Got to go to the temple!

Wednesday: Transfer day! It was nice not having to do any moving or exchanging companions and what not. Former Elder Rangel was coming through on his way to BYUI, so I had lunch with him at Cafe Rio. That was really fun talking to him and catching up. I also started the mission program called, "My Plan". It is the church's way of getting you trunky. Just talks about how your mission is basically over and you need to prepare to go home. Thanks President Monson..... Haha. We actually had an appointment that didn't fall through! That was good to actually teach someone who is willing to meet.

Thursday: We had district meeting. I learned that Hack got transferred down here, and he is in my district. It was our dream to be companions with each other before I went home. We got really close, we are bordering areas! Being New Years Eve, we were going to have to be shut in from 6-9pm, but during 1-5 the Zone Leaders asked to get the keys from us so that they could set some things up. When we got there at 6, they lost our keys. So everyone was standing out in the cold waiting to get in the building. Took us 20 min to get keys from the bishop to get us in. Wow, good job Zone Leaders! Haha

Friday: So now that we are getting used to having our appointments cancel on us, we a learning, and developing new traits. We are basically not setting up appointments anymore. Rather, we just go over and try to teach a lesson. Therefore not giving them option to bail. We did that today and we got some good lessons. We met with Anna, who is lady in her 30s, she is so prepared, she readily accepted everything that we taught. She has never met with the missionaries before, but she felt the truthfulness of the 1st vision and all. Her only concern really is that she works on Sunday, so she can't get out to church. We are going to talk about that the next time that we go over there though. I think we can convince her to ask for those days off.

Saturday: We went to the temple with Nancy! That was really awesome! Despite it being Saturday Morning, it wasn't busy at all! Someone at the temple had us do their family names for them.

After the Temple we went to golden carrel to celebrate. Then back to work!

Sunday: We had Brandon's Dad get ordained to the office of an elder, so he can now Baptize and confirm Brandon! So that is good news, that baptism should happen in a couple of weeks. No other investigators came to church though :/ Dang agency!

Monday: Anytime before 4:00 is a difficult time to talk to people. Why do people have to work?? Why don't they all just read the scriptures all day and pray for guidance so we can knock at their door and give them that guidance! ;) So we walked a lot, knocked a lot of empty doors. Once it got to 4, we had a lesson with Dylan, our recent convert, did the knife and cups trick, teaching Church, Prayer, and Reading. We ate at the Ogden Pizzeria with a family. Then tried to get a hold of some of our investigators during the night. Zone Leaders finally found our keys, they wouldn't tell us where they found them, but they looked like they got ran over a few times.

Love,
Elder Wrathall

I thought this was pretty interesting what he sent his former companion. Sounds like he has really learned to teach children.

Elder Florschutz whitewashed trained into family stake, so this is what I sent him.

Teaching Kiddies 101

1. Always focus most on baptismal interview questions. ( You can't expect kids to remember everything that you taught them, but you are helping them receive the next ordinance, and the BIQ's are what they need to know for being baptized.)

1. Simple, straight forward explanations. (Then you can expound, after expounding though ask them, "What is _______?" Kids don't get offended if they don't know the answer, and the parents usually help them which is good! Gets the parents involved! But be sure to use the next step. However, if they don't know, just go back to the simple straight forward answer, then ask them again."

 Ex: "Tithing is you give 10% to God. [Then Expound....] What is Tithing?" *Silence* "Okay, so tithing is you give 10% to God. What is tithing?" "You give 10% to God!"

1. Redundancy is key. (Kids don't care if you ask the same question 4 times in a row, just repeat until they understand. At the beginning of each lesson review with them the Baptismal Interview Questions that you went over last time in the material or even better is reviewing every BIQ you have been over thus far."

Ex: "Who is Thomas S. Monson?" "The Prophet alive today!" "Good job! Again, who is Thomas S. Monson?" "The Prophet alive today!"

1. Teach with parables or simple object lessons, and make it as interactive as possible. Here are three examples that I like to use.

• Prophet: First, tell the kid to hold his hand in a fist, tell him that his fist is himself. Then hold your fist directly over his fist, explain to him that your fist is God.  Tell him to follow God. Then move your fist sideways, up down, wherever, ect. Tell him good job! Ask him "Wait? Can you see God?" "No" "Of course not, so close your eyes, now follow God." He fails, they actually usually try to cheat and peak through their eyes. Haha. Tell him that a prophet helps us. Take out a pen and put the pen in your fist and his, tell him to close his eyes and now follow God, the prophet makes it possible!
• Priesthood: "What's your favorite car?" "A Lambodini!!!!!!" "Okay, you're in your 'Lambodini' and you are going fast... A little to fast, and an ice cream man pulls you over, you are like, 'What is this guy doing?' And he gives you a ticket! Are you going to pay that ticket???!!!" "No!" "Yeah, I wouldn't either, what if a police officer gave you a ticket?" 
• When teaching the plan of salvation, have them draw the diagram with you.