Book Keeping…

The second phase of missionary work for mobile devices was released and the long process of entering the records for each investigator in the app has begun, for some areas this will be done over a period of 1-2 days for newer areas to 6-7 weeks for some of the oldest areas, the process is like this:

1. The original teaching record is brought up date
2. Each teaching visit is recorded as an event and certain principles are "taught"
3. Commitments are assigned to the events
4. If the commitment was followed up on the next visit, record the results
5. Repeat steps 2-5 for each teaching event
6. If the teaching record has a concept taught but there is not a lesson report associated with it, it is considered untaught
7. All sacrament attendance is recorded again based on the teaching record
8. Any background info that might be useful to future missionaries is put in
9. Information such as age, language, address and phone number are then recorded
10. After everything is finished sync the area book
11. Shred the teaching record
12. Repeat 1-12 for each teaching record\

This took about an hour for one teaching record for 15 visits. We have records that have more than 20 visits and some that have 3. So most of this week will be entering stuff in…
Last week.
Monday: Hiked Acadia national park, so much fun, and so scary…
Tuesday: Exchange to Brewer, I learned that we can "bend" some of the rules to help us out if we need to…
Wednesday: District meeting at Belfast, learned more about extending commitment invitations and had district pictures
Thursday: AreaBook Planner app was released for no use, more on that soon
Friday: Weekly planning, teaching and then some service all were great fun.
Satuday: Day 1 of ABP (Area Book Planner) record entry, also had the apt inspected to make sure it was still ok for missionaries
Sunday: A day of rest, literally.
Today: Haircut, Emails and more record entries with service and a exchange latter.
About the AreaBook Planner: When the area book planner was released we were finishing up something at the church and then we both noticed that the app had downloaded itself to the ipads, I got into it and started planning the rest of the day and was about to sync when we get a voicemail from the APs (Assistants to the President) informing us that the app was released and ready for use. Only one problem "You are not authorized to use this application" kept appearing everytime I tried to sign in. After talking with Elder Shupe, we gave the APs a call and informed them of our plight, turns out the entire mission is encountering the same issue, so we had to wait another day and a half to use everything on the app. After we got it working we started to weekly plan with it and I was doing my best to keep up with Elder Shupe as he planned on the paper planners. while we are transitioning to the online version, we have been asked to maintain a paper copy of our plans, so I have been planning on the iPad whilst Elder Shupe is planning on paper.

1. What has helped your testimony grow this week? Describe what you learned or experienced.

Acadia… When we hiking Acadia, it was foggy like no one had ever seen (not even the park rangers had seen it this foggy) and was a really great analogy for the Plan of Salvation. We cannot see what is ahead and we cannot see behind us, and we you stop to take a rest you cant enjoy the view that would have been there, but it is there and we could hear it (it was an ocean view), I’m not terribly scared of heights, but hiking Acadia was the scariest thing I will do in my entire mission.

2. What is one interesting thing about your area that makes you smile? Why?

The fact that Maine is "A Hodge-podge of countries because I found out that their is a Rome, Maine and a Mexico, Maine.

3. What was your least favorite missionary moment this week? Describe.

Getting rejected at almost every door we knock on… maybe next time…

4. Is there anything we can add to our prayers to help you? Praying for investigators, for example?

To be honest I don’t have lots. We need more investigators that the Lord has prepared and that would be the biggest one so far

Elder Shupe is such a goof here is an excerpt of his letter home:
it’s like

EAT OR DIE

At first it sounds threatening and rebellious but really it’s just a nice reminder.

Right now I’m eating "Southern Biscuits and Gravy" Flavored chips.

they’re amazing.

So this week was one of those weeks where we stopped by everybody and nobody was home (and nobody doesn’t like to talk so he’s just problematic), and so we told nobody to tell everybody we stopped by, and now we’re waiting for everybody to get back to us. I hope nobody just disappears.

We got 3 referrals!

for different areas

We were also pretty far over miles but, as Abraham Lincoln once said:

"Yolo"

So this Wednesday and Friday we get to go to Trek and "Fiddle around" with the youth. (Do you see what I did there? I had to think about that joke for like 25 minutes i hope u preciate it.)

And that’s my companion for ya folks

Until next time