Happy late 25th anniversary mom and dad!! You are so amazing and I love you both so very much! I am so lucky to have been raised by such wonderful people :)
Well let me tell you about my week. It was a really good one! We met Carmalita this week. She is a young lady from Jamacia who is ready to start a family and wants God to be a bigger part of her life. We promised her that our message of the restored gospel will strengthen family ties as everyone strives to follow Christ's example. We promised her the peace and happiness that comes from keeping God's commandments and doing His will. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was very fascinated, particularly
We met with Israel this week who is a Less Active Member who last went to church when he was 17 and living in Mexico. He has a 9 month baby girl and is planning on marrying his girlfriend who is a non member. So we will reteach him the lessons and help him come back to church and we will also teach his wife the lessons and help her to be baptized. It was a miracle that the Elders found him because he was not on their records as less active member, they found him while tracking. We taught him that light of Christ will help him, his wife and his little daughter through the darkness of the world we live in today. We asked him if he wanted us to continue teaching him how he can come closer to Christ through prayer, scripture study, and keeping God's commandments. His response was so tender as he lovingly looked down at his daughter and said, "yes, of course that is what I want" So we will be reactivating him and his wife will be a new investigator for us! We are so excited to be teaching a family!!! We haven't met his wife yet but we will next Tuesday.
We met with Aileen this week who is a less active. In past visits she has really varied with how much interest she had shown in us coming. But this last time she was is a good mood and was happy to talk with us. She really opened up to us and told us that she wasn't as close to God as she was 5 years ago when she first was baptized into the church. We asked her if she wanted to come closer to God again and she said she would. I felt prompted to ask her what she remembered of the missionary lessons she was taught 5 years ago. She told us not much so I asked if we could meet with her weekly to reteach them to her. I told he that as we taught her we would help her to make commitments such as prayer or reading the scriptures or coming to church. I told her that she would slowly work on one thing at a time and that eventually she can feel as close to God as she did 5 years ago. She said that she would like that. So we will be meeting with her weekly!
We also met with Jessica for the first time this week. She was on our records as a less active member so we went over to find out her story and why she hasn't been to church. She is from Australia and moved here when she was 19. She has been to the Church building a few times but it was a lot smaller than her ward at home and she just stopped coming. She hasn't been to church in 4 years or so. We asked her if she would like to start coming back to church and if she would like to come closer to God. She said she would and wasn't opposed to coming to church this week! We really hope to see her there! We are going to reteach her the lessons as well. She is married and her hubby was away on a business trip but hopefully we can start teaching him as well as a new investigator! And Jessica's friend Rose was there the whole time as well and we invited her to come to church and to have the lessons. She said she is Christian but hasn't been to church in a while. She is married and is pregnant with her first baby!! She said she would come to church with Jessica if it didn't interfere with her class. So we are hoping to see both of them on Sunday! That visit was so awesome because we found a Less Active and 2 potential investigators! We hope the husbands are open to be taught!
We taught Vasu again after he was gone for two weeks. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and really focused on repentance and how our sins can be washed away as we repent and are baptized. After we taught the lesson I recommitted him to be baptized. The Spirit was so strong in the room as I promised him that if made the decision to be baptized that his sins would be washed away and that as he took of the sacrament every week he could experience that same cleansing. He sent his own date for June 22. He said he would be ready for sure by then. He said he wouldn't get baptized into any other church. He is waiting on a sign to know if this is the right church. He told us logically everything we have taught makes sense. Logically he believes it to be true (he is a very intellectual man) but he wants to have a spiritual witness. I told him "God can't drive a parked car" and that sometimes it isn't until you make a decision and go forward that God can really lead you and guide you where He wants you to go. Sometimes he wants us to exercise our faith first. That made sense to him. We gave him a chapter to read from the Book of Mormon about baptism and we will continue to meet with him
Well that is a little more about who we've been teaching and how it's been going. These people are amazing! I have such a great love for all of them! It is so exciting to see them progress in the gospel, increase their faith in Christ and to make changes in their lives. it truly is amazing. We had Stake conference this week so that was cool. There was a heavy emphasis on ward members helping with missionary work because we truly are all missionaries! So that was cool. We hope to see our ward members become more involved with teaching and with finding people. OH! We saw something rather disturbing this week when we traveled to the Bronx for Stake Conference...We saw a white lady with long blonde hair walking down the street completely topless!!! No Shirt, no bra, no nothing! She was just walking down with a group of her guy friends.... Unbelievable!
It's starting to get really humid...ugg. You just feel sticky and wet all the time... it is no fun at all. I will need to go shopping for some light weight shirts and ideally one that I don't have to wear a shades shirt. Because if I am dying right now... I don't even want to think about what July and August are going to bring...
I went on a split this week. I stayed in my area in Yonkers and Sister Awerkamp went to Connecticut. I learned a lot from Sister Lotulele. She has been out 17 months so she is almost done! It is cool to see how other people teach and what they have learned from the mission so I really enjoyed it. But I also really missed Sister Awerkamp! I was happy to have her back :)
Welp family, that is all for now. I love you all so much!!
Love, Sister Lounsbury
No comments:
Post a Comment