November 19, 2013
Wow! We have truly seen miracles this last week! Again our success has come from teaching the same few people multiple times during the week and the progress of those people has been showing. The one that we are the most excited about is C., a nurse by profession. She's so awesome. You just feel welcome around her. She is someone who has taken her names off the records of the church because she has 5 children and 3 of them are either lesbians, gay, or transgender. It's been a really hard thing for her to cope with and it has led to her name removal along with some other challenges that she's had. But she has let us in and allowed us to start teaching her. The lessons are a lot more tailored to her needs than the straight up Preach my Gospel lessons, but the Spirit is always felt and she's been making huge steps. We invited her to church last week and she said that would not happen. Then the next day we got a text from her saying that she talked to her husband, who also took his name off the records with her, and he had given his blessing to her to go back to church and she came with her 8 month old granddaughter. It was her first time in 18 years. It was amazing! She received such a WARM welcome. She has really been studying and praying on her own, and has refound her connection with God through her first sincere prayer. She just wants peace, so we've been continually teaching about the atonement. It's been so wonderful to be able to teach her. Yesterday, she was bawling nearly the entire lesson because she knew that she was receiving answers to her prayers. She really was studying the chapters that we gave her to try and answer her questions and she went above and beyond what we gave her and started answering some of her own questions from verses in the Book of Mormon. That's a huge thing for someone who was Mormon, went athiest, and then starting to question matters of the soul again. Honestly, we've been trying to help her find peace, because even though she says that she's been happier out of the church for the last several years, she told us that she's been looking for the peace of mind and comfort that she used to feel when she was a member. Coming to church was a huge thing for her. Teaching her has been some of the most tender and precious parts of my mission up to this point. There have been select few other teaching opportunities that have made this much of an impact on me and my testimony of Christ. I know that Christ lives. I know that he loves us and wants to give us peace. His call is and forever will be "come unto me and I shall give you rest."
We've also been working with a couple of other investigators who are moving a little slower but have definitely been progressing at their own speed. It took us three appointments in one week to teach a lady, G., about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She's really been internalizing the gravity of each scene of history and seeing how a prophet could really bless her life. She told us, "what happened to all the people after the apostles died!? I think that would be such a scary time to live in." It sounds like she knows the importance of listening to and following the prophet as well. I can't wait to teach her tomorrow and start the Plan of Salvation. She's going to be so excited!
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