So one day this week we had a bunch of lessons scheduled with some people we had worked really hard to find last week. We had asked members to go with us and everything, and so we carefully planned backups in case the lessons fell through. And guess what. All of the lessons, and all of the backups fell through. I was so frustrated, it not discouraged, because discouragement is a sin (quote from our zone leader). Our dinner appointment fell through too that day so we came
back to our apartment and I felt like I wanted to watch a conference talk. The only one I had downloaded in English was by Elder Ballard. This is the one where he talks about having a personal chat with each of us. And the spirit was so strong, it was like our Heavenly Father
sent one of His apostles to speak to us personally after a hard day. One thing he said stuck with me, "the lord Jesus Christ promises us that all things we desire to do in righteousness will be ours"
We left the apartment right then, so excited to get back to work. We prayed and asked for direction before and we both felt like we should go and visit this one guy who we haven't been able to contact in a while. We get to his house and....he's not home. But that doesn't get us down.
We started talking to his daughter and her friend and Sister Ferguson asks the friend if her parents are home and they were! They both felt like they should come home early from work that day when they don't usually get home until 8 or 9. We shared the Book of Mormon with the husband and he asked us which chapters he could read before our next visit (which will be hard to schedule because he is busy, but it'll happen someday). And after that we were led to a lady who is also just so ready to listen to our message. #miracles. When things get rough remember that there are good things to come. I am trying to memorize the definition of Christ from the Bible dictionary. The first paragraph goes like this: The anointed (Greek) or Messiah (Hebrew). Jesus, who is called Christ, is the firstborn of the Father in the spirit and the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. He is Jehovah and was foreordained to His great calling in the Grand Councils before the world was. He was born of Mary at Bethlehem, lived a sinless life, and wrought out a perfect atonement for all mankind by the shedding of His blood and His death on the cross. He rose from the grave and brought to pass the bodily resurrection of every living thing and the salvation and exaltation of the faithful. And faithful? To me means those people who continue in obedience out of praise love and gratitude towards God, enduring the challenges of this life, relying on the Savior by living like He did, and by making covenants with God.
God forgets no one. Never ever ever. We were driving on Main Street and Hna ferguson all of a sudden remembers this potential investigator that lives on this street. We find the apartment complex and it's pretty sketchy, so I've got my little Lysol spray bottle in my hand inside my purse. The investigator wasn't there so we decided we would try the next door. And this little tiny woman from Salvador answers the door. After talking with her we find out she is a pretty recent member who was offended deeply by the bishop of her ward. Her story was so sad! But we continued talking and got to be pretty good friends with her there. We know this is her time to come back to church, or at least to take a step, so we are going to visit her again. This lady wasn't on anyone's list, nobody was looking for her, but her Heavenly Father didn't forget her and He knows perfectly the struggles the joys the disappointments and dreams of this lady, and He knows her needs. So He sent us to find her! I promise you that God is aware of you right now. You are precious to Him and He cares very deeply about the choices you make. He will send you the opportunities you need, you just need to open the door and then choose those things that will help you come closer to Jesus Christ.
The gospel is simple! Come unto Christ, that's really all it comes down to. And there are steps that Christ has shown us we need to do to do that. Wherever you are right now there is a step you can make to come closer to Christ. A lot of people we talk to aren't especially enthusiastic about talking to us (especially white people, they're kind of means sometimes), because our purpose is to help people come unto Christ through baptism, to help them make all of the first steps and then to the first covenant. But any step closer to Christ is rejoiced over in heaven, and that means praying, that means reading the Bible or the Book of Mormon, it means going to church, it means serving someone else, it means being baptized by the proper authority, it means going to the temple and making sacred covenants there. This week I've invited many people just to pray again to their Father in Heaven, or to attend again the Catholic Church, or the Cristian church, whatever church they belong to. Because it is a step in the right direction when you start to seek for God to be in your life more. And when people have that desire, to follow Christ more closely, to really find the truth, they will be ready to be invited to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
An example of this! We met with a family for the second time this week. Jose and Cynthia. They have an adorable little girl. This family has been to some dark places. Jose especially, and his family because of his choices. But one day a few months ago I guess, he decided he really wanted to change. Something told him to attend the LDS church. The only one around was in English. But he went. Every week. This man
doesn't understand English, but he went because he could feel the spirit. And the changes that have taken place in his life and the life of his family have been miraculous. The influence of the Holy Ghost
heals people, heals relationships, and changes lives. The first time we met with him he asked us "que necesito hacer para bautizarme?" Or "what do I need to do to be baptized?" Because baptisms, or the
covenant of baptism, is the step that binds people to God, that gives them full access of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to be forgiven and changed. This family is going to see some big miracles if they
continue to meet with us,
(OK--Are you ready for this next story from Emily?!!)
