Letter from December 3, 2012

Well it's December and we are still enjoying temperatures in the 70's here in Las Vegas. It is beginning to feel a bit like Christmas but I don't know if I'll ever be able to get over the desert views and turf yards. It helps that my companion and I have had multiple service opportunities this past week of helping investigators and members set up their Christmas decorations. I just love driving by and looking at all the Christmas lights at night. This week is going to be a blast with the nativity taking place Wednesday through Saturday. I've heard a lot of stories from members and even nonmembers about how good the production the church puts on is. We also set up the Christmas tree in our apartment and decorated it with homemade and store bought decorations we received in the mail as we listened to Christmas music and drank hot chocolate.... which all was a little strange doing with four guys in an apartment, but never the less made us all feel at home.

  

   Probably the most exciting part of the week was teaching a new investigator we received this last Sunday. She had called a family in our ward and asked if she could learn more about our church since she didn't feel that she was getting fed enough religious information from her current church. She was a very sweet lady and I think that the lesson went very well. We were happy to see her at church on Sunday and I have a strong feeling that she will become a active member before long. Time is the biggest set back in our work right now with many of our investigators ready or near ready but just need a bit more time to make things work with their schedules. It's hard when as missionaries we are ready to meet anytime of day any day of the week but many of our investigators cancel appointments or keep pushing the lessons back. I know that near all of our investigators are going to get baptized but I'll likely have to come back to visit to see their baptisms.

 

   I have mixed feelings about the possibility of me getting transferred this next week. While I'd love getting to meet new people in a new area of Las Vegas I'm also going to really miss all of our current investigators. It's going to be hard to get moved right before Christmas to a ward where I would barely know the members, but I'll be excited either way. To answer your questions on how I'm handling rejections and speaking to strangers, well it's not to bad really. Since we are over two wards and most our area is gated we really don't get to do very much tracting. We work more with the members and asking for referrals which has been way more successful. I find that most people we visit are fairly kind to us and we really haven't had to many bad encounters. We have begun tracting more now to invite people to the nativity but for the most part people are polite to us when we come to their door.

 

   Well I hope you all have a good week and if you need any help with Christmas decorations, yard work, or anything else around the house feel free to call some missionaries. Just go to Mormon.org and I promise that they'd love to come and help. I love you all and wish you the best!

Elder Keller Reeves