Oh my goodness. My week has been full of blessings from the Lord. My heart is full of gratitude and I never want to leave Hamilton..... EVER! Thank you for all the prayers and for all the emails people have been sending me, it is so wonderful to feel so supported. A special shout out to the Summers for all the encouraging mail! I love getting your letters, they put such a smile on my face and I want you to know that I have a letter written for you guys, its just a matter of getting a U.S. stamp haha.
So let me tell you about this amazing week I have had.
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| Me and my trainer, Sister Williams |
First off, let me be one of the many to testify that God is watching over ALL of us. I know that He knows our challenges and our struggles. He knows the intentions of our hearts, hears our prayers, and wants us to have success. So Sister Williams and I have been praying to "find the elect" or in other words, find those of God's children who are prepared to hear the gospel. We do this by talking with EVERYONE. This week however I made a special effort not to let rejection get me down. I was determined to put my faith in the Lord, to know that He will provide and make up for my downfalls, and He did :)
Now, prepare to be spiritually feed as I tell you about some of the people we met and have worked with this week. (This is a long one so please get comfortable)
Now, prepare to be spiritually feed as I tell you about some of the people we met and have worked with this week. (This is a long one so please get comfortable)
Chris
I have mentioned Chris before in previous letters. His wife is a member of the church and he has expressed a desire to have and eternal family and so he had to agree to meet with us wonderful sister missionaries haha! Chris is awesome! He is a mans man who is really uncomfortable with anything to do with feelings and talking about those feelings. Haha you can imagine how uncomfortable our lessons can be for him when we talk about those spiritual truths and ask him to explore what he is feeling. The thing I love most about Chris though, is that he wants what the gospel has to offer him. He knows that he will be baptized haha he talks about how he doesn't want to get a calling, about how he knows the word of wisdom will be really hard for him, but he is willing to try, and to work towards keeping those commandments. Last time we saw him we committed him to read the Book of Mormon every day and to pray to know if it is true. We also committed him to cut back on coffee and drinking (2 cups of coffee a day and only 4 drinks aloud on Friday and Saturday). We followed up with our commitment we left with him and he has been faithful to reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. He says that he has noticed a difference in his week and told us about a random lady who came up to him in Tim Horton's and talked with him about how God had answered her prayer this week.... both our jaws dropped when he said this. What an amazing experience this was for him AND he recognized it! This week we talked with him about prayer, the importance of prayer and how he could know when he receives an answer to those prayers. It went really well and at the end of the lesson we knelt down looked at Chris and asked him to offer the prayer... he has never before agreed to say the prayer... but this time he agreed! Huzzah! He offered a beautiful prayer in the manliest way possible and tried to keep the feelings to a minimum haha, but really it was one of the coolest prayers I have heard yet. He prayed for us. I have never had an investigator pray for me. He thanked God for the patients we have with him, thanked him for teaching us and thanked him for his family. It was simple and sincere.
Mitzie
So Mitzie is pretty amazing, right after sister Williams and I pleaded with God to put the elect in our path, we met Mitzie in our elevator we chatted with her and learned that she is from Jamaica and that she has been trying to find a church to go to. By the time we had reached the bottom floor she asked if she could come to church with us... I just about died of excitement! We readily agreed and offered to give her a tour of our chapel this week before Sunday so that she could become more familiar with our church and she agreed!
Fast Forward 2 Days....
Sister Williams and I go to the church to get the chapel ready for the tour with Mitzie, pretty much everything is ready, we have a member coming to go on the tour with us, all the lights are on things are great EXCEPT we do not have the key to the font... aka the most important part of our tour is hiding behind an ugly accordion curtain from the 70's -_-. We call around to see if we can get our hands on a key and someone tells us there should be one in the clerks office. Score! We head over to the clerks office, unlock it, open the door and are greeted by this beeping. We are confused and try to figure out where it is coming from and shortly after the beeping turns into this ear curdling screech.... we have set off the alarm that no one told us about -_-. We look at our watch and realize Mitizie should be here any minuet! What do we do!? I rationalize that the code is probably Micheal Jordains number 2323 so we enter it in and no cigar, it just made the alarm more mad. Then we figure we should probably call the bishop. The bishop just about dies laughing at our predicament and lets us in on the code. He then informs us that there is no key in the clerks office to the font and agrees to come over and unlock it for us. Phew! The alarm is off and we have some one coming with the key, all will be alright. Mitzie arrives soon after. We walk through the chapel with her, talk about the relief society and primary and then show her the font. We explain baptism to her, the importance of it and the blessings that come from being baptized. Then we took her into the chapel and talked about the most important thing we do at church, partaking of the sacrament. We explained that the sacrament is a way for us to remember the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us. It reminds us that it is only through Him that we can be made clean and return to our Father in Heaven. Oh man was the spirit ever strong. She expressed how she could feel something special about the church and said she was excited to come to church this Sunday and that she would invite her mom to come with her.
