Sunday, June 22, 2014

FAITH PRECEDES A MIRACLE

Oh hey :) Sister A is starting to rub off on me. She literally says that to everyone.  You just can't help but kind of morph to your companion. I can see how being on a mission can help with marriage. If you can handle someone you didn't choose to be  with, and be with them for 24/7 for at LEAST 6 weeks, then you can handle someone  you DID choose. You aren't even with your spouse that much because they have to work! In the words of one of my past Sister Training Leaders, "If you are thinking of getting married, go on a mission, because once you get married, there are NO TRANSFERS COMING!" haha I loved her. She was hilarious.
 
Anyway this week has been good. We have been doing FHE with a less active family for a few weeks now. They own a car wash so they said we could wash our car for free. Well, we went to wash our car and they let us in for free and stuff and then they left. Well it is the kind that you just drive into and you park and then the machine works around you. So we are sitting there enjoying ourselves and then after we get all soaped up and scrubbed, the machine just stops. So we wait. and wait. and wait some more....uhhh why is it not rinsing our car!? The dryers turn on...uhhhh. There is a huge line behind us right? So we have no idea what to do. We called the family and asked if it is supposed to rinse the car. They said yes so they had to come down and fix the machine as we awkwardly sat there with dried soap on our car. haha! Apparently a worker had changed the settings and turned the rinse off or something. So it rewashed our car and rinsed us the second time :) So that was kind of funny. Good thing we had their number though or I don't know what we would have done!
 
We had a zone meeting this week and learned about how to better work with members. Our whole mission is going to be rolling out a uniform family mission plan. Our ward already has a family mission plan, but the problem is that most people don't do it or don't know HOW to do it. So since this is uniform and structured and actually makes you write it down and update it month by month, it should help our ward a lot. We probably won't see any immediate blessings or referrals, but it should help in the long run.
 
We had a good lesson this week with a lady we have taught before.  The lesson was really good and the spirit was way strong and Sis A and I both felt prompted to put her on date for the end of June.
She had said that she had prayed about Joseph Smith and she accepts him as a prophet. She also said she felt a shift in her prayers and she feels like somehow, a window of heaven was cracked open, and God really was listening! WOO! So I asked her to be baptized and then tried to put her on date for June 28th. Her response, "Are you serious? No. No. There is NO way I can be ready by then." :( boooo. So we asked her to come to church this week with us since she has blown us off for the past two weeks. She said no. WHAT? She told us she would go last week so we were frustrated. Her excuse then.."It's too hot." We explained that the church building has AC and we would pick her up with the AC on in the car and she would be outside for a total of one minute probably. But she insisted on not coming. So it is super frustrating because she is a "golden investigator"
and is super excited about what she learns. But she won't come to church!!!!!! She is kind of a recluse though so we think she is scared. Luckily, we took Sister S to meet her the first time we met her also, so Sister S thinks she can get her to come next week because she has been working on her a little too so she knows someone and won't be so scared. So hopefully that works out! She also won't let us come more than once a week. So that is annoying. But I think she will come around over time.
 
We arranged for another investigator to speak to the young women this week about midwifery for mutual. We are trying to get her involved so she will want to learn more about the church. She lets us come over and talk about God (she is Baptist and has a strong belief in God) but she doesn't want us to teach her the lessons. So the Young Women are preparing  for camp so only the fourth years could listen and only three of them were there. Luckily we posted on the relief society facebook page to have other people come listen so we had a few women show up, plus the young women leaders that weren't busy came and listened as well. It went really well! But once our friend was finished she just said, "Ok, thanks for your time!" Then she picked up her purse and walked out. Sis A and I jumped up and chased after her. haha it was so awkward, the women just sat there not knowing what to do. So we chased her down, told her thanks, and then told her we wanted to give her a tour of the church. So she let us do that, but she was sure anxious to get out of there! haha. We invited her to church and she flat out said no. :( BUT, a few days later we took her a little thank you card and a little lotion and took a member with us. We were really bold and upfront and told her we want to start teaching her the lessons. She said no. Then Sis A bore her testimony on the Book of Mormon and asked her to read it. She was a little hesitant. So the member then told her that since she already has a strong relationship with Christ, that she might as well just read it and pray about it. So it went super well and she committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it :) Woo!
 
So a funny story: Sis A was boiling some eggs for breakfast yesterday...well she forgot about them for 45 minutes. YES,45 minutes. So I went in to make my breakfast smoothie and one of the other sisters said something was burning. I look over and there is no water in the eggs and they are turning black. So I grab the pot to take it off the burner and it was stuck! As I'm trying to take it off, the eggs explode! It burst all over and nailed me right in the lip. It felt like I was shot by a hot air soft gun from 2 feet away. It totally burned me and left a little welt/blister on my lip. Sis A came walking in, "Oh ya can you take my eggs off?" to see egg all over the place and the pan stuck to the stove. Ya she is pretty forgetful and there is NEVER a dull moment. haha.
 
Throughout the week we had tried SO hard to get people to church with us this week. No one would come. It is really getting down to the wire to finding someone to teach so we can reach our goal of at least one baptism this transfer. So Sis A and I decided to exercise our faith. We were at church that morning for a meeting and we were just waiting for church to start. We started calling a few more people and invited anyone we could think of that we hadn't already invited. We even re invited a few people. Nothing...so, we went out on the grass, knelt down, and told Heavenly Father that we had done all we could to get someone to church that day and to please bring someone to US. We KNEW someone was going to come. So we went and greeted people at the doors and handed out the programs like we always do, and who walks through the door? A guy who dropped us a while ago and then contacted us on Facebook so we reached out, and he ended up cursing us over Facebook and telling us he didn't want to be Mormon. So when he walked in I was super shocked. No one else came to church. Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways and he doesn't always answer our prayers in the way that we want, but he answers our prayers. Wow! Anyway, said this guy said he was sick and thought if he came to church that he would feel better. He said he didn't feel better so we got a few men to give him a blessing. It was a really cool blessing and basically told him he needed to do what he knew was right deep down. He left after that and didn't really talk to us much after, so we will see what happens with him!
 
So it has definitely been a good week. It hasn't turned out how we wanted it too much of the time, but it has still been good. HOT, but good :) It is usually at least 108 everyday lately. It is going to be one of the hottest summers they have had in a while they are guessing. Anyway I definitely could not be doing this if I didn't know this is the true church of God. I would not ride around for hours on end in 108 degree weather, in a skirt, if this wasn't what God wanted me to do. I'm so grateful for my testimony and how it has been strengthened and I hope I can help others strengthen their testimony as well :) Have a good week and enjoy your beautiful weather up there. ;)

No comments:

Post a Comment