I am torn about being out for a month. I feel like it's been like 5 months, not just one... But I'm also freaking out because now I only have 17 months left instead of 18! Wow...I just don't know how to feel about it!
This week was yet another miraculous week. The first miracle...I am surviving the humidity. The past two days were my first days of experiencing actual humidity. And boy...it is HOT. It was 95 degrees, but with the humidity, it was about 110... And it's only getting worse this week. Thank goodness for the visitor's center with some nice air conditioning!!!
This week we got two investigators on date!!! They are both investigators that I hadn't ever met, either. The first guy's name is Dennis. Sister Christiansen met him a couple months ago with her old companion and they gave him a Book of Mormon, but he wasn't very interested. But last week, he called us and said he has been reading and wanted to meet with us! Obviously we were like YES!! So, we met with him and he was in the middle of 2 Nephi and he said he LOVES the book. And he is so prepared to hear the gospel right now. We have a long ways to go with him, but he is on date for August 8. We have met with him twice since that and he is now in Alma and can't put it down. And he came to church for all 3 hours. Seriously, such a rock star. The other is a woman named Jill. I hadn't heard much about her, but it was a miracle meeting with her. We had just finished our first lesson with Dennis, when we put him on date, and we ran home and called our elders to tell them the good news. The VC called us and told us Jill was there, ready for our appointment. We were so confused because we didn't have an appointment with her scheduled. But we drove over there and we watched the Joseph Smith movie with her. She was so moved by that movie. She was crying and she felt the spirit so strongly. We committed her to August 8 as well! We are so excited for these two.
John is the most solid investigator ever! He downloaded the gospel library app and has read basically everything on it. He even read the missionary handbook so he knows all of our rules and stuff! He is so interested in the gospel and I know that his testimony is building little by little each time we meet with him. His faith and testimony strengthens mine so much. It's really neat to watch him take these steps of faith and see the blessings that come from it. He came to church and stayed all 3 hours, which was so awesome.
There's a recent convert that was baptized in March named Karl. Sister Christiansen taught him. He received his patriarchal blessing on Sunday so we went with him. It was one of the neatest things. And during that blessing, I realized how powerful missionary work is. Because not only are we baptizing people here on the earth, but these converts can do family history and go to the temple to save all of their ancestors. And they have the opportunity to change their future generations. So when we baptize one person, we have the affect on generations. It was such a neat experience.
This past week, Sister Christiansen and I have watched the Joseph Smith movie 4 times with 4 different investigators. That movie is powerful every single time. As I was watching it one time, I was thinking about their sacrifice. Joseph Smith would not have given his life, had this gospel not been true. The saints and pioneers would not have put everything on line, including their lives, had this gospel not been true. They could not have gone through all of that, had Joseph Smith not been a true prophet. There is no way! As I was thinking about that I realized we are so blessed that we don't have to suffer those same trials. But, we do have hard times as part of the plan, and if it were not for the gospel of Jesus Christ, it would be so hard to have hope through these times. I am so grateful for the fullness of the restored gospel.
One night, a few sisters and I were talking to one of the senior couples in the VC and talking about the world. With the whole same-sex marriage supreme court thing, we were talking about how the world is becoming more and more wicked. And I just asked, why can't the Second Coming happen? Why do we have to wait, isn't the world wicked enough? Elder Phillips said that Elder Christofferson said that the world is plenty wicked for the Second Coming, but we are not righteous enough. That changed my perspective SO much. We have to be more righteous right now because we are literally paving the path of Christ to come reign on the earth. And we aren't righteous enough for that to happen. Elder Phillips said that President Vest told them we have to "crank our testimonies up". We got a lot of work ahead of us, people.
There was a service project on Saturday, called project shine. We painted a school and brought Randy and Dennis, two of our investigators, with us. It was an awesome experience! The Independence 1st ward is the best- there was like half of the ward there! Here is a picture with just a few people in it. The guy on the far left is Brother Faletau-our ward mission leader. He is the best!!! The guy next to Sister Christiansen is Randy! He's the man. And the guy crouching in front is Dennis! Obviously the two boys with nametags are our elders :) They are the best to work with! The guy in between the elders is our Bishop- Bishop Tui'one. Then some ward members :)
Missouri is awesome. I love it here!
No comments:
Post a Comment