. On Sunday we were talking extensively about what improvements could be made to the activity. One of the men of the Elders Quorum pointed out how well we did in spite of having only 18 families; 600 people came to our activity!! Shortly thereafter, the father of this family commented, "Well, actually, you've got 19 families here now; you can count us as part of you now. We like what we've seen, and we're here to stay." We're going to visit with them this week, bring members, and invite them to be baptized!!

Alright, so a little bit about the activity. It was INCREDIBLE!!!

We planned this activity for several months. It is done every year in October. I was actually here in this ward for the same one, last year! This year, things were similar, but even better. The activity was an open house for the community, including a church tour and presentation of our beliefs, followed by a cultural event and celebration put on by all of the different Latin-American countries of our ward.

Members and missionaries were assigned to prepare presentations to be exhibited in different parts of the building. Tour groups were guided around the building starting with the classrooms (where I was assigned), going through the Relief Society room, and the Primary room, and ending in the chapel. After ending in the chapel they moved in to the over-flow where they chatted with missionaries, gave their contact information (basically our guest list), and set up appointments for the missionaries to come by their homes. They then proceeded into the gymnasium where the food and dancing and music and all that good stuff was happening.

The three rooms where I was working to present included presentations on Meet the Mormon's type of things (temples, General Conference, the missionary program, i.e. recognizable things that people already know), including also a room about the original Church of Jesus Christ on the earth with a timeline of the life of Christ, and a demonstration of the Church structure (a cup tower labeled with apostles, prophets, priesthood, ordinances, repentance, faith in Christ, the Church being called in His name, etc.), and finally a presentation of the Plan of Salvation, including use of the marker boards, and a home-made puzzle of the Plan, the teaching being centered on the family.

So, the setup for these rooms took us a few weeks to get everything organized. We also involved members and trained them on how to do the teaching and presenting; 30 seconds of doctrine per room, and 1 minute of discussion. We made note cards of all the simple doctrines that would be taught and gave them to the members. We went to the members homes to plan with them and do role-play practice teaching so they would know how to respond to questions, and teach simply.

So, the day of the activity, here's basically how things went. We had designed the tour so that all the doors of the cultural center were closed, and so that EVERYBODY who came would go through the tour. We asked members to guide people in the foyer to form groups of 10-12 people, and send them down the hall at a regular rate, where we could finish the presenting quickly, and receive the next group. SO MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP!!! We had so many groups coming so quick! We presented quickly, sent them off, and got the next group! I got SO MUCH teaching practice. I also had to present in English and Spanish at the same time, sometimes interpreting for another English missionary, just following what they would say. When I didn't have another missionary right next to me I would teach something in Spanish, and then say it over in English, and still try to keep the room to less than like 4 minutes! It was SO hard, but so much fun.

I taught the Plan of Salvation, about the Original Church of Jesus Christ, and the Meet the Mormons presentation at least 15 times EACH. I was SO exhausted afterwards, but it was so fantastic. I felt the Spirit extremely strong during several of those presentations, and I hear that our guests did too; one of the members mentioned to the missionaries that they saw people leave our presentation with tears on their faces :')

After finishing with us they went on to learn about Jesus Christ in America in the Relief Society room, being able to see the baptismal font and learn that baptism was always performed among the saints of the previous dispensations. They then proceeded to the Primary room and learned all about the Restoration in a FANTASTIC presentation about that Marvelous Work. The tour ended in the chapel where they heard the little primary kids singing, and then had the chance to meet with more missionaries and ask questions, and give their information. All together, the missionaries and members of our ward are now visiting 33 new families because of this activity alone. Massively successful. I LOVED it.

Naturally the dancing and cultural stuff afterwards was cool, but as a missionary, for sure I'm going to be way more crazy about what happened during the tour. They got a wonderful look into who we are as a community, and many want to be part of it. This activity will continue for years to come, I'm sure ;)

I know that the Gospel is true! Check out Helaman 3:27-30 when you get a chance!

I love you so much :) I pray hard for you every single day. Love you!

Elder Talbot