week 33

I'm doing pretty great this morning.  Skyping you helped me have a ton of excitement for the work.  Also I really appreciate the advice that you all gave me.  And it was cool to see you guys put the following up thing in practice with me.  Sooo, just so you know, after talking with you I made sure to go ahead and write in my journal since you guys asked me about that.  I also took a ton of head shot pictures this morning to send you for the plaque.  But the the folder wouldn't open in the computer, so I'm going to try to send the fotos next week.  Also, tell the beehives, that I really appreciated getting the letter.  It was pretty fun, opening the letter and seeing some names that I do know and some names that I don't.  Anyway, things are going pretty great.  As always thanks for your support, and your prayers, and your love.  I have an amazing group of family and friends.  Love you all.

-Alyssa

Well, I'm definately feeling really high on animo after last night.  It was something fun to talk to our families, and I feel really energiezed now.  I gotta say, I'm really grateful that you gave us 40 minutes.  Because I know that if you gave us more time, I would take that time, but 40 minutes is a great not to long not to short sort of amount.  Anyway I do want to be more dedicated to the mission and to really giving all my heart, might, mind, and strength to this thing.  And that requires being humble.  A huge example of this is that I still tend to avoid doing practices in the morning during comp study.  And this morning during a practice I realized that its because I don't like feeling weak, and during practices I almost always feel weak because I see all the things that I don't do well.  But I was thinking about how you told me that pride inhibits progress and I realized that I want to be humble enough to learn, and practice, and progress, and be a missionary.  So I made sure to write this goal down, and I'm going to make sure I keep working on it.  Thanks for being such a great sounding board, and for giving me such awesome advice during the interview.  I really appreciate it.  Also pretty great, is that my parents and little sister were able to give me really good advice last night.  I told them about its still really hard for me to do follow up on commitments and the advice they gave me and the way to gave it helped me to see just how necesary it is to do the follow up, and they helped me get over alot of my fears about follow up.

Para Bautizar Más:  In order to baptize more, I definately want to start following up more.  With Daniel y Antonela when we asked them every night if they were reading they read up until 1 Ne 15, but when we stopped asking them, they stopped reading.  My Dad told me that it helps alot when we tell them right from the beginning that we're going to do the follow up, so that then its really natural and normal to follow up, because they're already expecting it.  Also we're working toward finding and teaching lots of new investigators this next week.

Para Retener y Reactivar Más:  In consejo de barrio, our bishop talked to us about the hastening the work initiative.  And alot of the talk was focused on what do we teach menos activos, and everyone talked about how important it is that we treat them like investigators; meaning that we teach them the missionary lessons, and that they have their own registros.  Its something that makes alot of sense and you've already talked to us about that, but it helps to have multiple people say something so that it sticks.  So I'm also rededicating myself to treating menos actives like investigators.  As far as retaining goes the biggest name that we need to work with is Cristina.  She was baptized last month, but she didn't come the last two Sundays to church and we're both wanting to retain her so she stays firm.  So our biggest goal for her is making sure that there are members in every cita that we have to teach her.  It was interesting because this Sunday her neighbors, Elvira y Celeste, came to church but she didn't and they were both concerned that she wasn't there.  What's happening with Elvira is pretty awesome, because she was inactive but she's reactivating herself in order to fellowship Cristina.