So I've kind of put this story off. But I think it's important for my own healing if I tell you guys.
We got a call last Monday from this man who said that some Hispanics walked into his store and he started to share the gospel with them. He doesn't speak Spanish so he managed to invite them back to his store
the next day to meet with us. So last Tuesday we show up at the address he told us and,... It's a meat store. Now in Logan there are cows. Lots of cows. And when those cows disappear from the fields they
go to this meat store. We walked in and I get goosebumps and really panicked because there is this awful awful smell. My body tells me it shouldn't breath and that I need to get out of there ASAP. And then
the door closes behind us and the bell rings and this lady with a meat apron on comes to the counter and starts talking 10000 miles a minute about her mission to Spain and she was a really nice lady but the
whole time I'm trying to keep my eyes from watering and also trying to decide how controversial to my health it would be to breath through my mouth because my nose is burning so bad. I couldn't imagine tasting that air so I just breathed as little as possible. The Hispanics never showed up. So the man who called us, a thick Utah/cowboy accent with super long bright red eyebrows starts talking to us too. We are
dyyyying. But we can't figure out a way to tell him that we need to go! Finally we leave and as we are going out the door he calls us back and gives us a huge bag of...meat! For dinner. Oh. My gosh. I've never
been so scared of a bag of meat before! We stuck it in the freezer until last night when we put it in a basket and ding dong ditched it to the elders. Who were thrilled to have it! So it worked out in the
end.
(LOVED this story!)
God lives! The Book of Mormon is true. Read it every day!
Dios vive. El Libro de Mormon es verdadera. Lealo cada dia.
I still don't know why these emails are formatted weird but it takes too long to fix xD
(I fixed it :) )
I love you!
mle
back to our apartment and I felt like I wanted to watch a conference talk. The only one I had downloaded in English was by Elder Ballard. This is the one where he talks about having a personal chat with each of us. And the spirit was so strong, it was like our Heavenly Father
sent one of His apostles to speak to us personally after a hard day. One thing he said stuck with me, "the lord Jesus Christ promises us that all things we desire to do in righteousness will be ours"
We left the apartment right then, so excited to get back to work. We prayed and asked for direction before and we both felt like we should go and visit this one guy who we haven't been able to contact in a while. We get to his house and....he's not home. But that doesn't get us down.
We started talking to his daughter and her friend and Sister Ferguson asks the friend if her parents are home and they were! They both felt like they should come home early from work that day when they don't usually get home until 8 or 9. We shared the Book of Mormon with the husband and he asked us which chapters he could read before our next visit (which will be hard to schedule because he is busy, but it'll happen someday). And after that we were led to a lady who is also just so ready to listen to our message. #miracles. When things get rough remember that there are good things to come. I am trying to memorize the definition of Christ from the Bible dictionary. The first paragraph goes like this: The anointed (Greek) or Messiah (Hebrew). Jesus, who is called Christ, is the firstborn of the Father in the spirit and the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. He is Jehovah and was foreordained to His great calling in the Grand Councils before the world was. He was born of Mary at Bethlehem, lived a sinless life, and wrought out a perfect atonement for all mankind by the shedding of His blood and His death on the cross. He rose from the grave and brought to pass the bodily resurrection of every living thing and the salvation and exaltation of the faithful. And faithful? To me means those people who continue in obedience out of praise love and gratitude towards God, enduring the challenges of this life, relying on the Savior by living like He did, and by making covenants with God.
