I Can't Think of a Good Subject Line

So, this week was pretttttyyyyy slow. Never a good thing as a missionary. When I got here to Lowell, I realized that the missionaries previous to me had been teaching 3 or 4 people for roughly 7 months. They had never been to church and were not progressing at all, so I talked to Elder Ang about it and we have dropped basically everyone that had been worked with. Which means we are at that point that is tough, where we spend most of our time finding people. However, contrary to popular belief, when missionaries go "finding" there aren't usually a lot of people found. I love the quote that says "everyone who is familiar with this work (missionary work) knows there is a better way" (talking about other than tracting). Lots of people have it in their minds that missionary work is walking around talking to people, and tracting for 11 hours every day. No. When Elder Zwick came to talk to us, he told us that 80% of all missionaries' finding should be done through the members. In other words, members need to keep their eyes open for opportunities to share the gospel with others, then invite them to learn from the missionaries. That is when things start to happen a lot faster. There is a man out here by the name of Clayton Christensen. He is a business professor at Harvard Business School, who used to be an area 70, and was recently named by Forbes magazine, the #1 business consultant in the country. He is also known around here as the best member missionary who ever lived. He once did a study and said that of every 10 people who are invited by members to meet with the missionaries, 5 of them accept, and of those 5, 1 is baptized. Wow. That would make our job a lot easier. So, one of the things that we are also trying to do is to start working more with them members. That is something that I know brings success to an area. We were really focusing on that in Lynn, and right when I left, things were starting to pick up, so now I know that we need to do that here too.

So yeah, not a lot happened this week. I don't know if you heard about the tornados or not, but yes, there were some tornados in massachusetts last week. It was pretty sick. One evening, we were visiting a family, and the sky was very oddly colored. It was greenish-yellow and very bright. It was pretty cool. Then after it got dark, there was a TON of lightning going on. It was amazing to watch. I got a pretty cool video on my camera. Probably the coolest lightning storm I've ever seen. And that is when the tornados happened too. but, they were clear out in western mass, not anywhere close to here, so unfortunately I can't say I lived through a tornado. darn. haha.

There is some good news for this week however. Remember when I talked about Rose and her family that I was working with in Lynn? Yeah, They got baptized yesterday! The Elders in Lynn called me and told me about it. I am SO happy for them. I love all of the joy and happiness that comes when people learn of and accept the gospel into their lives. It truly is unlike anything I've ever experienced. I love the gospel.

Ok well, I guess I should wrap up since I don't have much else to say. Hopefully this week will be better than last. We are going candlepin bowling as a zone today so I'm stoked for that. I love candlepin. It's so fun! Ok I'm out. Have a GREAT week! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Hammer


P.S. Oh yeah, and I translated sacrament meeting yesterday for the first time! It was pretty cool. Elder Ang is obviously fluent in Khmer, and he is fluent in english too, but he has a hard time translating from english to Khmer, so I tried and it turned out alright. cool, huh? I thought so. And, also, I told Elder Ang he could marry Kasey so he can be my brother in law and he said ok after I showed him her picture. haha. So you gotta wait about 19 more months to meet him Kasey! :)