Elder Christopher Osborn's Mission Blog: 08/18/2014

P-lok is on fire!

I just want to make a list of all of the miracles that God did here this week! But that's the format I used last week, so I'll do something else.

This week Elder Baldwin and I tried a new idea, the concept of asking everyone for referrals. We thought that we had always asked for referrals in an effective way before. But we changed something. We followed up on our invitations. Before I would ask, "Do you know anyone who might be interested to go to church too? .... Okay, you can bring them with you tomorrow."

Now it sounds something like this, "Do you know anyone who is interested in _____? .... Well, can we have their phone number so we can call and invite them to go?"

Something changed in the work, we not only just asked for referrals to be obedient, but we expected to get something out of it too!

Here's what happened! Normally, we set a goal for 2 contacted referrals, and we get maybe 1 a week - a new investigator brings their brother or sister or a friend to a lesson. But this week, we changed just a tiny little thing. And we got 11 contacted referrals. And 12 new investigators. Which I have never seen before!! It was so cool!

People bringing friends and people who themselves didn't go giving us numbers of people who were very interested! It was so cool! We have a couple appointments set up with Christian families to share a "special message"! Normally the Christians are not very accepting at all. We got 8 people for sacrament meeting! 4 of whom were those referrals. I feel like we didn't do anything special, we just followed what His servants have told us to do and we were blessed with miracles because of it.

One was especially cool. We are teaching a wonderful woman at a restaurant we love to eat at. One evening we asked a family who was eating there if they knew anyone who was interested to go to church. The mother gave us the number of her son. When we met with him he told us that he had read a little bit out of the Book of Mormon that the restaurant owner has. He felt like it was more than just a normal book, but that it told him what to do and how to improve. He came to church yesterday and now has a baptismal date.

Look how cool that is! Just do what you're told and God gives you miracles!

As for other stuff, we tried going contacting at a college outside of town. We went all the way out there just to find out the term hasn't started yet and to find a bunch of freshmen busy doing orientation. ughhhhh. So we biked back, contacted a referral and had some delicious smoothies. And I got sunburned. That place was out in the middle of nowhere! I took a video that's way cool because halfway through it I get hit in the face by a butterfly! It was so fun!

So as a whole we had a lot of fun!

A crazy week that was really busy! So successful! พิษณุโลก is on fire right now! The other Elders are doing amazing too. As of today, the new standard of excellence for the mission is two baptisms for the month of August. So exciting! "Thank you for keeping up with the Lord's pace in hastening His work." - President Senior

I love this work more than anything. It is a refiners fire. I had an investigator ask me what I was like before I was a missionary. I told her that she wouldn't recognize me. The fire hurts, as fire always does. But the cool thing is that you change.

Mom, you'd be proud; every morning I am that one Elder who makes his bed and has an organized desk. haha

I don't like to say I'm better but I can honestly say that the mission has perfected me. I still have A LOT to work on, but I can tell I'm better. Every day better. That's one of the cool parts of serving a mission; you don't just help others, you also help yourself. No wonder every RM traces all of their success back to their mission. Cause a mission has a beautiful effect on the human soul. But first you just have to give your will to Him.

Okay, I'm done.

Email ya next week!

Elder Osborn

And some pictures!