With my new zone leader responsibilities I haven't been able to write in my journal since Monday... so hopefully I will be able to remember what has happened this week! Elder Stout and I usually spend some time each night going around to the other districts and asking them how their day was and if there is anything we can do for them. With doing that and getting ready for bed I haven't had any time to write, so hopefully I will be able to catch up today.
Elder Stout and I seem to be getting better at teaching each time we have the opportunity. Sometimes I struggle planning lessons with Elder Stout because he is always just constantly talking and throwing out doctrine ideas and I can't feel the Spirit. Lately however, I've been able to get us more focused on the investigator, what happened the last time we taught them, what they felt last time, and what we can do this time to really help them come closer to Christ. This is something I've been working on quite a bit, and I seem to be making a lot of progress. It's hard sometimes because you think, well we taught the first lesson last time so let's just teach the second lesson this time, but we need to keep in mind that our job isn't to teach people every lesson. Our job is to help others come unto Christ, and we can't do that if we don't know what they really need in their life. Elder Holland said something along the lines of, "if we will just listen to our investigators and really focus on them, something they say will always highlight a truth of the gospel." It's hard not to be thinking about what to say next when the investigator is talking, but I haven't had as hard of a time with it as others, since that was something Andra really stressed when we were in theatre. If you focus on your scene partner, then you know how to react and your lines make more sense than if you never listen to your scene partner and you just recite your lines. I've found that it is the same way with investigators learning the gospel. Another thing I have learned a lot lately is that investigators don't know the gospel like we do, because we've been learning it since Primary. We need to be able to explain gospel concepts in very simple ways that are easy for the investigator to understand, and even more importantly, we need to help them discover how they can apply it to their lives. Yesterday Elder Stout and I had a lot of success with this, because we planned a lesson and then we completely changed the lesson when we got in there because we felt like our investigator needed to talk about prayer. It was a really cool experience.
The Spanish is coming pretty well now, and the things that we have been studying when we have study time without the teacher, our teacher has been saying that we won't be taught that in class until the last week we are here. It's really encouraging to know that we are quite a bit ahead of where we should be. I still can't communicate everything I want to say when it comes to teaching, but I am able to communicate quite a bit.
This past Sunday I got a picture with all of the Elders from Davis High, so I'll be sending that hopefully. It was crazy to see how many there really are here.
I guess some more news is that on Tuesday we will be moving to the West Campus (Wyview). My mailing address will be changing, but I'm not sure what it is yet. Hopefully I'll be able to get it to you soon, but I'm not sure. I'm hoping that mail would get forwarded over there, but I don't know about that either. It should be nice though, the apartments are a lot nicer and we will be able to go to Jamba Juice and some hamburger joint on P-days.
Anyway, that's it for this week, I'm over half-way done in the MTC!
Elder Garrett
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