God is the ultimate author of all of our lives. The hardest thing is learning how to turn our will over to Him, but it's absolutely necessary in order to feel all of the goodness that comes from heaven. He wants us to succeed; He wants us to be happy; He wants us to come back home. This is what missionaries are out there preaching... there is a way to succeed, to be happy, and to go back home, and that's through our Savior Jesus Christ. And it's the best thing ever.
As missionaries, if we aren't teaching, we aren't doing what we were called to do. Which is pretty obvious. Duh. BUT some days, it's incredibly hard to just find one person who will open their doors and their hearts to what we have to share.
This week, we found 4 new investigators, and it was amazing!
1. Marisol y Carlos - At our last zone conference, one of the sisters came up to us and asked her to find a family that she used to visit. She didn't remember anything except for the mom's name! With faith and prayers and lots of asking around, we were able to find the teaching records of this family. We tried visiting their home a couple times, but no one was home. One day, we decided to try one more time, and sure enough, they were home. The mom looked at us, and asked, "Are you sisters my angels?" We laughed a little and told her that we were missionaries, but that we weren't the same ones who had taught her months before. She told us that she was struggling with her health, along with her husband. Her husband walked out, holding his stomach, and told us that he was experiencing internal bleeding, and that he was headed to the hospital. So needless to say, we didn't stay for too long, BUT before we left, we asked if we could pray with them. I offered the prayer in Spanish, and afterwards, the two looked at me in shock, and the mom said, "I like this one. She's got perfect Spanish." I can assured you that was the Spirit (lol) but it was really amazing to feel the difference in the home before and after the prayer. We promised them that God would be looking over them as they dealt with their health problems. They asked us to come back as soon as we could, and we promised them that we would!
2. Maria - We have an investigator who has been meeting with missionaries for 5 years! CRAZY. We still don't know what is holding her back from baptism, we're not even sure if she knows. But she loves having us over, and she loves reading from the Book of Mormon. One day in particular, we decided to go visit her, and we met her friend Maria. My companion and I were silent as the two friends talked back and forth, something that I'm learning about Hispanics haha they sure love to talk and it's awesome. But it lasted for about an hour! We agreed that it was time to go and teach elsewhere, when we both had a strong impression to talk to Maria. Later as we were talking about it, we both realized we got the thought, "Nope, you can't leave. You can't leave until you talk to Maria." So that's what we did! I pulled out a pass-along card and Hermana Grubbs pulled out the Book of Mormon, and we simply talked about our purpose as missionaries. Maria was really interested! She gave us her number and told us that she wanted to learn more! We are meeting with her again this week. It was such a cool experience.
3. Pablo - About a month or so ago, we got a referral from some English sisters of a Hispanic family that lived down the street from us. We tried a couple times, but the only time we got an answer, the husband told us they weren't interested. Unshaken, we decided to try again :) We were driving home and noticed that they were outside, sitting on their porch. Perfect. We parked the car and "casually" walked up to them, you know, "Oh, hey! We didn't see ya there!" Haha they were super welcoming and kind, and we spent an hour or so talking about God. It was incredible! When we asked if we could come back and teach more about the church, the husband said, "I'll tell you what. If you stop by, and I'm home, I'd be more than willing to listen. It's really interesting that you two 19 year old girls are doing this. It's really cool." We are a peculiar people :)
This whole week was just focused on learning about God's will. He needed us to find these people. Although sometimes it's super awkward or inconvenient, that's not going to change what God wants us to do. We're doing HIS work, not ours. God knows what He's doing. I'm learning the value of praying for understanding rather than praying for a change. God will always give us understanding; He'll always help us. And I love it.
I love you all so much!!!
xoxo
Hermana Brie Gould
No comments:
Post a Comment