Okay,
you are now all settled into your new areas, with your new companions, you are
starting fresh! I always hated moving away from an area or companion,
when I was in Brazil….but it always gave me a “fresh start”, to improve on
things I might have been struggling with in my old area, and I always looked
forward to making new friends with the members, and (as we have been talking
about), it is especially important to strive to speak to/approach “everyone”
you can and to meet as many as you can in your new area, to let the Lord
help you find those who are “waiting to hear your voice”….
Now
some thoughts to share from your letters:
- We
are very excited for the emphasis of obedience and the power and authority of
our callings in the mission. I feel that as missionaries are obedient, and they
convert their authority they've been given into power, we will see great miracles
- A
few weeks ago we got a call from a former investigator, E******. E******* is incredible. He is one of the most just simply pure and good people I know.
All he wants is to do right by God. He is also a VERY strong and devoted
Catholic. He was raised Catholic in Mexico and its big part of his life. Well
we started teaching him again and found out that he really hadn't been reading
the Book of Mormon. So we challenged him to start from the beginning and to
pray about it. When we followed up the next day he told us that he felt
different while he read this book. He said he got "escalofrios"
(chills) every time he started reading it. This past week we re-challenged him
to be baptized and Saturday he picked a baptismal date for August **, his
birthday. It is kind of a far date but he said that he wants this to be a “very
special day”. He has invited all of this family from Mexico to "come and
see this beautiful thing that he has found." He is awesome and I am so
excited for him.
-
This last week was very good for us! We went out and worked so hard! We
were very blessed in our finding! We saw miracles. The best miracle of this
week though came on Saturday. We brought out a recently returned
missionary and we tried to follow up with some people but they didn't answer,
so we decided to knock a couple doors. The first door we knock is this Cuban
couple. They let us in and kept talking about how impressed they were that
young people like us would be out preaching the word. We shared the prayer with
them and invited them to be baptized. The husband cried and asked how he would
be baptized. Our member stood up and said "I'll show you".
He got up and showed him what the baptism would be like. They accepted!!!!
We invited them to church the next day and he accepted and then his wife said,
no we have some sort of breakfast in the morning for her brother. We testified
of how important church was and then asked if we could help her cook so that
she could make it to church before the breakfast. She said "Que lindo!! Vamos
a la iglesia manana!!"! They came to church! As they were passing around
the sacrament the husband tapped my companions leg and then pointed to his
eyes. He was crying. They had an amazing experience and want to be baptized
this Sunday! Wow I love being a missionary! I am so grateful that our Father in
Heaven prepares these people for his Gospel!
- We saw an awesome miracle this week in the harvest.
It was Saturday evening and we didn't have many people committed to church, so
we were looking for someone who could come to church the next day. We walked
past a home that had a lady sitting outside on her phone. At first I just
wanted to keep going, but the Spirit told us to go talk to her. We left a
blessing with her and at first she was a little bit shy and cold. She told us
she's evangelical but that she hasn't found a church to go to since she got
here from Honduras. We told her that we had church the next day and that we
could have someone come pick her up and as soon as we said that, her face lit up!
She was so excited and the next day she came to church with her 8 year-old
daughter. We had an FHE after church at a member's home and she went on and on
about how she has a new family and how amazing she felt at church. After many
years in the Evangelical Church, it only took one Sunday in the true church for
her to change. She and her daughter are both preparing for baptism this Sunday!
This
is the Lord’s work you are doing….and in serving him “faithfully”,
you are not only changing the lives of the people you meet & teach, but are
changing your own lives…”forever”…!
President Richardson
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