Fast Forward to Sunday
This Sunday was a special Stake Conference and it was special because the stake president was being released due to the fact that he has been called as a general authority.... BAH! We had 3 general authorities speaking to us AND Mitzie got to hear them! The meeting was SO good. It was really long, and at times I looked over and Mitzie would be drifting off (I mean it was 2 hours of straight sitting), but you could not deny the spirit that was felt as people testified of Jesus Christ, how His gospel has been restored to the Earth through a modern day prophet, and how this church is lead by a prophet of God with Jesus Christ at the head. After church we asked her about her experience and she said church was wonderful, that she was excited to come next week and thanked us for letting her come. We made an appointment to come and see her Tuesday to talk more about what we believed.
Attila & The Deaf and Mute Lady
After lunch, Sister Williams and I are getting ready to leave the house to get out and find a man that we had run into the other week. His name is Attila and we talked to him about how families can be together even after death. He seemed interested in our message and he gave us his number so that we could scheduled a time to come back and talk with him. Unfortunately he hadn't returned our call so we decided we just try and find him again. Before we left the apartment we prayed that we might find Attila so that we could share the gospel with his family. I kid you not, we walk for 3 minuets and there Attila was, out on a walk. He greeted us warmly and apologized for not getting back to us. He had been quite busy. We talked with him a little more and asked if it would be alright to stop by and share a message with his family and he said yes. We then got his address and said we would pop by. He said he was looking forward to it and commented that we were nice young ladies and hoped his daughters would grow up to be like us :). Cute! We part ways and not 30 seconds later we run into a lady and her children. We introduce ourselves and she squints at our name tags and then gets this 'ah ha' face. so makes hand gestures like she wants to write something so we get her a pen and paper. She rights down that her friend doesn't know how to pray and that we need to go and teach him how to pray. She then gives us his address and her email, shakes our hand and walks away.... BAH! Why can't that happen every time! Unfortunately the man doesn't live in our area so we passed on his information, but it was an incredible experience non the less.
Ryan
It is a beautiful day out and sister Williams and I are walking to an appointment when we come across a man in a work uniform sitting in the shade. We stop and start to talk with him. We ask him about his belief in God and he says he believes something is out there but has never really gone to church or figured out what that something is. We talk a little more about our church and our beliefs, talk with him about his experiences with religion and joke around with him. As the conversation dies down he thanks us for stopping to talk to him. He tells us about how he had been have a pretty rough day and that we had really brightened up his day. We smiled and remarked on how God is very aware of everyones situation and then ask him if He has ever heard of the Book of Mormon. We explain what the book is about and then give him his own copy. He thanks us for the book, laughs and says we will never believe this, but he had just gotten off the phone with his girlfriend about how he was needing a new book to read. Looks like God has just put a book in you lap there Ryan! We got his number and committed him to read the Book of Mormon and told him we would phone him and follow up with him Wednesday. He agreed, thanked us again for stopping to talk with him, and then gave us a referral. Ryan I LOVE you haha! He told us that we should go and check out a lady that lived in house 270. That she had told him her grandpa was a Mormon and that maybe she could use a visit from us.
The Lady That Lives In House 270 AKA Kimberly
We knock on the door Ryan gave us and are greeted by the nicest lady with the kindest smile. We introduce ourselves as missionaries and she immediately invites us in and starts talking with us. Let me give you a little background on her. She has had a lot of trials in her life, she has over come addiction and currently works as an addictions councilor. Through the trials in her life has gained a very strong relationship with God and Jesus Christ and she has had missionaries in and out of her life since she could remember. Her and her family got really close with a couple of elders who would come over and help out around the house when her father was sick. She knows all about the church and even received a priesthood blessing in her youth and explained that when she received that blessing she felt the power and the love that God had for her. While we were talking with her and learning more about her I experienced what it felt like to love someone you barely know. She already believes so many things the church teaches I couldn't comprehend why she hadn't been baptized yet.... so I asked her why she hadn't been baptized. She talked about how she didn't feel like people needed to go to church to worship. I asked her if she knew that God's church was here on the earth if she would go. She thought about it and said she guess she would. She talked a little about why women didnt have the priesthood and we explained to her that the priesthood was just the power given to act in God's name through him. When you look at women we are naturally more care giving and service orientated than men are, and that the priesthood gave men the opportunity to give that service. She thought about it and agreed. We asked if she would come to church with us, she was hesitant at first but then agreed. We also asked if we could come back and talk with her some more and she readily agreed with a smile on her face. She told us how nice it was that 2 young ladies knocked on her door instead of 2 boys and made a comment to the effect that maybe two sisters is what she needed. Ah! I am so excited to go back and see her!
Yesterday was zone conference. It was awesome! We had a general authority Elder Johnson come and talk with us. It was incredible.
If you cant tell I'm getting tired of writing as I am sure you are tired of reading all about me haha.
Alma 26: 11-12
Before leaving the house for the day turning to sister Williams,
Me: "Who wouldn't want to talk to us?! We look so good!"
At the end of the day, a text message I have to send to a 19 year old boy we meet on the street and tried to teach the restoration to.
"Ohhhh get it now. Well, while we are on a mission we dont date... but we would love to get together and have a gospel discussion and baptize you!"
A Haiku For You:
The Gospel
Glorious and True
What Blessings
Sister Hall
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| Our zone leaders...in a tree prison |
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| Some of the elders in our zone |
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| Most of our zone on a rock |
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| Sister me Sister Wester and sister Colvan |
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