Jared Howell Mission

Hey Everyone, This has been a really great week, a blur, but a great week regardless. We had a great District Council on Tuesday followed by me going up to CYSA for exchanges with Elder Musonda. He is so awesome, he just has a way with people that is an absolute pleasure to watch. We had a lesson with a relatively new member, he was baptized when Elder Graff was here, while we were still in training, so I had heard about him all the time from Elder Graff, so it was awesome to finally meet him. The evening was interesting though, because it was really when our two styles clashed. He really likes just picking an apartment complex and knocking every door, floor after floor, until we have to go home for the night. I've never liked that, I've always found it monotonous and inefficient, and ever since my exchange with Elder Palmer back in April, I haven't done that because he taught me a different way of working. He taught me that if you're just picking a spot and saying ...

Hey all, This has been a long week full of walking and talking to people, let's start with Wednesday. Wednesday was by far our longest day of walking, we met the Sisters at the Library so we could talk about the Zone Blitz that's happening on November 3rd. I don't know if I've mentioned the blitz at all yet, so the background is that President Mutumbo was watching conference, as he should've been doing, and he received revelation to start doing something called Zone Blitz's. Pretty much what that is is you take every missionary in the Zone, all 9 companionships for Colombia, and they get together and work a single ward for an entire Saturday, focused on finding and Less Active work. They want the ward as involved as possible as well to work alongside the missionaries. So naturally, they chose Savage Mill as the first area to get blitzed, so the Sisters and us have been trying to work out any bugs before we get to the day of so that it runs as smoothly as...

Hey Everyone, It's been a long week of finding and not a whole lot else, but I'll try and give you some of the highlights. Monday night we drove out to Clarksville so Elder Mitchell could do a Baptismal interview for the Clarksville Sisters' investigator.  Tuesday we had exchanges so I brought Elder Mendez down to Savage for the day. With this being his second transfer, he's still getting used to missionary work, but he has a much better handle on it than I did when I was in training. We stopped by a potentials house and, unlike what normally happens, they let us right in. We sat down in their kitchen with them and started getting to know them better. It was a really good conversation, but in terms of teaching, it really was quite sad. It wasn't sad because they were rude or threw away everything we said, they were very nice and listened attentively when we explained why we believed certain things. They also shared many common beliefs with us such as con...

Hey everyone, This week blazed by, and yet the beginning feels like it was months ago. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday. It was all about the Gathering of Israel and our foreordained role in it. Just some really awesome stuff, I learned a lot. Thursday we were planning, when the Zone Leaders called and said that we were going to go on exchanges that day. So after weekly planning, they dropped Elder Kennedy off down here with me while Elder Nelson whisked Elder Mitchell away to Ellicott City. Elder Kennedy came out with me, and he actually served in Savage Mill a year ago, so it was fun for him to see how the area has changed, or stayed the same. He's super fun and we got along great, we found a couple of interesting people, including one who was slightly frustrating for us. We started talking to him and he kept asking questions that could all be answered by reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. We introduced it to him and he took one and kept asking the questi...

Hey all, This has been a great week! Elder Teske and I got a ride from Brother Tobey to transfers and we picked up Elder Mitchell. He and I spent a couple of hours getting organized then we went out and started walking. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we walked at least 6 miles each day. But it's been good. My foot's been feeling much better, and we've met some great people.  On Saturday, we had Zone Leadership Council, with the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, Assistants, as well as Elder Lewis and his companion. It was a bit different this transfer because Elder Mitchell is the District Leader, not me, so I was simply there as an extra hand. We talked a lot about what President talked about the day before in the Mission Leadership Conference, which is just the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders, as well as President and the Assistants. Then we planned a bit about where we want the Zone to go this transfer, what we can improve on, and how we can use ou...