Elder Bednar came to our mission on Saturday. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget. President allowed the entire mission to attend so all 180 met in the chapel in complete silence studying the scriptures and listening to prelude music waiting to hear from an apostle. It was a very sacred and spiritual meeting. He’s just a normal man, but his calling is larger than life. He said some really cool things, but the Spirit was the main teacher in this meeting. In the middle of the discussion Elder Bednar said, “Raise your hand if you had a question answered today that was neither asked nor discussed.” Several missionaries raised their hands. Elder Bednar emphasized how we need to work as hard as we can to cultivate an environment for the Spirit to teach and then we need to get out of the way. If the Spirit isn’t teaching then all you are doing is talking to yourself in front of investigators. Nothing we haven’t heard before, but it was awesome to have an apostle with us and reminded us the reality of the message we share.
Everything else that happened this week is a blur. Sister Latimer is my new companion. She’s from American Fork, Utah. Woo Utah! She’s a lot more quite and reserved that Sister Hill, but she’s got a crazy side. This morning we were fixing our voicemail answering message. I started off by saying, “Hi! This is the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Johnson…” And then Sister Latimer said in her sweet little voice, “…and Sister Latimer. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you. And remember, if you don’t get baptized, you’re going to hell.” What?! Where in the world did that come from?! I looked at my quiet/shy companion like she was crazy and then she started to giggle. Oh… it was a joke I realized, but I was still taken a back. Just imagine my face. Well, we tried to change it, and we thought we did, but….The San Pedro Elders called us and left a message “um….sisters, you need to change that message now!” Hahaha. So we finally removed our pounding-at-the-pulpit answering message thingy and all is well, hopefully.
So that was my funny Sister Latimer story. I also have a funny Sister Hill Story. At the beginning of last transfer I mentioned the potato famine to Sister Hill. She started laughing histerically. “Oh a potato famine! Hahaha! Like they couldn’t eat anything else. Hahah!” I asked, “You’ve never heard of the potato famine?” Then she started talking and laughing in an Irish accent, “Oh no! I’m going to die because there’s no potatos! hahaha” I know there were Irish people rolling in their graves. So I had to listen to her make fun of the potato famine all transfer long cause she thought it was some kind of fabricated myth. On our last day together we were knocking in the morning and she started going off on it again. I turned to her and said, “The next time you meet and Irish person, you ask them about the potato famine and let me know how it goes.” She laughed and laughed. Later that day we picked up sister Forsey who was one of the 6 sisters going home this transfer. She would spend her last day with us. We were a three-some for the day. That night we were leaving an apartment complex and we saw an older gentleman walking so we went up to talk to him. After we introduced ourselves he introduced himself in a thick…Irish accent. He is a Catholic priest who had immigrated years before. “So. I’ve heard about some potato famine that was supposed to have happened in Ireland. Can you tell me a little about that.” Suddenly the sky darked as the Irish man’s eye furrowed and he began a dramatic monologue recounting the epic tale (that happens to be true), “The Irish people exported all the barley and wheat in nighty-turthy seven”(insert correct year cause I forgot). “There was a blight and the potato crops failed…” “In nighty-turthy seven Ireland had a population of 9 million. In nighty-turthy nine their were 3 million. 2 million immigrated……4 million died!” After he was finished I was beaming with the glow that only comes when you throw back “In your face!” Sister Hill was laughing so hard because it was so classic and couldn’t have been better timing. Now she knows about the potato famine.
Sister Dodge and Sister Davenport went home this week. Sad day.
sj
Monday, March 15, 2010
no offense
February 15
Hello everyone! Transfer News:
Sister Hill is getting transferred and I’m training again in Encino Park.
What in the world? I am so sad. I’m excited and I know it is the Lord’s will but I really like Sister Hill and this is the first time that I won’t have two transfers with one of my companions. I love second transfer with a comp! By the time the second transfer comes around the fluffy façade you try to fake in front of people is exposed and suddenly you go from being missionary companions to being best friends. That was cheesy, but it’s true. Oh well. All the sisters made the transfer maps to try and figure out where everyone is getting transferred to and we’re pretty sure that Sister Hill is going to either Anderson Mill or Pleasanton: the two area that I’ve served in! So even though she’ll be away from me, I’ll still haunt her with my presence (via the area book and former investigators) in those other areas. Bahahaha.
At district meeting this week we did some role plays with the San Pedro Elders. Our purpose was to ask questions that would help us figure out what our investigators’ true concerns would be. So the San Pedro Elders pretended to be investigators with a pretend concern and Sister Hill and I tried to figure out their concern. “Elder Hennessey, what brings you joy?” I began to ask. “What do you feel your purpose is in life?” Elder Hennessey paused and then looked up at Sister Hill and I and said, “Well…no offense to you sisters…but my girlfriend is hot!” A brief moment of stunned silence ensued while Sister Hill and I sat wide-eyed registering what he had just said and then we turned and both looked at each other and that was it. We burst out laughing and we could not control ourselves! I started convulsing silently because I was laughing so hard and tears streamed down my cheeks. Sister Hill kept throwing her head backwards shrieking with laughter struggling to get the air she needed in order to continue breathing. I don’t know why it was so funny to us. Maybe it was because we were tired. Maybe it was because of poor Elder Hennessey face: He was shocked because he wasn’t trying to be funny at all and he didn’t quite understand the abrupt repercussion that followed his statement. It probably isn’t that funny to any of you, but that moment has brought me so much happiness this week.
