September 29, 2013

We were able to go on trade-offs this week and I went with Sister Fonoifua. She is actually a temple square missionary who is serving her outbound here (she is also Tongan). Me and her were instant friends! We were able to go and visit this family that we have been seeing and when we got there, their mom was running her daughter out the door to go somewhere, but she asked us to stay a little longer so that we could talk with her because she had some questions. It was crazy, because the last time we came, the Mom wanted nothing to do with us. the nine year old daughter had actually come to church the past Sunday, and she loved it! Anyway, we were able to give her the first lesson (the restoration)  and then we gave her, her own book of Mormon. The look she had on her face was priceless! She cradled the book in her arms like it was her most prized possession! When her Mom got back we started talking with her and we found out that she had not been to confession for three years because of all of this guilt that she felt and she had not partaken of the Eucharist because she did not feel worthy (The mom is catholic). You could just see the pain in her eyes, but we were able to speak with her about the atonement and talk to her about it's cleansing power. She really started to open up to us after that. She talks about having a forever family and you can just see that she wants everything that the gospel has to offer, she just has to take that leap of faith.

We also had a miracle with one investigator. We were actually going to go over and see if she had done the things we had asked of her and if not we were possibly going to drop her because she had not been progressing, but some how the spirit just took over and we had one of the most spiritual discussions ever with her. We then realized that we needed to still teach her and push her because she is right about to jump into the gospel, but we need to make sure it is with the Lord's church that has the fullness of the gospel and not a church that has partial truths, but feels more comfortable. She has been asked by her friend to come to the Baptist church down the road, and she has been supposed to go for the past two weeks, but her friend has had unexpected things come up to make it so that she could not attend. I know that she has not been able to go because the Lord did not want her to, he does not want her to mistake the feeling of comfort for the feeling of his holy Spirit and the truth that it testifies of.  I am so grateful that we have that spirit and that it can teach through us!

To close, I just wanted to tell you about an experience that we had today when we were eating lunch at Whataburger. The woman who was taking our order was this older black woman named Gretta. She was so kind and she just was smiling at us. She commented on how nice we both were and then she said "well of course you are so nice, you got Jesus' name on you!" she later came and brought us our food, commented on how amazing she thought my hair was,  and said "I really hope you touch a lot of souls today, because you have already touched mine." It made me realize that I am a disciple of Christ everywhere I go. People really do notice and they really appreciate the work we are doing. You may never realize the impact you have upon people, even at a fast food restaurant, but they take notice of how you act and especially how you treat them. It made me realize that I should always be kind, and always show that I am a disciple of Christ even when I am not wearing my badge, because I never know who could be watching, or who's life I could change just through my actions.