Trade-offs and New Investigators

Hi Family!

We had a very busy and very good week. I wasn't really at MSU much Wednesday through Saturday because of companion exchanges but more on that later. As a frame for our work this week, we had a Tuesday morning teleconference from President Jones' office with all of the zone leaders in the mission. For months and months we have recognized that our Achilles' heel as a mission is our inability to effectively find people to teach. We know they're out there but there is something we're not doing that we need to do in order to connect with them. President Jones laid out his expectation that every companionship in the mission find at least one new investigator this week (we've hovered around having just more than half find a new investigator each week). The zone leaders went to work in their zones, even blitzing areas to help make sure it happened everywhere, and the result was 76 new investigators for 57 companionships. We were very excited. The challenge will come this week as the bar is raised to two new investigators per companionship. I'm confident we can do it.

I was in Greenville with Elder Perazzo on Wednesday for an exchange and got to meet some very cool people there. We taught a man named Matt for the first time, who had requested a copy of the Book of Mormon because he had an uncle who was Mormon with whom he was always impressed. He knew next to nothing about us or our beliefs, but he said he admired his uncle's serenity and wondered how he obtained it. We told him. :) It was a good lesson. We also had a lesson with a recent convert, named Millie, who is amazing! She shared an experience she had in one of her first Gospel Principles Sunday School classes. As the class talked about why we do missionary work, one of the active members expressed her feeling that she so frequently falls short in fulfilling her responsibility to share the gospel. Millie stood up and told her with tears running down her cheeks: "Don't worry about it. Don't get upset or frustrated. What you people do got me here and you'd better keep doing it because there are more Millie's out there and you've got to go find us!"

After a couple hours stop in Lansing after driving back from Greenville on Thursday, we headed up to Petoskey for a Friday blitz. I spent the day with Elder Richardson. It was very weird to be back in my first area. It brought back all kinds of memories. I was very grateful for the opportunity. We had some really good lessons there as well.

In our area, we started teaching a way cool girl named Andrea. She told us she feels like God is trying to tell her something but she can't figure out what it is. We encouraged her to ponder and pray and we're seeing her again on Thursday. We also set a baptismal date with Levi, who loves the Book of Mormon. I was on exchange during the lesson, but he was apparently geeking out over King Benjamin's sermon. I'm pretty excited for him.

I love you all! Thanks for your prayers and support!

-Elder Joseph Cloward