Needless to say, we were completely unhelpful the during the rest of the role plays because we just kept bursting in giggles and the redder Elder Hennessey’s face got, the more difficult our laughter was to control. Oh good times. I’ve never laughed so hard as I do with Sister Hill so it’s probably a good thing she’s getting transferred.
This week we got to clean the temple. We don’t usually help clean the temple because it doesn’t help us find new people to teach, but a bunch of temple workers are in our ward and they needed help so we went over and helped. It was so cool. We all dressed in white and together with the other ladies in the ward we helped to clean the house of the Lord. It was really a peaceful experience.
We contacted a lady named Julie on the street this week. She was painting her house and we offered to help. It was fun. Julie is originally from China, but then moved here and married an American. She divorced him awhile ago, and is now in the middle of her second divorce. She is struggling and really wants her 11-year-old daughter, Cailyn, to have God in her life. So we taught them the Plan of Salvation. At the end of the lesson Cailyn started to tear up and was a little embarrassed. We asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said she did. Julie was really excited for Cailyn. I’m not exactly sure why Cailyn started to cry. Partly I think she is overwhelmed with the stress that comes from watching your parents get a divorce and the message brought some relief to that stress. We had Cailyn go to activity days last Wednesday and she loved being with the girls. Julie doesn’t really want to start going to church yet, but Cailyn is working with her. A couple days later and Cailyn told us that she taught her mom how to pray. Cute!
The rest of the investigators are struggling right now. They’ll get through it, but everyone has hard lives and then trying to persuade people to rearrange their priorities is soooooo difficult! We are trying to show them that Church and prayer and scripture study should be at the top of the list, but they are too afraid to let go of the things that they’ve convinced themselves brings happiness. A lot of them are in somewhat stable circumstances so they don’t want to do anything to topple over their security but when you step back and look at their lives their foundation is completely cracked and decayed and it’s only a matter of time that it will come crashing down. It’s like they are living in these old buildings that are falling apart and as missionaries we are asking them to step out of the building and come over to new spot of ground with a solid foundation and help them build a new building with some new material and some of the old material that they bring over. That’s how we see it as missionaries, but the investigators see us threatening their safety. If you were in an old falling down building and someone was telling to get out of it wouldn’t you be scared that any sudden movement would cause everything to come crashing down? But what they don’t understand is that remaining in the old building is only putting off impending devastation—ignoring the problems doesn’t make them go away. It’s sooooooooooo frustrating!
One more interesting story. We knocked on an older gentleman's door and we extended an invitation to hear a message about Christ and responded that he already knew about Christ because he was catholic. "Have you ever talked to Mormons before?" We asked. "Oh yeah," he responded, "I know all about Mormons. You know the Angel Moroni on top of the temple?" We nodded our heads and I braced myself for a bunch of anti, but was surprised at his response. "Yeah, the angel Moroni actually appeared on some property owned my family..." We were not expecting that at all and wanted to ask him more questions, but he was in his pj's. Interesting and I don't really know what else to say.
Anyways, we gotta go. Thank you so much for the prayers! I can feel your love and support by them. I love yall a lot!
Sister Johnson
Hello everyone! Transfer News:
Sister Hill is getting transferred and I’m training again in Encino Park.
What in the world? I am so sad. I’m excited and I know it is the Lord’s will but I really like Sister Hill and this is the first time that I won’t have two transfers with one of my companions. I love second transfer with a comp! By the time the second transfer comes around the fluffy façade you try to fake in front of people is exposed and suddenly you go from being missionary companions to being best friends. That was cheesy, but it’s true. Oh well. All the sisters made the transfer maps to try and figure out where everyone is getting transferred to and we’re pretty sure that Sister Hill is going to either Anderson Mill or Pleasanton: the two area that I’ve served in! So even though she’ll be away from me, I’ll still haunt her with my presence (via the area book and former investigators) in those other areas. Bahahaha.
At district meeting this week we did some role plays with the San Pedro Elders. Our purpose was to ask questions that would help us figure out what our investigators’ true concerns would be. So the San Pedro Elders pretended to be investigators with a pretend concern and Sister Hill and I tried to figure out their concern. “Elder Hennessey, what brings you joy?” I began to ask. “What do you feel your purpose is in life?” Elder Hennessey paused and then looked up at Sister Hill and I and said, “Well…no offense to you sisters…but my girlfriend is hot!” A brief moment of stunned silence ensued while Sister Hill and I sat wide-eyed registering what he had just said and then we turned and both looked at each other and that was it. We burst out laughing and we could not control ourselves! I started convulsing silently because I was laughing so hard and tears streamed down my cheeks. Sister Hill kept throwing her head backwards shrieking with laughter struggling to get the air she needed in order to continue breathing. I don’t know why it was so funny to us. Maybe it was because we were tired. Maybe it was because of poor Elder Hennessey face: He was shocked because he wasn’t trying to be funny at all and he didn’t quite understand the abrupt repercussion that followed his statement. It probably isn’t that funny to any of you, but that moment has brought me so much happiness this week.
