Sem Sujeto

Week 19 of 78

March 28, 2011

Good day, family!

This week's been very good. Hooray! It was awesome alone for the mere fact that we were able to go to the TEMPLE! We had to drive to Birmingham at 6:30 in the morning to get there in time for training. Pres. Holzapfel always has good things to say. He's intense in a good way. He told us, among other things, that Heavenly Father hears the prayers of the people in our area. He's intervening in their lives so they can find the gospel, so we have to be prepared to meet and talk to everyone because we could be the answer to their prayers. It's a pretty heavy responsibility, but it gave me a renewed sense of purpose. The Birmingham temple is a mini one, but it was awesome nonetheless. Going into the house of the Lord was beautiful. I loved it! I'm pretty sure Sis. Bruno and I were the last patrons to leave the celestial room because we were in there praying and didn't want to leave. I think I offer my longest prayers in the house of the Lord because that's where I receive a lot of personal revelation. Preparing to enter the temple will definitely bless and magnify the experience of being there, that's for sure.

We actually had a day this week with NOTHING but appointments. It was so cool. More of our investigators are truly progressing! A couple more women committed to baptismal dates, and they are truly searching for the truth. Also, since our Indian friends haven't been coming to our English class anymore, we were blessed to find more Indians and Nepalese people who want English classes. It's pretty cool. Hopefully, we'll set up a time to do that this week :)

The weather here has been insane. It went from 80 degrees to like 43 yesterday, all because of some crazy thunderstorms we've been having. I don't understand. We've been able to break some of our records for lessons this week. We just kept in our minds that we would do our best to turn every contact with someone into a lesson, and things happened. Ha cha!

President Memory from our mission presidency came to visit us on Sunday morning. We went around with him to some of the different church meetings. I think my favorite part was talking to the youth about missionary work and preparing to serve missions because I remember being their age and looking at the missionaries with respect. It reminded me of the example we're setting for those of the younger generations. They see how we work, how we act, and how we look, and they're taking notes. I loved being able to share how much I love missionary work and why and the miracles that we're blessed to see on the Lord's errand. I think they liked it, too. Oh, and we had three investigators in church on Sunday. Hallelujah!

Let's talk about a few of my investigators, shall we? First of all, I've noticed how some of them say their prayers. It's interesting to see the shift from almost memorized prayers to prayers from the heart. One investigator always starts out with "Almighty, wonderful, powerful God, we come before your throne today..." and then another one usually says, "Thank you for one more day to lift up/come closer to your name." Yet another one is not used to praying, let alone pray out loud, so he says things like, "Well, uh, let's see. There's just so MUCH to be thankful for, God." It's precious to hear them pray.

We received a referral from the Bessemer elders about a lady they'd been teaching who moved to our area. She's doing well enough, but she doesn't have any furniture in her condo, so we sit on her stairs or on the floor when we go over there. She has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith already, and you can see it in her eyes how deeply the gospel speaks to her when we teach her. The Spirit is so strong with her. When we ask her how she feels about things, she always responds quietly, "It's awesome." You can see it in her eyes that more feelings than "awesome" or going through her, but that's how she expresses herself.

We have another investigator who amuses us, though we love her. She's a single woman in her late 20s, I'm guessing, who's originally from California. We gave her a Book of Mormon about a week and a half ago, explained who we were, and talked a little bit about the faith. Well, when we went over there on Thursday, she had done her "research" and was ready with questions. She kept commenting about how our whole deal was "INteresting," so we eventually got it out of her that she had been checking out things about blacks and Mormons. She didn't sound mad, but it was obvious that some things weren't sitting well with her in the Book of Mormon in relation to the mark of Cain and the Lamanites and the skin of darkness. I offered my two cents about that not being doctrine and that the truth is found in reading the book and praying about its message. After about an hour of this (she had other questions), she looked at us for a few seconds with her eyes narrowed and was like, "Hmm...INteresting....I like you guys." Hahaha! We have another appointment with her this week :) Oh, and her reliable source was Wikipedia.

Oh! Crazy story. So, remember towel man? That we had an awesome lesson with and thought he died? Well, we received an interesting phone call at 5am one morning from him! He said he almost got killed that night and wanted us to say a prayer over the phone with him. Regardless of the crazy bizarreness of it all, we did it and he asked to see us the next day. We felt weird about it, so we gave him to the elders to meet. No word on what's happened there yet, but it's all very strange, as you can imagine.

I'm so excited for general conference this weekend! I am, like, STARVING for new counsel from the leadership of the church! Woohoo! Here's a precious gem I found in 1 Nephi 14:14 this week: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory." That's the Saints! That's you and me! We've got the power! Smooches! Sister Jones