Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Mon 8/18/2014 10:00 AM


This past week has been amazing!  So many miracles have happened as a result.  Since I don't have that much time, just a few of the things that transpired.
 
On Friday we had a great district meeting and all the trainings tied in perfectly together.  They were about goals, accountability and fear.  I was asked to give a training based off the article our Mission President was inspired to write about, which was fear.  It was a great article and it was amazing how all these things tied in to each other.  I will send a copy to my sweet mother who will hopefully be able to put it on the blog.
 
After District meeting a lot of our appointments fell through and so we went and tried to contact a potential investigator named Joshua. As we were on his front porch this lady in red, across the street, walked by.  I had the thought come to mind to go talk to her, but I convinced myself not to, since we were waiting for Joshua to hopefully answer the door.  I kept looking back at her and just kept feeling like I needed to go talk to her and just try to help her have a better day.  She eventually turned right onto the straight, and the thought came to mind, "Well, looks like you just lost an opportunity, good job!  Now, that is someone who won't have the chance right now to hear the, so called, wonderful message you have."  I started to feel pretty guilty wondering where she was and what was going on, and then the thought came to mind, "Go get her, she's not too far.  Remember what you just taught in district meeting?  Go get her."  I looked over at my companion and told him that we needed to go try and find that lady.  We hopped in the car and started to try and catch up to her.  She turned on a one way road (stinking one ways out here are everywhere and makes things more difficult than they need to be... lol), so we turned on the next street looking for somewhere to turn so we could get out and walk to her, so it wouldn't be as awkward. We finally got to the street she was on and were going to hop out and then she walked in front of us!  Talk about a weird contact.  To jump out of a car right after she just saw us and before knowing we were going to talk to her, lol. Anyway, she was moving quick and was out in front of us a little ways now, so we started to pick up our pace.  She slowed down next to this younger girl pushing a baby carriage who was with another boy on crutches.  We slowed down thinking about what was going on and for some reason feeling hesitant.....it was weird to say the least.  Then she sped up again and so we took off again, this time being delayed by walking into a less active kid; talking to him and setting up an appointment.  After seeing this lady, who we had been chasing for some time now, start to get away, we ended our conversation with him and tried to find her. She was out of sight, but the girl with the baby carriage, we saw earlier, was right in front of us.  We said hi as we passed by (I have always felt weird about talking to high school aged girls on the street, because I feel like people might get the wrong idea, so I usually don't, unless I feel I need to) and the next thing I know I just turned around and walked back to them and started talking to them letting them know about the wonderful message that we have to share and how it has changed my life.  In my whole mission I have never felt or had the experience where when I looked at these kids, especially this girl, I felt the Spirit hit me, almost as if it were telling me she has been being prepared from the Lord for the message that we have.  It was something different, that I haven't really had before, out of the many street contacts I have experienced while talking to them.  We got their contact information and they want us to come by and teach them.  We kept walking, realizing there was no way to find that one lady we were initially hunting down, and so Elder Silva and I talked about going back to the car and how we didn't want to go back the way we did because that girl was there and we told her we were in a rush, because we were, so we went the long way around.  As we got closer to the car we saw this girl sitting on a front porch.  We walked by, got to the car, and she kept coming to mind, and so I talked to Elder Silva and he was getting the same impression to go back, so we did.  In short we got her contact info and she is interesting in hearing more.  We will need to give her information to the Providence Elders since she is out of our area.  I probably did horrible at trying to explain how all this went down, but it was an amazing, everyday life experience.  It was amazing to see how as we just followed those SIMPLE little promptings that the Lord sent our way, our fear was overcome and we just went and did the what the Lord led us to do.  I am so very grateful for that experience.
 
On Saturday we went on splits with some members.  I went with our Branch President, Pres. Martin.  The appointment we had, and confirmed, wasn't there, but the nonmember living at her house was :-).  We got to know him and taught him the first lesson and he said we can come back and teach him more! There is something so powerful in working with members and especially going out with the leaders.  It is really the best way to either make or break trust with them.  The Lord has been blessing us immensely here with so many miracles, more than I can even come close to sharing.  The work is moving forward and we are doing our best to work with the members and leaders and to earn their trust.
 
We have been setting so many goals and trying to accomplish them.  This last week we set the goal to speak Spanish to each other as a companionship from 9am-9pm.   We haven't been perfect at it, yet, but we have already seen a huge improvement in our Spanish. It is really amazing!
 
I know that when we strive to put our trust in the Lord, and ourselves, that that is when miracles truly start to happen.  These experiences I have shared along with the many other experiences I have had are a testimony that the Lord works through small and simple means to bring about great things.  It is my prayer that we all may learn to trust in the Lord enough to then trust in ourselves to do his will.  I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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