Needless to say, we were completely unhelpful the during the rest of the role plays because we just kept bursting in giggles and the redder Elder Hennessey’s face got, the more difficult our laughter was to control. Oh good times. I’ve never laughed so hard as I do with Sister Hill so it’s probably a good thing she’s getting transferred.
This week we got to clean the temple. We don’t usually help clean the temple because it doesn’t help us find new people to teach, but a bunch of temple workers are in our ward and they needed help so we went over and helped. It was so cool. We all dressed in white and together with the other ladies in the ward we helped to clean the house of the Lord. It was really a peaceful experience.
We contacted a lady named Julie on the street this week. She was painting her house and we offered to help. It was fun. Julie is originally from China, but then moved here and married an American. She divorced him awhile ago, and is now in the middle of her second divorce. She is struggling and really wants her 11-year-old daughter, Cailyn, to have God in her life. So we taught them the Plan of Salvation. At the end of the lesson Cailyn started to tear up and was a little embarrassed. We asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said she did. Julie was really excited for Cailyn. I’m not exactly sure why Cailyn started to cry. Partly I think she is overwhelmed with the stress that comes from watching your parents get a divorce and the message brought some relief to that stress. We had Cailyn go to activity days last Wednesday and she loved being with the girls. Julie doesn’t really want to start going to church yet, but Cailyn is working with her. A couple days later and Cailyn told us that she taught her mom how to pray. Cute!
The rest of the investigators are struggling right now. They’ll get through it, but everyone has hard lives and then trying to persuade people to rearrange their priorities is soooooo difficult! We are trying to show them that Church and prayer and scripture study should be at the top of the list, but they are too afraid to let go of the things that they’ve convinced themselves brings happiness. A lot of them are in somewhat stable circumstances so they don’t want to do anything to topple over their security but when you step back and look at their lives their foundation is completely cracked and decayed and it’s only a matter of time that it will come crashing down. It’s like they are living in these old buildings that are falling apart and as missionaries we are asking them to step out of the building and come over to new spot of ground with a solid foundation and help them build a new building with some new material and some of the old material that they bring over. That’s how we see it as missionaries, but the investigators see us threatening their safety. If you were in an old falling down building and someone was telling to get out of it wouldn’t you be scared that any sudden movement would cause everything to come crashing down? But what they don’t understand is that remaining in the old building is only putting off impending devastation—ignoring the problems doesn’t make them go away. It’s sooooooooooo frustrating!
One more interesting story. We knocked on an older gentleman's door and we extended an invitation to hear a message about Christ and responded that he already knew about Christ because he was catholic. "Have you ever talked to Mormons before?" We asked. "Oh yeah," he responded, "I know all about Mormons. You know the Angel Moroni on top of the temple?" We nodded our heads and I braced myself for a bunch of anti, but was surprised at his response. "Yeah, the angel Moroni actually appeared on some property owned my family..." We were not expecting that at all and wanted to ask him more questions, but he was in his pj's. Interesting and I don't really know what else to say.
Anyways, we gotta go. Thank you so much for the prayers! I can feel your love and support by them. I love yall a lot!
Sister Johnson
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Honey! We have Mormons in the House!
Housekeeping first:
1. The missionary website has upgraded to work with google, so they created new email addresses for all of us, so my new email address is:
alyse.johnson@myldsmail.net
2. My new address is:
Sister Alyse Johnson
C/0 Kim Thomas
21122 Pacific Grove
San Antonio, TX 78259
It was wet and cold this week. I’m such a baby, but really…Actually, it is an answer to prayers for this area. San Antonio has been in a drought for some time and this fall and winter have brought a ton of much needed rain. So we worked in the rain. Knocking in the rain is something else I’ll tell ya. It’s actually pretty fun because people always ask, “What’n the world are you doing out in this weather?!” “We’re out here to find you so we can share with you the message of Jesus Christ.” Through rain and snow and wind and mud…I made up a song actually:
We’re tromping through mud, rain, and snow (we had like five flakes this year which is a pretty big deal)
Wait! This is San Antonio!
Where the heck is the sun?
Embrace it and just move on.
Knocking was okay this week, we found a few potentials. We knocked on this one guy’s door and he opened it all cheerful-like. And he started to invite us in. We were taken back by his welcoming smile, but we were excited that someone was going to let us in, but then he stopped, “Wait. Are you here to see the kennel?” We laughed and said, “No, we’re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here to share a message about Christ with you.” With the same smile and cheer he exclaimed, “Oh, Goodbye!” and shut the door without further ado. It was hilarious. On that same street a Christian woman who used to be wicken let us in. She was pretty cool, and then her husband came home from work. He walked in and she yelled cheerfully, “Hey honey! We have Mormons in our house!” Well, the husband was cordial and let us finish the lesson, but then he dismissed us. Another guy opened the door and said, “I’m catholic and I like it,” and then he shut the door. How can you argue with that? Then we went to see some former investigators. We had talked to this guy last week. He was really nice and told us that his wife was studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses, but that she needed uplifting visits so we would be welcome to come back later. So yesterday we went back and they were out in the yard. We got out of the car and he said, “I told you mormons never to come back! I thought I made it clear to the last one that was here.” Sister Hill said, “You said we could come back.” “No you. The other Mormon girl who came by. I’ve had a bunch of Mormons from your clan come by since you guys were here. A 19-20 year old blonde girl with curly hair came by saying fire and brimstone and all this other stuff if we didn’t join the Mormon Church. I told her to get out of here and non eof yall are allowed back!” “Are you sure they were Mormon missionaries?” “Yeah, she was from Ogden, Utah.” It was weird. I know all of the sisters in the mission and all of the sisters in the ward and none of them fit that description. It was the weirdest thing. Sister Hill was pretty fired up because she hates being accused of something she didn’t do. I feel bad for the investigators. I don’t know who they talked to, but they obviously didn’t do a very good job at making friends.
