June 30, 2013

 Following promptings--on Wednesday, we were looking over the ward list for people we could visit and this woman's name twice caught my eye. She is a less-active and is 85. The previous sisters had written that they hadn't been able to contact her. "moved/died?" was what they wrote. It seemed like contacting her would be a pretty fruitless effort. But, though the little prompting to contact her was very subtle, we decided to follow it. We called her, she answered and gladly accepted a lesson from us! We are going over on Wednesday.

We experienced a miracle this past week with the Bishop. When we first met with him he was very reluctant about any ward mission work. After the mission broadcast last week, he had a change of heart! He got the ward mission process going in ward council and choked up talking about missionary work at the end of it. He dedicated the 5th Sunday meeting to missionary work.  We sang, Sister Poulson bore her testimony, and Brother Tom Cottle this awesome old guy who has served seven missions spoke. He declared solid doctrine, shook his finger and said "Repent!" Ya!! He's awesome.  Bishop spoke at the end and went ten minutes over talking again about the importance of ward missionary work, choking up this time as well.  Both times he quoted the scripture in Alma "oh that I were an angel and could have the wish of mine heart, preaching repentance to every people." (or however that one goes). The atonement has wrought upon him and our prayers have been answered. Cool huh?

I have learned that people--ESPECIALLY less actives--do not think that they have a problem or they are doing anything wrong. Human nature. We taught lessons to four less actives this past week, including Brother ____ and the_____s.  All of them said that they knew God was there and loved him! They say they still follow the Spirit and God definitely blesses their lives. The _____s said, "Yeah, we're not really interested in that. But we're really grateful for him and all that. And we love having you come over!" Sister _____, an older, really fashionable and friendly woman expressed deep spirituality and testimony, nodding at everything we said and saying "Oh yeah. So true. Oh yeah." She said she would love to come to church but was just too busy. We asked if she wanted a calling--since she said she wanted to do service--and she said "You know, that's not really my thing." Brother ______ was even more interesting. He said he will put his family before God any day, but almost all of his family attend church! He teared up when sharing spiritual experiences, but said "God just hasn't prompted me to go back yet." But, he said he will "for you two girls." So... hm. I think he will come back though!

Something funny happened at the visitor's center this past week. I went over to talk to these two women--a Jewish woman and her member friend who said they had been given a tour and were about to leave. I wanted to leave a quick little bit of my testimony, so I looked at the displays, thinking of one I could testify of. The one on Christ's life caught my eye, so I just said "I love the display on Jesus Christ's life because it reminds me that, regardless of our faith, we all believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior." ..... [in my head] "oh! You fool! Noooo we don't!!" I looked at them, the nice Jewish ladies face had kind of flattened and her friend looked nervous. I tried to fix it by saying "....Belief in God and his goodness!" They were nice and even both accepted referral (or "guest") cards and the Jewish woman seemed to express genuine interest in filling it out. Then they left.

We were locked out of our apartment the other day because the other sisters accidentally took our keys and our neighbor passed us, talked with us for a minute, and then invited us over to her place. We are teaching her! She is awesome.

Hermana Carly