Setting Goals

Olà Tudo Bem!

I hope everything is great at home. Like always it was another hot and sunny week in paradise. 

As a mission we have been working really hard at setting goals. This whole transfer all the training has been about setting better goals. President talks a lot in his letters he writes to us about the power of setting goals. We have been working recently about how we can set inspired goals for the key indicators and also how we use smaller goals to reach those bigger ones. I don't know if I already told this story but when I first got here I was really scared of talking to people in the street. The idea of walking up to a stranger and trying to ''talk'' to them in a foreign language that I didn't even know that well wasn't that appealing but as missionaries our purpose is to help people come closer to Christ and we do that by opening our mouths. So I set a small goal with my companion Elder Thompson that I was going to try to talk to 15 people everyday. That was really hard at first but after the first week I had done 75 contacts. I felt really good; I could actually see my progress. So the next week I set a goal to do 25 contacts a day. I tried really hard to meet that goal. It was really awkward sometimes because I didn't know what to say or what others were saying but I knew that if I tried I was doing my part. By the end of the week I had done 150 contacts. I still need to improve how I do the contacts in the street but now talking to people is less scary and now I am fulfilling my purpose as a missionary and opening my mouth.

This week we had a hard time finding new people to teach. The people we had been teaching had started to run into more and more problems and were showing less real intent. We were out on a division with the Branch President Rui. We were going to visit an amiga whose baptism is next week but she wasn't home and she wasn't answering her phone. So we started taking him back to his house. He asked us what he could do to help us and we told him that we need more references from the members. He whipped out his phone and started calling his friends. He made three appointments for us and then he told us to park the car, so we got out and walked into a barber shop and he asked the barber if she could meet with us (he is friends with her), and she said yes. Then we ran into another one of his friends on the street and he set up another appointment with her. That was more efficient than doing missionary work on our own for 3 days. Later that week he went out with us when he wasn't planning on it previously.  We visited a couple members and amigos for 3 hours with him. Rui is basically the third missionary we have in Quarteira. When we work with members we use the Lord's time more efficiently. 

The Book is blue the church is true. Until next week.

  

Beijinhos,

Elder Fogg