So that stunk, but then we got to go and see Evelyn and Jesus. They are Philipino and the nicest couple ever. Evelyn says that we showed up right as she was praying for guidance from the Lord. They invited us for lunch and I haven’t eaten that much in a long time. We ate so much. We cancelled dinner that night because we were so full of philipino food. I love food from Southeast Asia. It reminded me of thai food. Yum. Evelyn said, “I was telling my husband about you and I told him that you looked like Charles angels.” “Like who?” “Charles Angels” “What?...oh, like Charlie’s Angels?” Haha. We’ve never been described like that before.
Mary Flemming wants to get baptized, but she couldn’t come to church for this and that. But she will next week, hopefully. And hopefully she’s bring her fiancé. Heidi and her family are stagnant. They won’t do anything to change, so we might have to back off for a while. We had exchanges this week so I went with Sister Reas (new sister). It was fun. She serves in a singles ward which is really cool, but I pray I never serve in singles ward because I hear it is weird. Everyone says it is so fun and so weird. Angela got a blessing this week and she says that it has made a huge difference in her health since then. Pete randomly showed up for church and said he would be going to boot camp for a month or so he can get baptized.
And last story:
We saw Tim and his fiancé. Tim wants to get baptized. We met him like two months ago, but he was busy and worried about his finace, but we met them yesterday and she’s awesome and totally open to learning more. They’ve already been to church once. Yay!
It’s so funny because little tough stuff happened this week, nothing out of the ordinary, but it is always overshadowed by the amazing stuff that happens. I love these people. The people in Texas are good, God-fearing people. They have a little state-pride, but other than that, good, good people and I am so grateful to be here serving with them. I love them!
Sister Johnson
1. The missionary website has upgraded to work with google, so they created new email addresses for all of us, so my new email address is:
alyse.johnson@myldsmail.net
2. My new address is:
Sister Alyse Johnson
C/0 Kim Thomas
21122 Pacific Grove
San Antonio, TX 78259
It was wet and cold this week. I’m such a baby, but really…Actually, it is an answer to prayers for this area. San Antonio has been in a drought for some time and this fall and winter have brought a ton of much needed rain. So we worked in the rain. Knocking in the rain is something else I’ll tell ya. It’s actually pretty fun because people always ask, “What’n the world are you doing out in this weather?!” “We’re out here to find you so we can share with you the message of Jesus Christ.” Through rain and snow and wind and mud…I made up a song actually:
We’re tromping through mud, rain, and snow (we had like five flakes this year which is a pretty big deal)
Wait! This is San Antonio!
Where the heck is the sun?
Embrace it and just move on.
Knocking was okay this week, we found a few potentials. We knocked on this one guy’s door and he opened it all cheerful-like. And he started to invite us in. We were taken back by his welcoming smile, but we were excited that someone was going to let us in, but then he stopped, “Wait. Are you here to see the kennel?” We laughed and said, “No, we’re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here to share a message about Christ with you.” With the same smile and cheer he exclaimed, “Oh, Goodbye!” and shut the door without further ado. It was hilarious. On that same street a Christian woman who used to be wicken let us in. She was pretty cool, and then her husband came home from work. He walked in and she yelled cheerfully, “Hey honey! We have Mormons in our house!” Well, the husband was cordial and let us finish the lesson, but then he dismissed us. Another guy opened the door and said, “I’m catholic and I like it,” and then he shut the door. How can you argue with that? Then we went to see some former investigators. We had talked to this guy last week. He was really nice and told us that his wife was studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses, but that she needed uplifting visits so we would be welcome to come back later. So yesterday we went back and they were out in the yard. We got out of the car and he said, “I told you mormons never to come back! I thought I made it clear to the last one that was here.” Sister Hill said, “You said we could come back.” “No you. The other Mormon girl who came by. I’ve had a bunch of Mormons from your clan come by since you guys were here. A 19-20 year old blonde girl with curly hair came by saying fire and brimstone and all this other stuff if we didn’t join the Mormon Church. I told her to get out of here and non eof yall are allowed back!” “Are you sure they were Mormon missionaries?” “Yeah, she was from Ogden, Utah.” It was weird. I know all of the sisters in the mission and all of the sisters in the ward and none of them fit that description. It was the weirdest thing. Sister Hill was pretty fired up because she hates being accused of something she didn’t do. I feel bad for the investigators. I don’t know who they talked to, but they obviously didn’t do a very good job at making friends.
