Paul is still awesome. This week we taught him law of chastity and keeping the sabbath day holy. He was happy to find out that he now didn't have to mow his lawn on Sunday. :) The lessons went great, with some more great member fellowship. He's getting to know more and more people in the ward as we bring new couples with us or have the lesson in different members' homes. By the time he gets baptized in October, he'll probably know everyone in the ward. What a great support system. He brought up some questions about temple work, and we explained baptisms for the dead in more detail. It was great to explain more to him about the opportunity to have work done for his family members who have passed on (including his mom and sister). The Spirit was strong as we told him there were many on the other side waiting for him to get baptized so their long wait for their temple ordinances can soon be over.
Saturday we visited some inactives - Brother and Sister Easton. They are in their 70s and were baptized about 30-40 years ago but haven't been to church in about 15-20 years. They let us in and we got to know them. Being converts to the church, they don't understand that they are still members even though they're not coming to church. It at first seemed that they were comfortably inactive - that's so sad to see. Much later in the conversation (after building a good, trusting relationship) we asked how they came in contact with the church. They explained that some missionaries walked up one day while Bro. Easton was doing some yard work and he said he'd talk with them. They were then taught, and Sister Easton shared with us about how she prayed to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if the Church was true. She said she prayed for a few days and told God that she needed to know for sure, without any doubt. She knelt down in her room one day and prayed again, and she said it was like 1000 people shouting "it's true!" Wow! What an experience! I could feel the Spirit as she shared that, and I could tell she felt it as well. She then said something to the effect that if it were't for Bro. Easton, she would probably still go. She said that he just kind of followed her in being baptized. He evidenced his lack of a testimony when he told us that he believes there's good parts and bad parts in all churches, and he just takes the good from all of them, not believing there's one right church. So he followed her into baptism, but sadly it seems as she's followed him into inactivity. She told us the thing she misses the most is the temples. It made it sound like she possibly was endowed. We talked about the temple for a while. The Spirit was there. I hope it was a reminder to her of the joy at her conversion and sparks a desire to come back to church. We got some pictures of the temple from the primary that we're going to take over to her to remind her of the joy and beauty of them.
Saturday we also met with Andrea. Her husband works for Marriott. :) We sat and got to know her for a bit and her son Kyle (7) came over and shared with us his knowledge of how he got here. The way he introduced it, I was preparing myself to hear a 7-year-old's version of the birds and the bees. What came though, was the most sweet and pure testimony of the pre-mortal life. Andrea had told us that the doctors told her she'd never have children, but then 8 months later, she was pregnant. Kyle told us that he asked God and Jesus if he could come down and have her be his mom, and They said yes. With a few tears in her eyes, Andrea explained to us that she's not sure why he started telling that story, but it's a story he's told since he was 3. How amazing! On our way over, we were thinking about what to share with her. I had a slight inclination to teach the Plan of Salvation, but wasn't sure why since we didn't even know her yet. After some discussion, we decided to teach her about FHE to warm her up to the idea of our church and visiting with her. After Kyle's testimony, I realized why the inclination for the Plan. However, she didn't have much time, and the conversation naturally headed towards families and such, so we talked with her about FHE. We offered to come back and hold an FHE with her family, and she said she'd talk with her husband about it. You can bet that if/when we get to have an FHE with them, the first lesson will be about the pre-mortal existence.
Sunday, we had a missionary-oriented sacrament meeting. Sister Summers and I both talked, as well as our ward mission leader. Sister Summers talked about the role of the BOM in missionary work, I talked about finding those who are lost (using Luke 15 and Elder Perry's talk from April 2009 conference about member missionary work), and Brother Norton also stressed member missionary work and shared some of his recent missionary experiences. He came up with an "allegory of the apple tree" based on a comment one of his leaders made in stake conference a number of years ago. Here's the allegory: the owner of a apple orchard asks the servant to get him some apples. The servant goes and a perfect-looking apple catches his eye, but it's out of his reach. He schemes to try to reach it, but his attempts are futile. There were many other apples, but they were less appealing, and the servant wanted to bring "the best one" to the owner. He goes to the owner to tell him about the apple. The owner is disappointed that the servant comes with no apples. The owner tells him to just shake the tree, and the apples that are ready and ripe will fall to the ground. The servant goes and shakes the tree, but the one he had his eye on didn't fall. He continued to shake and many apples fell to the ground. He gathered them up and took them to the owner, apologizing that he couldn't get the best one. The owner thanked him and told him that's exactly what he wanted, for it didn't matter what the outer appearance was because he was going to transform them into a delicious apple pie. The End. So, the people we might think are ready and ripe for the gospel, may not be the ones the Lord has in mind. But as we go out and work (shake the tree), ones who are ready will come to us. Pretty good, eh? I thought so. Lots of people commented on all the talks and how great they were. Hopefully it will result in more member referals and ward involvement in missionary work.
Well, that's about it for the week. Not too much eventful (and yes, that is now grammatically correct. hehe). It's getting hot. Yuck. We hit 90, and we'll be in the high 80s all this week if not higher. Gotta love humidity. Not. Well, take care all. Thanks for all the prayers!
sister humpherys
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