July 25th, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

(Once again, a note to my missionary friends. As Technology
Specialists, our Preparation Day is Monday for transfer week. So no
worries, I am not being disobedient by emailing today.)

Last week, we had a zone activity at Highbanks Metro Park, it is the
same place as our summer mission activity last year. We split up into
two teams and had a couple of different competitive activities. We had
a photo scavenger hunt challenge where we had six photos to take where
everyone had to be in the photo. Our team would have won, but our
leader misread the instruction sheet and so we only had completed five
of the six. The next activity was a relay race with several different
parts. In the first leg, a companionship needed to work together to
thread a needle, one companion held the thread while the other
companion held the needle. The next part, one companion had to carry
their companion on their back for a distance. Third, two
companionships carried a water bottle between them using only their
faces to carry it. Last, someone would wrap their companion in toilet
paper completely then the "mummy" had to run without ripping the
wrapping. The final activity we had was a jump rope challenge where
each team had to see how many people they could get to jump rope in
the same rope at the same time.

Elder Low and I were able to have a lesson with Aaron this week.
Usually Shirley is the one that is more engaged in the conversation,
but this time it was just Aaron, so we were able to focus more on his
needs. I feel like the lesson went really well and were able to relate
to him. He has an interest in cars and talked about how he really did
not like Ford, but after driving one for the past few years he has
grown to love it. We compared this to the gospel and invited him to
"test drive" the gospel and give it a chance to see if it is good.

We were stopped by an Officer while tracting on Tuesday. This is a
first for me. He was really nice and we talked about how the police
dog he had in the car was getting cranky lately. He ran our licenses
and let us go back to tracting. I am glad the police are mostly on our
side and don't really impede the work. He just had to do his job and
respond to the complaint that was called in.

In District Meeting, I learned that I need to help investigators
recognize how they feel after a lesson. It is important to help them
see the contrast between the spirit being in their life and not in
their life. This is something I feel I can work on more. I am usually
more focused on following up and teaching that I forget to assist them
in the self-guided discovery process.

We had another lesson with Bill this week. We kept the lesson simple
and focused on how we can make prayer more meaningful and how he can
become more comfortable praying with others. Elder Low did a great job
sharing his personal experience with prayer and worked well to show
Bill how he can overcome his fears.

We were able to meet with Brother and Sister Sargent who are in our
Ward boundaries, but work with the YSA Wards. Our visit enabled us to
build some trust with them and we found some ways we can help some
members that they knew. They had a lot of insights as to how we can
help these individuals that we have had little success with in the
past. I am optimistic to see if we can help these individuals find
friendship and grow their faith as we reach out to them.

This week was the last Sunday for our ward mission leader before he
moves. He has been a great help to us and we are sad to see him leave.
He wasn't released, and a new ward mission leader wasn't called, so
hopefully the bishop is planning to call a new one soon.

Have a great week everyone!

--
Elder Aaron King
Ohio Columbus Mission