So that stunk, but then we got to go and see Evelyn and Jesus. They are Philipino and the nicest couple ever. Evelyn says that we showed up right as she was praying for guidance from the Lord. They invited us for lunch and I haven’t eaten that much in a long time. We ate so much. We cancelled dinner that night because we were so full of philipino food. I love food from Southeast Asia. It reminded me of thai food. Yum. Evelyn said, “I was telling my husband about you and I told him that you looked like Charles angels.” “Like who?” “Charles Angels” “What?...oh, like Charlie’s Angels?” Haha. We’ve never been described like that before.
Mary Flemming wants to get baptized, but she couldn’t come to church for this and that. But she will next week, hopefully. And hopefully she’s bring her fiancé. Heidi and her family are stagnant. They won’t do anything to change, so we might have to back off for a while. We had exchanges this week so I went with Sister Reas (new sister). It was fun. She serves in a singles ward which is really cool, but I pray I never serve in singles ward because I hear it is weird. Everyone says it is so fun and so weird. Angela got a blessing this week and she says that it has made a huge difference in her health since then. Pete randomly showed up for church and said he would be going to boot camp for a month or so he can get baptized.
And last story:
We saw Tim and his fiancé. Tim wants to get baptized. We met him like two months ago, but he was busy and worried about his finace, but we met them yesterday and she’s awesome and totally open to learning more. They’ve already been to church once. Yay!
It’s so funny because little tough stuff happened this week, nothing out of the ordinary, but it is always overshadowed by the amazing stuff that happens. I love these people. The people in Texas are good, God-fearing people. They have a little state-pride, but other than that, good, good people and I am so grateful to be here serving with them. I love them!
Sister Johnson
Friday, January 29, 2010
:)
January 25, 2010
This has been an awesomely awesome week! We were on our way to visit a potential and we passed three women who were having a ‘ladies night’ and we were sure that they wouldn’t be interested in a message about Christ, but we talk to everyone we see so we talked to them. And guess what? They weren’t interested just like we expected. We had a nice conversation with one of the ladies who told us about her “Mormon” friend has two wives. “Uhhh…If he has two wives then he’s not Mormon.” “Nope, he’s a Mormon. I’m sure of it. And he has two wives and he is so in love with both of them and the new wife that he just married is super sweet and nice and—” “Okay, well we gotta go.” So we smiled and started to walk away and see our potential investigator and we were so distracted by the conversation we forgot to ask for a referral which we usually do. But suddenly one of the ladies stopped us and said, “y’all should go to that apartment with the light on.”
So we walked up to the apartment and knocked on the door and asked if we could come in and share a message about Christ. Heidi, a sweet, down-to-earth woman in her early 30s, looked down at her happy 8 year old daughter, Alexis, and asked, “Do you want them to come in?” To our excitement the 8 year old smiled and said yes, so we went in and taught them the restoration lesson. Then we came back the next day with Sister Stucki who has kids same age as Heidi’s kids and Sister Stucki took the kids to church that Wednesday to let them play with the scout and achievement day girls. We taught about the Plan of Salvation and Heidi thought it made a lot of sense. This is huge. She’s pregnant and on bed rest which complicates things, but nothing good came cheap. We took dinner over for her and her family and the ward is now going to bring her family dinner every Friday until the baby comes. Coolio.
Next cool story: Saturday is finding day and we weren’t finding anyone. So we started knocking at 8pm to finish up our night. We met a woman and her 20 year old son and they let us in. Her name is Angela and she has no legs because of diabetes and she has little use of her arms. She is very down to earth and has great faith in God and has been looking for a church. We invited her to church and her response was, “How are you going to get me there?” referring to her inability to walk, and the fact that they don’t have a car. “If you want to go to church Angela, we’ll get you there.” So she agreed and we got some members of the ward to come and pick up her heavy wheel/scooter chair, and some to bring her and her son to church. It was awesome! I think she really liked church. She fell asleep during sacrament meeting but who doesn’t? But she and her son really enjoyed gospel principles because our ward missionaries rock. Anyways, it was awesome!
WE also had this boy that we taught a while ago randomly show up for church. He’s dating a less active member, but became interested in the doctrine. He’s about to go to military boot camp and he wanted some religion in his life and mormon doctrine made a lot of sense to him. So he arranged for us to come over and teach him. We invited him to be baptized and he said that he’d probably like to do that. But the following Sunday he couldn’t come because his parents didn’t approve. Blah. He said he’d call us when he could see us again. Well he just randomly showed up to church yesterday and gave us big awkward hugs when he saw us. As we were awkwardly escaping his hug he told us that he was going to into boot camp on Monday (today). WE told him to look for missionaries at the base and to get baptized when he gets there. Wahoo!
Then we had another investigator randomly show up to church. Annette Flechas is married to less active member. Over the last few years the Flechas have pushed away from the ward, but for some reason we stopped by at the right time and things are moving in their lives as to allow for us to teach them . Jaime, Annette’s husband, just had his 17 year old less active daughter move in with him from her mom’s house. He wants to help his daughter so he asked us to come and teach his daughter and he annouced that he would be coming to church. We invited Annette, but she said she had work so she couldn’t come. But come Sunday, she and Jaime woke up early and drove to her work to check her schedule and she fould out she could at least make the first meeting. So in walks Annette, Jaime, and his daughter! Sister Hill and I were dying. Best day ever.
One more story: This is Super cool!
