Snow!!!

Dear family,

I never thought I would see it, but this weekend it snowed in Gilroy. It was the first time in fifteen years. For many members of the Gavilan branch it was the first snow storm of their lives. We were at a primary carnival on Saturday when it hit. When the announcement came, everyone immediately ran outside to snap photos. It wasn't really real snow. It was more like a cross between hail and snow. It didn't even stick. Still, I put it in my journal. It was snowing even harder when we drove to Hollister to see a baptism.

We have been having a great time. A lot of our personal area work is centered again on finding. We had a decent amount of investigators, but none were really willing to attend church. We are looking for those that are ready to go to church. It is such a huge step for investigators to attend church. It really requires them to excercise their own agency.

Everything else has been wonderful. Our zone is on fire. The mission is set to make March one of the best months in history. Our zone is set to baptize a lot in the upcoming month. We are very pleased. So much of our focus is on helping the other missionaries increase their ability to baptize. To give you a typical idea of what happens I will run you through a Sunday night. Sunday night is a reporting night so it is crazy.

On Sunday night, we arrive home at 8:30 to get prepped for numbers. We receive the numbers from our three district leaders. Much of this time is spent focussing on the names of the people that will be baptized. This is important. These are people not numbers. We must always remember that they are our brothers and sisters. We then report these number to the assistants. By the times we get all of the numbers from all of the companionships, it is almost ten o'clock. We report our number and upcoming baptisms to the assistants. The following morning we conference call with all of our district leaders to talk about the needs of their districts and set a new goal for the upcoming week. This happens after each district leader has conduted a district conference call with all of his district members. Sunday night, in preparation for the conference Elder Cornaby and I spend a good chunk analyzing the numbers and looking at the needs of our zone. We begin to decide what we want to accomplish with our zone goal. Lately, we have been using simple, yet specific goals to teach missionaries how to improve. This last week, every companionship achieved the zone goal. This was an immense success. Their is something behind the psychology of an achievable goal. It really helps the zone to be united. All of a sudden, the missionaries become more concentrated on missionary work than the other little distractions: home, girlfriends, school, and sho knows what. Amazing things are happening. We love getting calls from the missionaries in our zone telling us about the miracles they are seeing daily.

Love,

Elder Badger