Transfers and 8 points

August 9, 2010
Dearest Family,
Okay, so I'm feeling a little lazy right now, so bear with me if my writing reflects it. We got transfer calls this last Saturday, and I'm staying with elder Rivera for another transfer! Woot woot! I was seriously stressing about it thinking I was going to get hosed and not end up being able to stay in Woodburn for much longer, but we had a set of meetings this week where president Dyches got some counsel from good ol' Tommy Monson that missionaries should be staying in their areas for at least 6 months or more. It also turns out that L. Tom Perry said that they should stay for half their mission! I hope I'm here for six months more then haha.
Okay, on the subject of those meetings, they totally killed our work this week! We had leadership meeting for the new 8 points that they're focusing on to train missionaries to be better at helping people really be converted. It's a rad program, it's just annoying that we were in meetings Tuesday through Friday from 9 in the morning 'til 4 in the afternoon, not to mention the 45min-hour drive that we had to take to get there. This means that I was leaving my son (Rivera) with english elders all week, and our work totally went down the toilet for four days. We still did all right, but man I HATE feeling worthless! I'm going to try to remember what the eight new points are so you guys can know what I'm talking about. The first is the doctrine of Christ which centers around love. The second is understanding the role of the Holy Ghost in Conversion. The third is revelation through prayer. The Fourth is revelation through reading the Book of Mormon. The fifth is revelation through church attendance. The sixth is making and keeping commitments. The seventh is something I can't remember, and the eighth is beginning to teach. Whew! That was a lot of training and practice with those eight!
Anyways, now we're trying to take a doctor's approach to these steps like they do in surgery, which is see one, do one, teach one haha. After seeing an example, we try it, then we are supposed to teach our companions so they can do it too... we'll see how it all goes I guess this coming week. Rivera seems to be catching on pretty well.
So aside from that, about the only excitement we have is that Felipe came to church for the first time, and he liked it... two more times and he's jumping in that font! Woohoo!
Other than that, I've felt a little bit bummed out this week because we've been freaking ineffective missionaries with so much time wasted in meetings, so I was feeling down in the dumps, but Sunday night, we went out to visit a few referrals, and none of them were home, so I was a little frustrated, and we decided to knock a few doors. The first door we knocked, we ran into a man named Onorato... I'm not sure if I spelled his name right, but he's sweet! He's super humble ,and he's a really really prepared guy... he's even best friends with one of the members we're prepping to enter the temple!.... PLOP! Sometimes when you're feeling bogged down, if you just keep hustling, the Lord will throw you a bone so you can be a little bit happier with what's going on. Hooray for missionary work!

Okay, I'm gonna get outta here cause I've got other stuff to do, but I hope you guys have a great week and that you know that I miss and love you.

Love,