I feel like Butterfly had a good week this week. The sisters are doing great, especially. Elder Falk and I had quite a few disappointments, but despite them the week still ended very well. Here are some of the sadnesses of the week first, and then I will describe the good stuff.
We met a lot of people on the street at the beginning of the week. We rescheduled three of them who all seemed to be pretty solid. On of those three actually called us himself and asked to meet. But we had all three scheduled for Saturday at various times, and they all fonged (didn't show up).
The other event that happened on Saturday was our first real lesson with two investigators, a mother and her 9 year old son. They had already come to church. As I said last week, the mom had no real interest but our hypothesis that she wanted her son to explore our church was confirmed in our lesson when we asked why she came to church, and she answered so that her son could see how it is. Her son is 9, and he was great. He liked church, and when we taught them yesterday he was very responsive. Mom on the other hand wouldn't participate when we asked her to read things. When we asked her questions she just answered in a yes/no format. But her son was great. He really understood what we taught. We only taught a very basic lesson, but he grasped onto it. He has great potential. Sadly, his mother has no interest. But still, the lesson was great. We had a Sister from the ward and her 9 year old son come to fellowship. It seemed like a perfect situation to us. Anyway, near the end of the lesson, the sister from church asks the mom if she could come to church tomorrow. She answered very abruptly, no. Then, the sister was being nice and said:" Oh that's okay next time, next Sunday." The mom said: Not necessarily. Then we asked why. She said because she doesn't believe these things, and she's not coming back. Then she said to her son: Walk, boy. Then they left. Her son said goodbye to us. It was a real heart breaking moment.
I personally feel like this experience softened me. I felt a little sad, but in the end I had a feeling of humility and acceptance come over me. I think it was important for me to have that. Elder Falk and I have been focusing a lot on how to get baptisms lately, but in that I have not paid as much attention to Christlike Attributes, mainly love and charity. I realize now I can have as much fire in missionary work as I want, but if I don't have charity it's all for naught. And I do believe this type of charity will bring about more "success" than anything else will.
Now on to the bright side. Our new ward correlation member is on fire. He has called us multiple times already, and he is so anxious to help us. Our first correlation meeting was a great success. He got all the ward missionaries together and all contributed in the meeting. He invited us to start attending Priesthood Meetings. I feel that he has a lot of trust in us, and I definitely trust him. There are good things to come from that. This year is going to be a remarkable year for Butterfly.
At Church we received a referral from the Young Men. He is a nice guy, and has a bit of interest. We taught him, and it wasn't as if we were blown off our feet by his preparedness, but I think there is good opportunity there. A Mandarin woman whom we invited came to church also. She is an interesting person, but she hit it off with a less active who helped fellowship her in a lesson the sisters taught after church. It was a good week, all in all.
Love you all!
Elder Phillips
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