God forgets no one. Never ever ever. We were driving on Main Street and Hna ferguson all of a sudden remembers this potential investigator that lives on this street. We find the apartment complex and it's pretty sketchy, so I've got my little Lysol spray bottle in my hand inside my purse. The investigator wasn't there so we decided we would try the next door. And this little tiny woman from Salvador answers the door. After talking with her we find out she is a pretty recent member who was offended deeply by the bishop of her ward. Her story was so sad! But we continued talking and got to be pretty good friends with her there. We know this is her time to come back to church, or at least to take a step, so we are going to visit her again. This lady wasn't on anyone's list, nobody was looking for her, but her Heavenly Father didn't forget her and He knows perfectly the struggles the joys the disappointments and dreams of this lady, and He knows her needs. So He sent us to find her! I promise you that God is aware of you right now. You are precious to Him and He cares very deeply about the choices you make. He will send you the opportunities you need, you just need to open the door and then choose those things that will help you come closer to Jesus Christ.
The gospel is simple! Come unto Christ, that's really all it comes down to. And there are steps that Christ has shown us we need to do to do that. Wherever you are right now there is a step you can make to come closer to Christ. A lot of people we talk to aren't especially enthusiastic about talking to us (especially white people, they're kind of means sometimes), because our purpose is to help people come unto Christ through baptism, to help them make all of the first steps and then to the first covenant. But any step closer to Christ is rejoiced over in heaven, and that means praying, that means reading the Bible or the Book of Mormon, it means going to church, it means serving someone else, it means being baptized by the proper authority, it means going to the temple and making sacred covenants there. This week I've invited many people just to pray again to their Father in Heaven, or to attend again the Catholic Church, or the Cristian church, whatever church they belong to. Because it is a step in the right direction when you start to seek for God to be in your life more. And when people have that desire, to follow Christ more closely, to really find the truth, they will be ready to be invited to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
An example of this! We met with a family for the second time this week. Jose and Cynthia. They have an adorable little girl. This family has been to some dark places. Jose especially, and his family because of his choices. But one day a few months ago I guess, he decided he really wanted to change. Something told him to attend the LDS church. The only one around was in English. But he went. Every week. This man
doesn't understand English, but he went because he could feel the spirit. And the changes that have taken place in his life and the life of his family have been miraculous. The influence of the Holy Ghost
heals people, heals relationships, and changes lives. The first time we met with him he asked us "que necesito hacer para bautizarme?" Or "what do I need to do to be baptized?" Because baptisms, or the
covenant of baptism, is the step that binds people to God, that gives them full access of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to be forgiven and changed. This family is going to see some big miracles if they
continue to meet with us,
(OK--Are you ready for this next story from Emily?!!)
So I've kind of put this story off. But I think it's important for my own healing if I tell you guys.
We got a call last Monday from this man who said that some Hispanics walked into his store and he started to share the gospel with them. He doesn't speak Spanish so he managed to invite them back to his store
the next day to meet with us. So last Tuesday we show up at the address he told us and,... It's a meat store. Now in Logan there are cows. Lots of cows. And when those cows disappear from the fields they
go to this meat store. We walked in and I get goosebumps and really panicked because there is this awful awful smell. My body tells me it shouldn't breath and that I need to get out of there ASAP. And then
the door closes behind us and the bell rings and this lady with a meat apron on comes to the counter and starts talking 10000 miles a minute about her mission to Spain and she was a really nice lady but the
whole time I'm trying to keep my eyes from watering and also trying to decide how controversial to my health it would be to breath through my mouth because my nose is burning so bad. I couldn't imagine tasting that air so I just breathed as little as possible. The Hispanics never showed up. So the man who called us, a thick Utah/cowboy accent with super long bright red eyebrows starts talking to us too. We are
dyyyying. But we can't figure out a way to tell him that we need to go! Finally we leave and as we are going out the door he calls us back and gives us a huge bag of...meat! For dinner. Oh. My gosh. I've never
been so scared of a bag of meat before! We stuck it in the freezer until last night when we put it in a basket and ding dong ditched it to the elders. Who were thrilled to have it! So it worked out in the
end.
(LOVED this story!)
God lives! The Book of Mormon is true. Read it every day!
Dios vive. El Libro de Mormon es verdadera. Lealo cada dia.
I still don't know why these emails are formatted weird but it takes too long to fix xD
(I fixed it :) )
I love you!
mle