I called Sister Dodge (my companion in Pleasanton who is still serving in Pleasanton) to ask her some things. After I was finished she said, “I’m glad you called because I wanted to tell you something. Janie came to church today and she brought her daughter faith.”
Background:
When Sister Dodge and I were in Pleasanton we worked sooooooooooo hard. We had two baptisms together which were awesome, but we also had a ton of heartache because of the dozens of other people who fell through. It was hard. One of the disappointments was having Janie reject the gospel. The sisters before us knocked into her but they could never get a hold of her again. But Sister Dodge and I were able to get a hold of her and we taught her the lessons. She had issues with every single commandment. We poured out our souls to her telling her that she would be happy if she would just let go of all these sins. I’ve never been so bold with any investigator like I was with her. She came to church a few times, but just couldn’t change. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she didn’t want to give up the lifestyle because it was fun and exciting to her. She didn’t want to go to our church because we expected her to give up her sins and become a new person. Pride. We’ve all had issues with pride before. We rely on our own wisdom more than God’s. Pride is nothing more than self-inflicted pain. We loved her so much, but she was tripping herself up and it was so sad to watch her and her kids suffer.
We had one last lesson with her last October where we just bore our souls to her about how she needed to change. Sister Dodge told her that her goal should be to marry someone for eternity and commit herself completely to that person. She deserved fidelity and eternal love and she was capable of fidelity and eternal love. We told her about the spiritual and physical damage that comes with putting harmful substances into your body. We put everything out there and invited her to be baptized….but she couldn’t do it….she couldn’t do it, because she didn’t want to.
So we left. We told her we loved her and told her how to get in touch with us if she was ever ready to change. We walked out of there thinking that nothing had sunk in. We thought that everything we said just bounced off her conscience. But we were wrong. I’m not sure what followed in the months to come, but she told Sister Dodge that one day she woke up and had a huge desire to change. She wanted to be a better person. She immediately exclaimed, “Where’s my book?” She dug through her stuff until she found the Book of Mormon we had given her. She read every reading assignment we had given her. She pulled her 9 year old daughter, Faith, out of catholic school (Janie wouldn’t let her come to church with us because she wanted Faith to be catholic). Janie felt like Faith should decide for herself what religion to join. Then Janie talked to her mom about our church and her mom gave her blessing for Janie to go to the Mormon Church. Her mom said, “we all worship one God. It doesn’t matter which church you go to” (I usually hate hearing that comment for obvious reasons, but in this case I was super happy!)
So she decided to go to Church because she was ready to change. Sister Dodge must have fallen off her horse when she saw Janie at church (if she was sitting on a horse). Sister Dodge hadn’t talked to Janie since she and I had spoken to her almost three months before so this was huge!!!!
All I have to say is that I have faith that people can change. She was the last person I would have thought to change in this short amount of time, but Christ’s Atonment and His spirit can work miracles. Don’t give up on anyone who is holding on to self-destructive sins and thought processes (including yourself). Change is possible! Happy day.
This has been an awesomely awesome week! We were on our way to visit a potential and we passed three women who were having a ‘ladies night’ and we were sure that they wouldn’t be interested in a message about Christ, but we talk to everyone we see so we talked to them. And guess what? They weren’t interested just like we expected. We had a nice conversation with one of the ladies who told us about her “Mormon” friend has two wives. “Uhhh…If he has two wives then he’s not Mormon.” “Nope, he’s a Mormon. I’m sure of it. And he has two wives and he is so in love with both of them and the new wife that he just married is super sweet and nice and—” “Okay, well we gotta go.” So we smiled and started to walk away and see our potential investigator and we were so distracted by the conversation we forgot to ask for a referral which we usually do. But suddenly one of the ladies stopped us and said, “y’all should go to that apartment with the light on.”
So we walked up to the apartment and knocked on the door and asked if we could come in and share a message about Christ. Heidi, a sweet, down-to-earth woman in her early 30s, looked down at her happy 8 year old daughter, Alexis, and asked, “Do you want them to come in?” To our excitement the 8 year old smiled and said yes, so we went in and taught them the restoration lesson. Then we came back the next day with Sister Stucki who has kids same age as Heidi’s kids and Sister Stucki took the kids to church that Wednesday to let them play with the scout and achievement day girls. We taught about the Plan of Salvation and Heidi thought it made a lot of sense. This is huge. She’s pregnant and on bed rest which complicates things, but nothing good came cheap. We took dinner over for her and her family and the ward is now going to bring her family dinner every Friday until the baby comes. Coolio.
Next cool story: Saturday is finding day and we weren’t finding anyone. So we started knocking at 8pm to finish up our night. We met a woman and her 20 year old son and they let us in. Her name is Angela and she has no legs because of diabetes and she has little use of her arms. She is very down to earth and has great faith in God and has been looking for a church. We invited her to church and her response was, “How are you going to get me there?” referring to her inability to walk, and the fact that they don’t have a car. “If you want to go to church Angela, we’ll get you there.” So she agreed and we got some members of the ward to come and pick up her heavy wheel/scooter chair, and some to bring her and her son to church. It was awesome! I think she really liked church. She fell asleep during sacrament meeting but who doesn’t? But she and her son really enjoyed gospel principles because our ward missionaries rock. Anyways, it was awesome!
