What up, what up?
How ya'll doin? sounds like you had a fun trip to good ole Utah. I hope the turkey was tasty. Elder Graham and I had some turkey too. We actually went over to this nice old ladies home and ate with her family. She's 83, so she's getting up there. There was turkey, the ham, the potatoes- the works. The cool thing was, we brought our investigator Houston, he's an older guy, I think he's in his 70's, but he looks and acts like he's closer to 50. His family actually live in Utah, so he didn't have anyone to celebrate trukey day with, so I was glad Sister Colewell said it was cool if we brought him along. He really seemed to enjoy it, and said that the discussion answered some of his questions. Houston is legit. Or as Elder Graham would say with his jamaican accent- YouStin!
Elder Graham cracks me up. His accent is cool. "You think she enjoyed our me-tin (meeting)"?" or, every morning he'll ask me, "Did you have nice rest?" I guess in Jamacia they don't use the word sleep, they just say rest. He pronounces my name more like Ell-la labarin. I think the L in Elder and in LeBaron just throws him off and his tongue gets confused. He has taught me some Jamacian though.
"Wha a gwan my yute? " Which means, "whats going on, my yute?" yute is like bro or dude in jamacia. He's cool. He's too charitable. He's like the nicest man I've ever met. He does my diches for me before I can even finish eating, or he'll make my bed, and he gave me like 5 tie's already. I learned not to compliment his ties, because if you tell him he's wearing a nice tie you'll find it hanging in your closet the next day. Elder Graham is legit.
To sum up the week, we baptized Rochelle Saturday. Yeah Buddy! and I confirmed her in church yesterday. She's awesome, and the Little Rock ward is awesome, I'm so happy I'm in a ward that is functioning properly and knows how to coordinate with the full time missionaries. Rochelle already has hometeachers, and tons of fellowshippers, a permanent ride to church. She's set in stone. Sister Lewis took her to a relief society activity. It's the best transition I've ever seen with any of my recent converts. It's so good. She makes a wonderful addition to the ward, lol. She's a big woman, and she's way loud, and loves to talk, and sing, and she's just so alive. I love her.
We're coming up to the close of the month of November. Our Zone is sitting on 9 baptisms 8 confirmations right now... which is an improvement, but it's bitter sweet. Like my good friend Dustin Taylor always used to say, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand granades. We got closer to hitting our goal this month, but we still didn't hit it. I was dissappointed. Not discouraged, just disappointed. This Zone has so many stud missionaries, and yet only 4 companionships baptized in our zone. thats 33% of the missionaries. Which President said is actually a common statistic for every mission, 33% of the missionaries get like 90% of the baptisms. Our goal is to get everyone baptizing. We have 12 companionships, so our goal was 12, and we're gonna keep it at 12 for December as well. We want every missionary to realize this is a team effort, all for 1 and 1 for all. It's great that some missionaries are baptizing, but if every missionary isn't baptizing then we're not working at our full potential. I've come to realize that one of my biggest weaknesses as a Zone Leader is critisizing. If I see a problem with a companionship or District, I point it out and tell them to fix it... We have Conference Calls every Monday morning where we talk to the District Leaders about how the mission and more specifically the Zone is doing, and I look at the numbers and want to just call people to repentance and tell them to grow a pair and go get it done, I see that even some of the District Leaders are turning in numbers that are less than praise worthy, and I wanna call them out, but I'm thankful Elder Graham keeps me in line. It's all about being a Shepherd and not a Sheep Herder. When you push people, there's gonna be resistance, when you lead people, they just follow. I'm learning a lot this transfer. I just feel like leading takes so much longer than pushing, when are they gonna start following? I need some more patience.
Thanksgiving was great though. I love southern cookin', When I come home Christmas Day 2012, I want to have some Sweet Potatoe Pie, Fried Ocra, Biscuits fresh out the oven, Greens, Deep Fried Cat-fish, Hush Puppies, and then pour gravy all over it. With a big glass of red kool-aid, Idk if the kool-aid is southern or just ghetto. Then dad will have to learn how to do some Memphis Style BBQin'. cuz that's where it's at. With some Corky's BBQ Sauce.
So my official humpday of the mish is in 17 days. That means I get to burn a shirt. To inform ya'll, my camera is kinda jacked up. I'm not sure how it got that way, but ne way, I was talkin to Elder Carson this morning on the phone, and I mentioned my jacked up camera, and he told me he found a camera on the side of the street, that works perfectly. It even comes with a case. So he said I can have it as a Christmas present, so I'll take some pictures of the Holidays and me lighting a shirt on fire for you guys. Speaking of things that are broken, my bike is in bad shape, but we found out there's a guy in the ward that's way good with bikes and he's gonna take a look at mine. I can still ride it, the brakes are just broken, lol. When I was with Elder Kowalk, I would just stick my shoe on the top of the back tire to slow it down, it works pretty effectively. But I should be getting that all fixed up here pretty soon, so no worries.
Two of our investigators are getting married on the 11th of Dec, and then we'll have their baptism on the 17th, so that's exciting. They are super solid. Hopefully we'll be able to get Houston baptized this month, he has a super strong testimony, and tells us he's received countless witnesses from the holy spirit that the LDS church is true, but he say's he doesn't want to get baptized yet. He feels the Lord wants him to wait and learn more first, which is okay, it's a longer process for some people, I just hope it happens next month.
I love you all. I appreciate your emails. Keep it real. Hang Loose. Have a nice week. Spread some Holiday Cheer.
Elder LeBaron
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