Samuel's Mission e-mail April 7, 2008

Everyone:
Well, I am indeed in a different area, now. I'm in the Downey 1st Ward, which is part of the eastern edge of our mission (which means it's a whole 20 miles from the beach). And guess who my new companion is? Elder Chadwick! Not only that, but I'm here replacing Elder Zemp, so there's a lot of familiar missionary names around here.
Let's see... Tuesday last week was my last day in Windsor Hills, and we didn't do anything too out of the ordinary. Wednesday I came down to Downey to find that Elder Chadwick was moving, too (they switched him from a different apartment to the one we're in now, even though he's still in the same area.), so it took us a while to get situated. On Thursday, we had our normal planning time, we tracted, and we worked on contacting some of the large list of less-active members in the area.
On Friday, we had our Zone Meeting, we tracted a bit and continued our less-active work. On Saturday we attended all the sessions of Conference and tracted a bit in between. Sunday was similar--we went to Conference, we tracted, and we contacted another less-active member.
Today we had our Beach Preparation Day, so we went over to the beach with our zone and played some beach volleyball and such. We also are helping out some of the elders on bikes in our district by taking them up to the mission home to pick up a bike for Elder Otis, who was transferred to the area at the same time as I was transferred to my area.
Well, I really enjoyed Conference this weekend. I think everyone who was in the Priesthood Session will remember President Monson's ear wiggle (Elder Chadwick is still trying to figure out how to wiggle his ears). In seriousness, though, I was noting how several of the talks were dealing with missionary work or with refuting false ideas of doctrine. I think that we have just seen the beginning of what needs to be done in terms of missionary work, and the carrying forth of this work will need not only the increased effort and worthiness of the missionaries but also the members. I was actually estimating from the numbers given at Conference how many non-members there are for every missionary. My estimate was that there are 115,000 non-members in the world for every missionary in the world, or 230,000 for each companionship (very roughly speaking). If we add in the members, though, it would be more like... let's see... around 1,000 non-members per active member or so. So yes, we all need to do our part. And our missionary meetings have been emphasizing recently how part of our calling as missionaries is to help the members know how to do their part. So ask your missionaries about that! I'm sure they'll appreciate the interest.
Elder Samuel Stephens
The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane. The only victory is the victory at the summit of Calvary. Welcome to the journey of the Disciples of Christ.
--Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

(Note: Elder Chadwick is the son of a family that used to go to our ward. His family moved to the Louisville area before we moved to Madison, but they visit pretty frequently. He also lived in the same dorm as Sam at BYU, one floor down. -- Newel)