WE also had this boy that we taught a while ago randomly show up for church. He’s dating a less active member, but became interested in the doctrine. He’s about to go to military boot camp and he wanted some religion in his life and mormon doctrine made a lot of sense to him. So he arranged for us to come over and teach him. We invited him to be baptized and he said that he’d probably like to do that. But the following Sunday he couldn’t come because his parents didn’t approve. Blah. He said he’d call us when he could see us again. Well he just randomly showed up to church yesterday and gave us big awkward hugs when he saw us. As we were awkwardly escaping his hug he told us that he was going to into boot camp on Monday (today). WE told him to look for missionaries at the base and to get baptized when he gets there. Wahoo!
Then we had another investigator randomly show up to church. Annette Flechas is married to less active member. Over the last few years the Flechas have pushed away from the ward, but for some reason we stopped by at the right time and things are moving in their lives as to allow for us to teach them . Jaime, Annette’s husband, just had his 17 year old less active daughter move in with him from her mom’s house. He wants to help his daughter so he asked us to come and teach his daughter and he annouced that he would be coming to church. We invited Annette, but she said she had work so she couldn’t come. But come Sunday, she and Jaime woke up early and drove to her work to check her schedule and she fould out she could at least make the first meeting. So in walks Annette, Jaime, and his daughter! Sister Hill and I were dying. Best day ever.
One more story: This is Super cool!
I called Sister Dodge (my companion in Pleasanton who is still serving in Pleasanton) to ask her some things. After I was finished she said, “I’m glad you called because I wanted to tell you something. Janie came to church today and she brought her daughter faith.”
Background:
When Sister Dodge and I were in Pleasanton we worked sooooooooooo hard. We had two baptisms together which were awesome, but we also had a ton of heartache because of the dozens of other people who fell through. It was hard. One of the disappointments was having Janie reject the gospel. The sisters before us knocked into her but they could never get a hold of her again. But Sister Dodge and I were able to get a hold of her and we taught her the lessons. She had issues with every single commandment. We poured out our souls to her telling her that she would be happy if she would just let go of all these sins. I’ve never been so bold with any investigator like I was with her. She came to church a few times, but just couldn’t change. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she didn’t want to give up the lifestyle because it was fun and exciting to her. She didn’t want to go to our church because we expected her to give up her sins and become a new person. Pride. We’ve all had issues with pride before. We rely on our own wisdom more than God’s. Pride is nothing more than self-inflicted pain. We loved her so much, but she was tripping herself up and it was so sad to watch her and her kids suffer.
We had one last lesson with her last October where we just bore our souls to her about how she needed to change. Sister Dodge told her that her goal should be to marry someone for eternity and commit herself completely to that person. She deserved fidelity and eternal love and she was capable of fidelity and eternal love. We told her about the spiritual and physical damage that comes with putting harmful substances into your body. We put everything out there and invited her to be baptized….but she couldn’t do it….she couldn’t do it, because she didn’t want to.
So we left. We told her we loved her and told her how to get in touch with us if she was ever ready to change. We walked out of there thinking that nothing had sunk in. We thought that everything we said just bounced off her conscience. But we were wrong. I’m not sure what followed in the months to come, but she told Sister Dodge that one day she woke up and had a huge desire to change. She wanted to be a better person. She immediately exclaimed, “Where’s my book?” She dug through her stuff until she found the Book of Mormon we had given her. She read every reading assignment we had given her. She pulled her 9 year old daughter, Faith, out of catholic school (Janie wouldn’t let her come to church with us because she wanted Faith to be catholic). Janie felt like Faith should decide for herself what religion to join. Then Janie talked to her mom about our church and her mom gave her blessing for Janie to go to the Mormon Church. Her mom said, “we all worship one God. It doesn’t matter which church you go to” (I usually hate hearing that comment for obvious reasons, but in this case I was super happy!)
So she decided to go to Church because she was ready to change. Sister Dodge must have fallen off her horse when she saw Janie at church (if she was sitting on a horse). Sister Dodge hadn’t talked to Janie since she and I had spoken to her almost three months before so this was huge!!!!
All I have to say is that I have faith that people can change. She was the last person I would have thought to change in this short amount of time, but Christ’s Atonment and His spirit can work miracles. Don’t give up on anyone who is holding on to self-destructive sins and thought processes (including yourself). Change is possible! Happy day.
:)
January 18, 2010
Ahhhhh…I just looked at all the family Christmas pictures yall sent and it made me so happy to look at them. Our family produced the best surprised-faces ever. I was laughing really hard.
We gave Annette (who’s a catholic) and Jaime (who’s a less active Mormon and an active catholic) a Book of Mormon and invited them to read from it. They said they would and we’re hoping to see them to night to see how it went.
This week we tried to get in contact with families in the ward that are made up of members and non-members. Everyone is so nice. One of the families we met knew one of my sociology professors back at BYU really well so we talked a lot about that.
