This was us in the Teaching Center this week, excited to call Tim!
I am sure you are all wondering what that fraction is for...It is one of the best fractions that could ever exist! What is means is...Today, we had to go to the COB, and we happened to go at the PERFECT time because the Brethren were literally just coming out of the Temple! WHAT! So we stood off to the side while everyone passed. President Monson, President Uchtdorf, President Eyring, Elders Holland, Oaks, Scott, Ballard, Cook, Bednar, Christofferson, and Andersen all passed us, and Elders Andersen and Christofferson shook our hands! We didn't get to see Elders Hales, Packer, Perry, or Nelson. That is my goal now for this transfer, haha. It was so sweet I don't even know what to say!
Hey thank you all for your sweet Birthday wishes! I had a fantastic Birthday, the best one yet. I think it was the best because it wasn't about me. I was in the best place, doing the best thing on my birthday. And we found a new investigator, Kira! We are excited to call her.
I had a funny experience this week on chat. We took a chat from a girl named Saige. She was asking all these great questions, and she knew a lot about the church. She asked if TMSQ missionaries take the chats and we said yes, some of them. She said that her friend knows a Sister serving there, and when we asked who it was, she said Sister Gretchen Brock. I was like hey, I was her companion! So she is from Salem and knows the Brock family.Well, we talked a little more, and asked her if she wanted to learn more so she could know these things for herself and she said yes, and gave us her phone number. Well I called her yesterday and when she answered, I said, is this Saige? She said yes, hesitantly. I said, hey this is Holly from mormon.org chat ,the one that knows Sister Brock! And she goes, well yes I know a Sister Brock....And I said yeah, remember, we chatted on Tuesday? And she said no, I have never been to mormon.org, but I am mormon! I was baptized in December. Well, we realized that someone was pretending to be her and even gave out her information. What an awful joke! Now we have to go back and change our numbers for this week. haha. BUT, when I talked to her, I said, well hey, do you know anyone we could teach? And she said yes but that she was at Dairy Queen, and she would call me back. And she called me back today. Someone thought they were being funny when they pretended to be her, but actually, they were doing missionary work! haha.
A miracle happened this week.
Remember Aaron? The one who I thought was a woman for a couple transfers, but recently realized is a man? Well, lately he has not been progressing, and every time we talk about baptism or coming to church, he gets upset and hangs up on us. Then when we call him the next time, we apologize for offending him and he says oh no no no you didn't offend me, you can call me anytime! So this week we decided that if he didn't start progressing, we were going to drop him. So honestly, when we called him yesterday, I had intentions to drop him. We decided to read out of the B.O.M. We have to talk really slow and simply, because he's about 70. We read from Mosiah 5 and applied it to him. The spirit was really strong and despite the rocky start, it was a wonderful lesson. He saw how everything applied to him, and we moved from faith into baptism, and he again brought up how he had been baptized before. We again talked about priesthood and authority and shared a classic missionary-analogy how if a guy driving an ice cream truck tried to pull you over and write you a ticket, what would you say? Then if a policeman pulled you over and tried to write yo a ticket, what wold you say? We showed him how it has to be by the right authority. So he said, so the people that baptized me didn't have that authority? And we said no and he said okay. We invited him to be baptized and he said he wasn't ready. Well we explained how no one is perfect and how this Gospel can never be fully learned, our whole lifetime is a learning process. We told him that we won't let him be baptized if he isn't ready, and told him that that is what we are here for, to prepare him. That we will be his guides in sharing this Gospel with him, but it will be his responsibility to come to know for himself. We invited him to be baptized on May 10th and he said he would try his best to be ready on that day! HUGE miracle. I ate my words about dropping him haha. It's amazing how the Spirit can soften hearts. It was nothing that we did or said, but it was the Spirit present that he felt that made all the difference.
Tim is doing great. He will be receiving the Priesthood soon. His health isn't doing as great, though. He has had to be receiving some sort of treatment every day. But he knows that God will help him out. He says that when he has hard days, he will go back and read the scriptures that we text him, and that he feels comforted through those scriptures. We shared with him about Patriarchal Blessings, and invited him to receive one. He is really excited for that.
Also, I got to talk with Cesar this week, I am not sure if you remember him. The one who we took his family on a tour back in October, and he already had a baptismal date? And we went to his baptism in November. Well I called him to see how he is doing, and he is doing so good! I kid you not he will be a General Authority one day. So back in November, I was trying to convince him to serve a mission but he said that he is too old (24) and needs to get married. I told him to pray about it haha. Well, he did and received an answer. He is going to be putting in his mission papers in in July! He is so excited to serve. He will make a fantastic missionary! His family members are still not ready to meet with missionaries, but they will, I know that. Probably while he is on a mission, that will bless them so much. I ended up having to go because it was time to go home and he goes, do you have to go right right now? Could we just end with a prayer? I was like wow....he is already such a missionary! haha
Unfortunately, we had to drop Robert. His phone number no longer works. I knew that gut feeling was true!
We had some training for our Zone yesterday that replaced our District meeting. It was so good! One of the District Leaders in our Zone was talking about invitations. She said somethings that really clicked. Well each time we invite someone to do something, we are inviting them to repent, or change, and when we do that we always promise blessings. We say, "we promise you that when you do that..." But she said, it's not our promise, it's the Savior's. It's His Atonement that makes it possible to repent and change, and how we should be saying, "The Savior has promised you that as you do that..." I am going to do that with all commitments now! Also, she had us think about the invitation Heavenly Father gave Jesus Christ. He probably hugged Him and said, "Will you go? Will you be the Savior and Redeemer of all Mankind?" And then she had us think of the promised blessings He gave Him. She told us that we were His promised blessings, how He probably said, "If you go, I promise that I will send missionaries all around the world who will tell people about you and help them come to know you." Then she had us think of how He would have kept that in His mind when times got hard, in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Cross, etc and how He kept going. It was way good. The Spirit was so strong.
Today we got to watch 'Meet the Mormons,' the new video in the Legacy Theatre as a mission for Relief Society. So I think it is okay to talk about it now! Hopefully...haha. So it's a documentary, kind of like the 'I'm a Mormon' videos, but extended. I won't ruin it for you, but it has about 5 members from all around the world who share their story. I can't wait for you to see it it is so good! And David Archuleta just covered a song called "Glorious" by Russ Dixon that plays at the end, and I really want it, it is so good! So whoever can find it and put it on a CD and send it to me will.....get something special!
We have been trying to catch up with Conference, and this week I watched a couple of them. I think my favorite quote so far was from Elder Uchtdorf's talk on Gratitude when he said, "There seems to be something inside of us that resists endings. Why is this? Because we are made of the stuff of eternity." I love that!
As far as a favorite, I don't have a clear favorite yet, they were just all so good!
I am excited for Easter. There is a great video on mormon.org right now called 'Because of Him.' I invite you all to go watch it this week in honor of Easter! Look past the eggs and candy for a couple minutes to remember the true meaning :)
here is the link: http://easter.mormon.org/
I love Easter so much. It is such a special holiday. Because He was resurrected, we will be too, into a state of joy we cannot comprehend. I am so grateful for Him!
Well I think that is about it. It's been a pretty busy week. I am so grateful for miracles. I invite you all to also pray for miracles this week. I know that you will see them if you will ask for them!
Love you, FOLLOW UP!
Here is my Easter Planner that I made!
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