Friday, February 27, 2009

February 23, 2009

I just sent out a letter on Saturday about the week before this last week, so now I get to tell you about this past week! :) It was a very good week and a lot of great things happened! So Tuesday night we taught 5 lessons. It didn't seem quite as hard as it was to get 5 lessons in on day like it was the previous Saturday. Tuesday morning Sis Capener called us and told us that one of our investigators, Monica, was in the hospital... the Psych ward to be exact. I guess because of all the hard things going on in her life she had a complete meltdown, emotionally. So we planned to go visit her Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday morning we had district meeting. When I woke up that morning, I hadn't yet gotten an answer to my prayers about what I was going to teach. I was half-way through my morning studies and still had nada. So I prayed again. Then inspiration flowed and all the ideas of what to do came to me. It was a good district meeting. It went better than I expected. It was a tender mercy to receive that revelation. 

After district meeting I went on exchanges with Elder Corzo in my area. We always have a good time.  He was my zone leader in Newton, also. We went and saw Monica. She was just laying in bed awake when we got there. She was pretty depressed and sad. We talked to her about priesthood and gave her a blessing of comfort. I think we cheered her up a little bit. We talked about adversity, faith, hope and other things like that. She wanted a BOM to read so we gave her one and a few chapters to read and told her that we'd be back the next day because she had a lot of free time. She liked that idea. She couldn't leave the 6th floor so she had all the time in the world. Haha! The rest of the exchange was good. We taught 3 other lessons on Wednesday.

Thursday at noon we switched back up from exchanges and had weekly planning. At 3:00 we went to see Monica again but she was asleep. So we went to see Sis. Capener and update her on some things. I love the Capeners! We are over there almost every day! Haha! Bro Capener was there, too... so we could go inside. She made us some really good cookies! We told them we were going to see Monica at 4:30 and hopefully commit her for baptism. They thought that would be pretty cool, but I don't think they thought we could do it. Haha! We went back and she was awake. She was totally ready for it! She was at rock bottom. She knew she couldn't do it on her own anymore and was looking for what she needed to do. She was probably at the mo
st humble stage of her life. I talked to her about being born again into a newness of life. I talked about baptism being a new start to a new life. Being washed from all sin and starting over with determination to serve God. Baptism is exactly what she needs in her life right now. I read Mosiah 18:8-9 and asked her how she would like to be surrounded by people who have made that covenant. She wanted that very much! So we committed her for baptism on March 14th! She readily accepted! She said she had never been baptized before but her sisters have. Then she humbly asked, "what do I have to do to get baptized?" She really wanted those blessing of baptism that we promised? It was an amazing lesson! She also read the chapter we gave her plus a few more! Before we left we gave her some more good chapters to read. Afterwards we went back to tell Sis Capener the great news! We told her the news and she was so happy that she started jumping up and down! We taught Monica the next two days as well in the hospital. Those two days she was a lot more upbeat and optimistic! She read more scriptures and had a lot more faith and especially hope in God! She was willing to wait patiently for answers to prayers and the blessings of the gospel. It was amazing to see the difference in her in just those few days! This gospel is so powerful and amazing! I love it!

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you about an amazing story that happened Tuesday night!! That night we taught the Haught family about the Book of Mormon. Amanda, sister haught's sister that lives there was present. I told them to all get their BOM's and hold them in their hands. We also gave Amanda a BOM for the first time. While they were holding them I picked up mine and said "The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ... This book that is in your hands is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK you will ever read in your entire life!" Then I shared my testimony of the BOM. While we were talking to Ali and her family, Amanda  flipped open her copy and read the first scripture she looked at. After she read a little she had an amazed look on her face and looked like she was about to cry. She then leaned over and told her sister what she read and showed her the verse. Then Sister Haught was shocked and said "Wow!" then had her tell us. So apparently Amanda was put on probation for some drug abuse issues just days before. This next part is nothing short of a miracle!! We talked earlier about how powerful the BOM is. This was the first scripture she read in the BOM when she randomly flipped it open... and remember this is her first contact and experience with the BOM... ok... read this scripture: Mormon 9:28. IT BLEW HER MIND!!! Hahaha! It amazed me, too! The BOM is so powerful! We asked her if she would read more of the BOM... she said, "Oh yeah!" Haha! 
Saturday was a pretty awesome day! We started by going to the Independence Visitor Center in the morning. We went with Sis Haught, Ali, Amanda and her boyfriend Marcos, and some of Ali's cousins. It was such an awesome time! I love that place. There is such a great spirit there. Right after we got back is when we taught Monica again. Then we went straight to the church for a church open house. It was a missionary activity to get non-members to come check out the building and different aspects of the church. There was an alright turnout. Not a ton of people. We are going to start teaching one of them soon. That's good news! Saturday we taught a total of 5 lessons again! Yay! That makes 22 lessons for the week!! At least 20 lessons per week 2 weeks in a row! That makes me very happy! Last week we also got 3 new investigators, 3 referrals, and Monica with her baptismal date! Blessings have definitely been pouring out upon us! I also got a letter from my friend, Parker!! That made me so very happy! He is the first of all the guys to write me or contact me in any way since I've been out. Well, that's about it for this week.

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