February 16, 2015 - Another transfer gone...

I don't have all that much to report on from this week. We

What's that white stuff?

have been working really hard all transfer to find new people to teach, but we can't seem to teach anyone more than once. The old guy Larry that we were teaching dropped us this week. We are still in contact with the lady I wrote about last week (Debbie). We have an appointment with her for this Sunday that we are really excited about. We are teaching an African family that hasn't made much progress yet. They love to listen to us, but sometimes it is hard for them to comprehend everything we are trying to teach them. Besides that we really don't have anyone that we are working with. We have been tracting, street contacting, working with members, and former investigators, but nothing has worked out so far. I have faith that there are a lot of people in our area right now that God has prepared to hear the gospel. We are going to keep working hard and trying new approaches until we find what works.

The day's forecast

Yesterday we had a stake mission prep fireside that we were invited to be a part of. We were on a panel of people to answer questions about missionary work. They didn't schedule much time because we each only answered one question. I talked about the roles of district and zone leaders for a minute and that was about it. If they were like me, then they had no idea what a district or zone even was so I explained that a bit. I knew not that many people were really that interested in the question I had, so I made the most of my one minute of the spotlight and cracked a joke (haha).

The first Thursday of every month we have a mission leadership council meeting. President Riggs does training on relevant issues and we discuss how to make improvements and fix problems. The next Tuesday our job is to train the zone on those topics discussed in MLC and relay any announcements and info that comes from it. We don't have regular district meetings on those days. Instead the zone leaders and sister training leaders train the zone for two hours. The topics that we trained on were being effective teachers, setting goals, and planning. We both feel that it went really well. I had a lot of fun. I have come to enjoy public speaking a lot more than I did before my mission.

Elder Miles' current Zone

Here is a quote about goal setting that I found this morning during personal study that I really like: "If you don't raise the bar, how will you ever know your potential?” That quote is from L. Tom Perry's October 2007 General Conference talk. We all need to continue to "raise the bar" in our lives. If we just try to stay at a comfortable level and never push ourselves then we will never reach our potential.

It is transfers on Thursday this week. Elder McInerny has only been here two transfers, so most likely we will be staying together for one more transfer. We will find out for sure on Tuesday night. I was so used to knowing a lot of information and now it is strange to not being in the loop anymore. It will be sad to see Elder Raban and Elder Van Dyke (also from LP) leave. They are two of my best friends out here. I am going to make sure to get a group picture of all the LP missionaries before they leave. 

I love you all!

Elder Braden Miles

Washington DC South Mission