Keeping myself busy (4/30/08)

Hello again! The weather’s warm, the sun is shining, and I’m stressed out. Tomorrow morning two sister missionaries will be transferred in here, which will be nice except for the fact that we were expecting them two weeks from tomorrow. On top of that, we have had rent and other money troubles with the mission office, we’ve had to pack and clean a whole lot quicker than originally planned, an expensive water filter that used to be in this city has gone missing, someone from our English class wants us to spend P-Day in a village with him and won’t take no for an answer, and I found out that I have to translate for President Davis when he comes to Ivano on Sunday to tell the branch something (we haven’t heard exactly what yet) that has been described as this: “It will divide the branch between the people who are loyal to the leadership, and the people who are loyal to the church”—and I’ll be translating it. So, basically, this has been a busy morning.

Earlier this week we had zone conference, which was a lot of fun. We rode up on a train with missionaries from a nearby city, Chernivtsi, so we got to spend some time with them and have fun together. While there, we learned about working with members of the church to find and teach investigators. President Gibbons from the area presidency was there with us, and he is a very, very wise man. He reminded us about when President Hinckley announced that he wanted the number of convert baptisms to double, then told us some interesting statistics relative to that. Apparently, if the church wanted to accomplish that using only the media department, then the media budget would need to be multiplied by 13; if they wanted to do that by missionaries, the number of missionaries would need to be multiplied by 6; if they wanted to do that by member referrals, the number of referrals would need to be multiplied by 2. We also talked about reasons why members are nervous or hesitant to do so, and they’re all valid, but with some work they can be overcome. The biggest is that members just don’t know what to say (that was my huge problem before the mission). So, what we’ll be doing is meeting with members and role playing with them about how to do this. We’ll give examples and tips, and then they’ll practice on us for a while until they feel confident enough to go do it themselves for real. Role playing’s always kind of awkward, but it’s very effective, and it’ll help out a lot—especially in Ukraine, where people have next to no idea of how to share gospel messages with their friends. So, for those of you out there who are members of the church, I want to issue an invitation to talk to your local missionaries and ask them to meet with you and help you practice how to talk with friends about the gospel (if they’re good missionaries, they’ll agree wholeheartedly); then, once that’s been done, feel free to apply what you learn!

So, apparently Mother’s Day is coming up soon, so here’s our call information:

The calls will be on Sunday, May 11.

DAD: You will call at 8:00 AM PST (6:00 pm here)

MOM: You will call at 10:30 AM MST (7:30 pm here)

If your parents call from the U.S.A. and Canada then they need to dial
011-38-Area code- Phone#

The fun news is, we’re moving tomorrow, so I don’t know what our new phone number is going to be yet. But, as soon as I find out, I will let you know very quickly.

Thanks for everything! I love you all, and I hope you all have a great week!

--Elder Hurst