"Magicianary" - A missionary who does magic to bring joy and happiness as well as share the gospel with the people of Madagascar (According to Brad)

Monday, January 30, 2012

The Spirit - Jan. 30, 2012

Just some pretty scenery
[I sent Brad this quote from the movie, We Bought a Zoo - "All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, and I promise you, something great will come of it."]

You are so right about the 20 seconds of courage to make a difference. You definitely need a little extra courage when speaking another language, to go up and contact someone. Luckily I'm already a pro at the language, so I don't have that problem ;) Ok maybe sometimes I still get a little nervous. But that's what the Spirit is for. To help us teach and testify.

This week went by so super fast! This week we had Zone Conference. We were taught by President Donnelly, the Assistants and Sister Donnelly. Pres. Donnelly has focused on P.O.I.N.T. It is Positioning. One Size Doens't Fit All, Inspired Questions, No Messing Around, True Prayer.
"P" you get to know the investigator, let them know why you're there and you want to help them.
"O" you teach according to their needs even if you change what you planned.
"I" you ask inspired questions.
"N" you don't waste time, you give them commitments, give them a baptismal date the second even the first time you teach them.
"T" end the lesson in a kneeling prayer.
You should never be afraid to any one of these things. If the Spirit is there, they will do the right thing. They will feel compelled to do what you ask them. That is one thing that I have just barely realized. You can't be afraid to ask them to do something. The Spirit will help. That's why it is so vital to teach with the Holy Ghost. It always has to be the three teachers there. And you really don't even need the other two. The Spirit is way more important than I've ever realized before. SO that is P.O.I.N.T.

I also played the piano for the conference. But the piano was electric so it had this special function where you could plunk any random key and it would play one set of chords, so then you just had to play the rhythm of it. I promise I practiced before to see if I could learn quick enough to play both hands but they only gave me a day's notice so I got scared. Sorry Mom. BUT! I also played the arrangement of "God Speed the Right" by Aaron Waite. And it went wonderful. Then after we all bore our testimony. I talked about faith in God. If we believe he can help with this or that, it will happen. Sometimes I think people don't realize how close he is. How fast he can help us. We need to ask first though.
Anyway, last week I said that Eric was supossed to be baptized because it got pushed back from two weeks ago, well he forgot about it and went off somewhere into the city so he couldn't make it. SO, he should be baptized THIS week. Hopefully. Then the week after that, two more women should be baptized. One is just the most excited about the gospel and the other is so humble because she can't read and the excited one reads the Book of Mormon and pamphlets to her. Hopefully the excited one can keep going to church because she is moving in with some people who are Catholic. And I guess they won't let her go to our church and also learn from the missionaries. I absolutely don't understand that but maybe it's a Malagasy thing. I'm really pushing the bishopric to help me talk to the people to see if she can still learn and go to church.

I love to hear those experiences of missionary work. Like I said before, if you have the Spirit, don't be afraid of anything. Offering a prayer, asking if she'll come to church or whatever. Here in Madagascar you can kind of be a little more straight forward and don't have to beat around the bush when you want to say something so it isn't too bad when they say no. But if you feel prompted, do it. The Spirit is just my new best friend, so I have to talk him up ya know? ;)

Well I love you guys like always, study the scriptures!

Love,
Bradford
Questions:
Do you go out teaching at night? If not, what do you do during that time? We usually get home between 7:30 and 8:30 which is the latest we should be out but we just do nightly planning, get changed, eat and do whatever. Read scrpitures, write in your journal, play Monopoly deal, which is super fun by the way.
Do you have a microwave in your apartment? Yes
What are you doing for Pday today? Going into Tana to pick up Landons PMG from the book binders. I'll send a picture next week of mine that I got done.
How is Elder Landon coming along? Getting braver about speaking? Yeah he is slowly progressing, I'm going to try and push him a little further though.
Does Elder George have a real companion yet? Nope. Still has his Mini missionary, but this coming Sunday is transfers so hopefully he gets a real missionary.

1 comment:

It's Just me...Crazy "T" said...

What a GREAT NEW BEST FRIEND!!! I love the stories he sends home.. thanks for sharing!
Tracy