We taught Jeff, the youth pastor, this week also. He is really nice and open. His wife and kids are really sweet as well. He likes the dialogue between us, but has said he’s not interested in changing religions. We basically told him we’re here to help people be baptized so we decided we’d come over one more time after he read and prayed some more and we’re hoping that maybe he’ll be a teeny bit more open to switching religions…we’re hopeful, but it’s not our choice to make. People have a hard time understanding why we want them to switch religions when they are in a good religion…or, my bad, a good church (no one likes to claim a religion down here. It’s out of style. The “in” thing right now is to be non-denominational because people believe religion is too restricting and gets in the way of your relationship with God. The problem is objective reality is impossible. We are subjective and finite individuals who live in a finite and subjective world. God is full of truth without limitation and He’s infinite, so try as we might, we cannot understand Him objectively. It’s impossible. But I don’t really think objective-ism is our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to live with God again and to be happy. He’s given to each of us a paradigm that we are constrained by, but also enlightened by. He sends prophets to our paradigm to speak to us in a way that we understand and He also sends us the Holy Spirit to help us connect with ultimate truth. We are not capable of objective-ism, but through God, we are capable of understanding ultimate truth. Non-denominationalism’s goal is promote peace within the religious turmoil of modern Christianity, and it does a really good job in my opinion. However, the truth still remains the same, the attempt is man-made and false ideas and concepts eventually creep in because the loving correction given by God through prophets is non-existent. Although Christ often does His work through man, and we learn the most when He works through us, if He is not present through direct revelation, then apostasy threatens truth. Without prophets, false ideas and concepts would infest the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well. We are constantly given direction to keep us on the path. But even we as members of the Church falter and ignore the prophet’s counsel and personal apostasy creeps into our hearts and our homes. Paul wrote to church members, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel….But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul was called of Christ to preach, so were the other apostles. We can hear their claim and then work it out in our minds and reason until we are satisfied with our own personal conclusions about who these prophets and apostles truly are, but we don’t have to rely on reason alone. We can tap into ultimate truth and receive direct revelation for ourselves through prayer and the Spirit.)Son Anyways, Jeff feels at peace with his beliefs and doesn’t understand why we would try and pull him away from his happy, Christian life. We showed him a picture of Christ and covered two thirds of the picture and explained that He should feel at peace with His beliefs about Christ, because the part of the picture he can see is true. We told him that we weren’t trying to get him to look at another picture, but the restoration is an uncovering of the rest of the picture of Christ...(or at least more of the picture). A simple object lesson we learned in primary, but it made sense to him.
We taught some other cool people this week too.
sj
Ahhhhh…I just looked at all the family Christmas pictures yall sent and it made me so happy to look at them. Our family produced the best surprised-faces ever. I was laughing really hard.
We gave Annette (who’s a catholic) and Jaime (who’s a less active Mormon and an active catholic) a Book of Mormon and invited them to read from it. They said they would and we’re hoping to see them to night to see how it went.
This week we tried to get in contact with families in the ward that are made up of members and non-members. Everyone is so nice. One of the families we met knew one of my sociology professors back at BYU really well so we talked a lot about that.
We taught Jeff, the youth pastor, this week also. He is really nice and open. His wife and kids are really sweet as well. He likes the dialogue between us, but has said he’s not interested in changing religions. We basically told him we’re here to help people be baptized so we decided we’d come over one more time after he read and prayed some more and we’re hoping that maybe he’ll be a teeny bit more open to switching religions…we’re hopeful, but it’s not our choice to make. People have a hard time understanding why we want them to switch religions when they are in a good religion…or, my bad, a good church (no one likes to claim a religion down here. It’s out of style. The “in” thing right now is to be non-denominational because people believe religion is too restricting and gets in the way of your relationship with God. The problem is objective reality is impossible. We are subjective and finite individuals who live in a finite and subjective world. God is full of truth without limitation and He’s infinite, so try as we might, we cannot understand Him objectively. It’s impossible. But I don’t really think objective-ism is our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to live with God again and to be happy. He’s given to each of us a paradigm that we are constrained by, but also enlightened by. He sends prophets to our paradigm to speak to us in a way that we understand and He also sends us the Holy Spirit to help us connect with ultimate truth. We are not capable of objective-ism, but through God, we are capable of understanding ultimate truth. Non-denominationalism’s goal is promote peace within the religious turmoil of modern Christianity, and it does a really good job in my opinion. However, the truth still remains the same, the attempt is man-made and false ideas and concepts eventually creep in because the loving correction given by God through prophets is non-existent. Although Christ often does His work through man, and we learn the most when He works through us, if He is not present through direct revelation, then apostasy threatens truth. Without prophets, false ideas and concepts would infest the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well. We are constantly given direction to keep us on the path. But even we as members of the Church falter and ignore the prophet’s counsel and personal apostasy creeps into our hearts and our homes. Paul wrote to church members, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel….But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul was called of Christ to preach, so were the other apostles. We can hear their claim and then work it out in our minds and reason until we are satisfied with our own personal conclusions about who these prophets and apostles truly are, but we don’t have to rely on reason alone. We can tap into ultimate truth and receive direct revelation for ourselves through prayer and the Spirit.)Son Anyways, Jeff feels at peace with his beliefs and doesn’t understand why we would try and pull him away from his happy, Christian life. We showed him a picture of Christ and covered two thirds of the picture and explained that He should feel at peace with His beliefs about Christ, because the part of the picture he can see is true. We told him that we weren’t trying to get him to look at another picture, but the restoration is an uncovering of the rest of the picture of Christ...(or at least more of the picture). A simple object lesson we learned in primary, but it made sense to him.
We taught some other cool people this week too.
sj
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