Thank you for all your prayers about Ashley. You know, as I
mentioned before, it's really nice having Elder Butt as a Zone Leader
for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is that I can talk to him
about the area since he served here last transfer. We have a weekly
planning meeting every Thursday. It's usually just in a companionship,
but at the beginning of the transfer, I asked the Zone Leaders if they
could be part of this passed weeks weekly planning so that I could talk
with Elder Butt about the area. I was looking forward to it this whole
week so I could just jokingly say to Elder Butt, "I am going to 'drop'
all your investigators! None of them are progressing!" But the Lord
works His miracles and great things happen. So it was with Ashley:
I haven't done much with Ashley except say to her "Did
you read yesterday?" and if she says "Yes." I ask her about what she
read and we continue. Then I say "Did you pray about the book of Mormon
yesterday?" and she usually replies "No. I don't know enough about it
yet." So then I just testify about prayer and how it helps and we leave.
I am pretty sure she was getting sick of hearing about prayer.
Well, it turns out, we had dinner set up with President
Mckinney (2nd Counselor in the Mission Presidency) and his wife on
Tuesday. Sister Mckinney felt that she was going to be outnumbered if
there were two other males plus her husband so she invited Ashley and
her member grandmother over. Could things become any more perfect? I
texted President Mckinney and said "May we come 15 minutes early and
plan a lesson with you to teach Ashley?" He agreed. I told President
Mckinney, "Ok, the only thing we really need you to do is bear testimony
when we ask you to, and then it would be most helpful if you could
extend an open invitation to have Ashley and her Grandma over for the
rest of her lessons." He agreed to do that.
We taught again about prayer. And asked both Ashley and
her Grandmother to read and pray as a family. The Mckinneys testified
about how reading and praying together has strengthened them, and how
they found time to do it in their busy schedules. Ashley said the
closing prayer.
I was still very cynical at this point, thinking she
just wasn't going to put her heart into this. So I told Elder Newman "We
have got to teach her why the church is different than any other
church! She needs to feel more driven to find this stuff out!" So we set
to work the next morning. I drilled him on teaching the Restoration
until he got sort of frustrated with me and didn't want to role play
anymore. I let him relax for a little bit and then we set back to
planning for Ashley. He was going to teach "God is our loving Heavenly
Father" and "The Gospel blesses Families" which are the first two points
of the Restoration. I told Elder Newman "Remember, she already knows
those two points so you don't need to explain them in great detail."
Those were the only two points we role played during the role plays I
previously mentioned and I could see why just doing those two points
could easily frustrate anyone. Anyway. Elder Newman got them down pat
and that would have let me have be able to teach about prophets after.
Anywho. We get to the Mckinneys that day and we start teaching Ashley
the Restoration. Elder Newman clearly and simply tells her that God is
her loving Heavenly Father and explains how the Gospel Blesses our
families. We then asked the Mckinney family to bear their testimony
about how the Gospel blessed their families. Ashley then said something
totally unexpected,
"I actually can really relate to that." Her face turned
red and she started to tell us a story about her brother that was
really touching that happened just days before. She started to cry. I
was in shock. She concluded her story by saying,
"And it's all thanks to you guys for telling me to pray. God answered my prayers."
I
said "Is it alright with everyone if we end the meeting now?" and we
did. Ashley left with the spirit. On the way out, Elder Newman asked,
"How are you feeling about your baptism on November 2nd?"
"I am feeling pretty good about it!" She replied. We then set up another return appointment and left."
I was baffled! "I didn't even do anything!" I thought to myself and laughed. "I didn't even get to talk about prophets!"
It was a great experience. She came to church and
even attended sunday school, but now we have to get her to attend releif
society.
Your prayers work! Please pray for
Glenn! He's an investigator that we invited to be baptized this passed
week. He is scheduled for the 16 of November!
If you can also pray for Angie, that would be great.
Other
than that, our appartment is clean! And I am loving that! It's actually
really nice as long as it is clean! The only memorable but humorous
negative is that I had a dream this week, in fact last night, that I was
in our living room in our apartment, and some people broke in and
kidnapped me. Their boss was the twin of President Eaton, and they sat
me down in front of this twin and he described to me, just as politely
and calmly as President Eaton would, that they were going to make me
study anti-mormon material and have me send home an essay of each book I
read. The dream never actually came to that. But what I do remember is
that I was still to e-mail home every monday and still use
myldsmail.net
.
In my mind I was thinking "I cannot wait to e-mail my family and let
them know whats going on! Not only am I scared out of my wits, but this
is a REAL missionary story! Who else has this happen?"
I love you all. Have a great week! I'll send reply your e-mails now!
