Week 12

Alright... Let's see if I can get all the highlights of this week in.

 

I forgot to mention something of major importance in my last email. I guess I just got so excited about conference. But I didn't even tell you all that MICHAEL came to stake conference on Sunday and then we took him on a tour of Kirtland. At the time, it seemed like he wasn't feelin it. He looked like he was in a lot of pain (he has lots of issues because he has a broken back that he just deals with...ouch) and even though we were pouring our hearts out (including the members that came with us) he was just like, meh. So we kinda felt blah about the whole thing but decided to text him later and set up an appointment. Remember how he dropped us? Well this was our first visit since then. So we met on Wednesday and before we saw him we practiced our lesson during studies. We knew this could be a pivotal visit so we wanted it to be perfect! And something came to both of us during our studies. We noticed all the signs we had kind of been missing somehow before then...but Michael is SUCH a romantic. He's quiet, but we can tell he really wants to get married and have a family based on the comments he had made in the past, especially during our lesson on the temple. So we decided we wanted to just ask him a lot of questions and figure out what his thoughts were about everything, and he totally opened up. We asked him if he had ever thought about what this could mean for his future family. He said he had thought about it a lot. He even said he always wanted to wear white to his wedding. And we hadn't even mentioned that part about the temple! He also said he had thought about marrying a Mormon girl because faith was something he really is looking for in a spouse. Then he said something about how in a previous lesson Sister Johnson had said something about families and had used the words "home filled with the spirit" or something like that. He said in one of his books, he used those exact same words BEFORE we had that lesson. He was like "I always look for signs, and I kind of took that as one". He basically said that our emphasis on families was what kept him investigating, even though some of our doctrines may not have made perfect sense to him. He said he had "good feelings" that were hard to explain about the tour on Sunday. He still doesn't feel like he KNOWS but he is closer now than he ever has been. We asked him again if he would be baptized and he said he would, once he found out a sure answer. So he is working for November 2 as his baptism date! He is coming to another baptism this Saturday in the other ward, and then we are having a bonfire on Saturday night with ward members and investigators so we can get some fellowship from the ward for them, and Michael is coming to that too - as well as several other investigators (the Stamms, Lisa and Jim, KATEE - who we finally got a hold of, possibly another potential investigator named Barbara, and of course Michael) We are stoked for it! The work is definitely hastening in Hiram!

 

I finally met Rafael the bread man. I've been waiting for that for a long time. He loves missionaries, and apparently they used to hang out in his store on Pdays. He's this old guy from Spain who makes the most delicious bread I've ever tasted. Every time missionaries come he sends them home with free bread. He gave us a loaf of Banana nut, and then a loaf of some Italian swirl bread with this yummy tomato and mushroom sauce in the middle. Oh my gosh. So good. I'm gaining weight and it's making me super sad. This is why. Apparently he is not interested in conversion, although if he ever did join any church it would definitely be ours because he likes Mormons so much. He just kind of doesn't believe in God. Someday that will change :)

 

Then yesterday was just awesome. So much goodness happened. First of all, they cancelled ward council, so we got to sleep in till the normal time instead of getting up extra early. Granted, the "normal time" is 6:30...but every minute counts right? Haha. Then we had church which was amazing as usual. I just love our ward. Then after that we had a dinner appointment with a member and that went great. I love member meals - another reason I am getting fat. Then we planned on stopping by to see an investigator named Ariane who is impossible to get a hold of because her phone got disconnected. She wasn't home and we were planning on stopping by a potential as backup. So we started driving and on the way sister Johnson stopped and said "I think we should tract this street". Since we aren't allowed to tract in the dark, we only had a short amount of time left of daylight to tract, so we hurried and knocked about 4 houses. The first one has some awesome potential. She's a sweet Hispanic lady named Maria. We are seeing her on Wednesday! Next house, no one was home (although they had some pretty sweet Halloween decorations in their yard so we wrote a note complimenting them and left our number on a Mormon.org card and put it in their door. haha) Then we talked to a nice guy at the next house. Not interested. THEN we talked to a girl named Jessica at the next house. She's probably around our age and is super gorgeous. The house smelled like smoke and there were some guys in the house shouting profanities at the football game they were watching. But she was super interested. We asked her if she was familiar with the Bible. She said not really. Then we asked her if she had ever wondered where she was before this life, why she was here, and where she was going. She said "I don't know...Yeah I guess I've thought about it before." And we started to talk about the comfort it was to have that knowledge and that we could come teach her more about it. She told us she had a friend who had just started going to church and wanted her to come too. So she was thinking about joining a church. She has never had religion in her life...and she's so obviously searching for it. I usually don't ever talk about tracting in my emails because there's nothing really exciting about it. But I can't stop thinking about this girl who I think Heavenly Father has prepared. She is going through some challenge in her life that has made her thirsty for the gospel. And I can't wait to teach her! We got her number and she said she would come to church this Sunday. AH! Like I said...the work is hastening in Hiram. The Lord is guiding us to where we need to be and it is such a privilege to be His instrument.

 

So today during my studies I was reading about the Gospel of Jesus Christ from Preach My Gospel, and as I got to the Atonement I felt very prompted to share some of my thoughts with you all. I actually found an article in September's Ensign about the justice and mercy of God from Elder Holland, and there was a specific part that struck me. He says "A favorite British scholar said: 'I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A [mathematical] sum [incorrectly worked] can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and [then] working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound.' So God is just, 'mercy claimeth the penitent' (Alma 42:23), and evil can be undone." I guess I just wanted to share that because it illustrates the point that without repentance and forgiveness, we cannot be fully healed from wrongdoings. A desire to become righteous starts with the decision to make things right, or to be penitent so that the mercy of Jesus Christ can claim us and change us. We cannot simply decide to be good and hope that our past sins go away. They cannot and will not without full and sincere repentance. And then we can start fresh with a clean slate, and good decisions become easier to make. It is similar to an analogy I heard yesterday, that if you have a flat tire on your bike, do you keep riding it on just the rims? Of course not. Similarly, if we make a mistake, can we go on and truly become better if we continue to ride on a flat tire, so to speak? Just some food for thought.

 

I love you all and miss you bunches! Write me!

Tayler :)