10 Ways to Find - Elder Jacob Avery

Written by Elder Jacob Avery, serving in the Peru Lima West Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking Spanish.

Vagueta, Peru

My mission president has been talking to us for the past two months about incorporating 10 specific ways to find new investigators every week. For a few weeks, everyone was wondering why, so I'm going to share with you WHY:

With 10 ways to find, we'll get a variety people to teach. We'll get rich people, poor people, young people, old people etc.

With 10 ways to find, we'll find more people. Period. If we focus on finding, there's no way we're going to miss people who are prepared to accept the gospel.

With 10 ways to find, we'll have more spiritual strength. We'll be able to tell the Lord, ''I did what you said and now I want to baptize.'' Imagine the difference in confidence between a missionary who knows they're doing everything the Lord and their mission president wants of them, and one that has no specific direction or expectation.

With 10 ways to find, the ward has a much better opportunity to get involved and feel the spirit of missionary work.

And with 10 ways to find, we can have a pretty established plan for the week. This will help us prepare and give us a better feel for what and when we're doing things. 

We're doing good, here in Vegueta. This little congregation is coming back to life! My companion told me that when he got here 3 months ago, attendance was around 30 people. Yesterday, we had 75 people in church! The Stake Presidency also came over to complete our Branch Presidency. Now we have a secretary and a 2nd counselor!

We're finding lots of new people to teach...fifteen this week! One family we found is an older couple named J** and A**. They're older and super fun to teach and talk to. We gave them a Book of Mormon, and they were super excited to read it. I hope they're super excited about going to church too...haha!

Another family was a referral. J**, R** and their kids, Ja** (who was a catholic missionary) and Ma**. We're taking them to the church this week to do a tour and just hoping to help them feel familiar with it. We need to take advantage of the fact that we have a dedicated church building where they can get answers to their prayers.

Well, that's about all for this week. I'm enjoying the sun and getting tanner. I will be Peruvian color in a few short weeks. I even use sunscreen! Stay strong and be good everyone! I love you all!


Elder Jake Avery


Summer Vacation (January 5, 2015)

"These are Your Days"  (January 19, 2015)