November 17, 2014

Nov. 17, 2014 'Hastening the work!'

Quote of the week "Come, sit by me and let me serenade you with opera"....

What a week.

It has been so interesting to see the Lord work with Sister Adorable and I over the last few weeks. We've been doing a lot of service over the last few weeks. Like a ton. Our schedule is pretty much, lessons with M. & A., tracting, and service for members. With a few less active visits here or there. We're not finding a whole lot of new investigators and it has been kinda frustrating, but then we realized the Father in Heaven has a different task for us to focus on. The Relief Society here is really awesome, but there are a lot of "group"s. Which was something that I wanted to help with when I first got here.... but I didn't know how and it wasn't happening with 2 exchanges a week and lots of people to teach. Well, Heavenly Father has made it very doable to focus on that now! And come to find out, the Relief Society Presidency is focusing on unity with the sisters as well. Clearly there's something bigger than our plans going on.

Last Monday we had a pretty powerful lesson with M & A. We learned some really cool teaching tools last week that I think I shared and we implemented them with them. So good. We gave them notebooks before conference to take notes in and asked them to take them out and write how they felt their life would be in a year if they a) got baptized or b) didn't. A. said that her life in a year would be described with "lost" if they decided not to get baptized. M. described it, "life as is." Not that there's anything wrong with it, but they've seen a brighter light and they know it would be hard to go back to life as it was before. After that little activity, we asked them to think about their next step on this path. We had them write down what they felt they needed to do individually in order to progress. A. said that she wanted a Priesthood blessing. Our teamup was Brother Giddings, our ward mission leader. So he gladly performed that for them. M. was blessed to know that he's at a crossroads and he will make the right decision. A. was blessed that no matter what others think or say, she would have the courage to make the proper decision. When we walked out of the lesson, Brother Giddings told us that he has the strongest impression that they know, especially A.

We're doing something new with the missionaries in the zone. Our focus for the rest of the transfer is baptismal invites. We're shooting for a cumulative of 250 invites between now and the end of the transfer. Every time a companionship invites someone to be baptized, they text the Zone Leaders #FloodTheFont and then forward it out to the rest of the zone. It has been so cool to get text after text of missionaries inviting their investigators to be baptized. The work is hastening! :)

J. & M. Remember them? Well, they're really good friends with Brother Giddings and the Giddings had all four sister missionaries and J. & M. over for dinner on Thursday. It was like a preview of Thanksgiving, haha. We talked about the Gospel, but then we had to run off because of another appointment. Brother Giddings followed up with us on Sunday and told us that M. shared some very personal concerns with him and they talked about those. He also said that they asked him, "We are intrigued and fascinated by the church. Don't give up on us. We feel something here that we don't get anywhere else." That brought tears to my eyes. I'm glad that they feel something and they recognize it. I love them. I really truly do. I feel like the Lord is giving me a glimpse of how he must've felt when some of His spirit children were so close to choosing Christ, and then changed their minds. Luckily I know, and I feel very strongly. that J. & M. will come around. It'll just take a few more sets of missionaries.

A. was sick on Sunday so her husband, M. came to church alone. We introduced him to the Stake President who talked to him for a minute. We've been meeting with them for almost 4 months. Can you believe that? So crazy. Anyway, M. was touched with President's words of encouragement. We have another lesson with them tonight. It's been about a month since we've extended the baptismal invite, so we're fixin' to do it again! :)

Well. That's this week!
Love y'all! 

~Sis J.

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