Monday, February 25, 2013

Miracles





This week was great. I have learned that everything happens for a reason, people cancelling appointments, people not listening, the Lord's timing is amazing. Sister Charles was very sick on Tuesday night so Sister Bowman and I got permission to go to the store Tuesday morning (not P-Day) and get her medicine. It just happened to be that a less active woman who is never home, who we have been trying to get a hold of for a MONTH, Sister Tonga, was walking out of Wal Mart right as we got there and we were able to get her phone number and set up an appointment to meet her. Nothing is coincidence. Even if poor Sister Charles has to be sick! After Elder Nelson taught us about the power of  music, we have taken that to heart and all four of us have gone caroling a few times this week. If people don't want to hear your message, at least you can bring the spirit with a song. People love to listen to us sing together. 

I have learned that it is a blessing to have so much knowledge from my Mom and especially my Dad about the Gospel! My companions always say that in companion inventory, that I have a lot of knowledge. I say if I have a lot of knowledge, it is because of my parents who taught me, so that I can bless other people with it :) 

On Wednesday we had a Zone Conference where we were trained by the Zone Leaders and President and Sister Craven on how to study effectively, and revelation through prayer. It was really funny, in the middle of the day the Senior Missionaries from the office came and did a training on cleaning our apartments and they came out in all of this gear with white coats, yellow gloves face masks, and did a dance and made it fun. Ha. I hope the Elders listen, because I know I will be moving into apartments where Elders have been and sometimes I know they don't clean well. Gross. 

On Wednesday night we had dinner with a less active/ part member family. It is interesting because part of their family was baptized years ago, but hasn't been to church really since. They go to a different church now, but they still love missionaries and feed them every week. The Dad was there this time, and he is very nice but very aggressive. He wanted to bible bash with us and tell us we are wrong. He used a scripture and tried to prove to us that something Jesus said or did made him not perfect, I don't know exactly I tried not to listen because he was going off and definitely had a spirit of contention. We just didn't respond and quietly went into the other room and sang hymns with his daughters. We used to have very disobedient Elders in our ward right before us in our area who got sent home, and surprise surprise he wanted to bible bash with us because he said that's what he loved about the Elders is every time they came they would do it and argue with him. Right after that though, we were able to have a great experience with that Sister who was less active who we got in touch with on Tuesday, we went over to her house and she brought all of her cousins! It's a huge Polynesian family. They were all over and it was loud and crazy and there was lots of food. Ha ha. We had a spiritual thought with them though that turned into a testimony meeting. It was amazing. She said it was good we came over. They were touched by the spirit. She said they all knew the church was true, including her, just doing and knowing are sometimes different. She did come to church though on Sunday and it's amazing to see the change in her as she comes back to church after a lot of years :) 

On Thursday we were supposed to meet with an investigator and her two kids but she had to cancel. We were at a members home and she pulled out her ward map and realized there was a member on the record who lived down the street who she had never met, and so we went to visit. It was a long Hispanic name. A man answered the door who didn't understand what we were saying, he only speaks Spanish. He went and got his 13 year old daughter though and she translated. She said he and his family were baptized in Honduras many years ago, like 17 years ago, and he moved to America shortly after. Ever since he's been here he hasn't gone to church because he just didn't know where it was, or that it even was here. He still felt good about the church though and read his Book of Mormon after all these years. His daughter and wife had not been baptized. We left the Savior's peace and blessing with their family ( Just the Dad and the Daughter were home) and they paused for a while after. The Daughter started crying and felt the spirit strongly. Sister Bowman invited her to be baptized so she could have those feelings with her all of the time. She said yes, she wanted to! We gave them the address of the Church and two more Book of Mormons. We have a meeting with them tonight and hopefully will meet the Mom and she will want to be baptized too. It's just amazing to think about all of the circumstances that had to be just right for us to have that experience. God works in mysterious ways. 

We did end up teaching the Catholic man and his wife yesterday. They were very kind and respectful to us. But as I taught and read scriptures and prophesies about the apostasy, he didn't believe it. He believes his church is still the church of Christ upon the Earth and doesn't see the changes and corruption that has happened in the essential ordinances. We just testified of the Book of Mormon. That's all you can do. I love answering concerns and questions with the Book of Mormon. If you know that is true, EVERYTHING else is. Including the Apostasy. So we just challenged him to read it and bore testimony of it. And he bore testimony of his church and asked us to pray about his church. Ha. 

We also had a first discussion with a man yesterday who was hilarious. We talked about the restoration and he's like "Are you tellin me I'm a half-baked Christian? You mean I got a piece of the pie but you gotz the whole pie with a cherry on top" He is a big black man and is so funny. And his name is Raleighfoot. Yes. Ra-lee-foot.

That video with all of the funny names of the NFL players? It's SO true! I have met half of them. 
(side note from her brother putting this up for her: you can watch that video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODZzSOelss   it's funny, watch it if you haven't)

Church yesterday was good. Afterwards we met with Melanie and her kids and went over the Baptismal interview questions with them. They are so prepared and ready. We were nervous because they had to leave church today because her son has been struggling with some medical issues. But he got a priesthood blessing from the Bishop yesterday, and they called us 20 minutes after and said that he was feeling back to normal and they were amazed! We went over the Baptismal interview questions with the Family that night and they are so prepared and ready for Baptism on Saturday. Yay! 

Anyway. lots of good things happening. Once again, thank you for all of the love and support and the letters and emails. The Lord is hastening his work! 58 new missions! Whew! My mission boundaries will be changing but it'll be awesome! 

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