Tuesday we met with Laura again and taught her the importance of scripture study by teaching about the spirit world from the scriptures. We're finding with a lot of our investigators that they will read what we assign them, but they aren't yet into the habit of reading daily on their own because they want to. The lesson went well, but I don't think she's quite there yet. It's interesting because when we taught her prayer, she picked up on that immediately and she often volunteers for both the opening and closing prayers. She is praying about being baptized on Jan. 8th. After much thought and prayer, we feel she can be ready by then. Though as we meet with her, I wonder about her being able to feel like she is ready by that date. I feel she can be ready, but she may not feel ready.
Laurence is still doing awesome. Tuesday we went over questions from his reading in 1 Nephi 1-3. He sometimes gets sidetracked. In the first few verses, Nephi mentioned "the learning of the Jews" and Laurence's question was about who was at fault - Romans or Jews - for Jesus' death, and then something about Hitler's hatred for the Jews. After that random question, we had a good discussion. He told us he was so interested that he started chapter 4 to see what happened. Yay! Saturday we re-taught the Restoration lesson to him. He was shocked to know there was a prophet and 12 apostles today. We obviously rushed lesson 1 the first time we taught it. This time we were able to let things sink in. Tuesday we gave him The REST DVD and he really liked it. He said the only thing wrong with it was that it wasn't long enough. :) As we talked about the importance of Joseph Smith and the BOM, HE brought up that it would be "the best thing in the whole wide world ever" to know for himself the things we knew. Right on! We committed him to continue reading and pray specifically to know the BOM is true. He was excited to have the opportunity to know for himself. He says he's not 100% sure about this being the true church yet, but that he wants to believe it. He's continuing to pray about his baptism on Jan. 8th. He is doing well.
We had awesome lessons with Destiny this week. We've been really concerned about how to help her. Our lesson on Tuesday was amazing and it was the first time that I felt that SHE felt the Spirit during the lesson. The Spirit has been there many times, but I've felt that she hasn't recognized it, or allowed it to penetrate her. But Tuesday she felt it! We focused again on 2 Nephi 31 (arguably the best chapter ever) and the role and importance of the Holy Ghost. She said she only had a few minutes to read the chapter before we came, but she pulled a lot out of it. Verse 13 popped out to her and made her think about her motives of being baptized - that's exactly what we wanted to address! Destiny was then floored when she realized that we weren't given instruction from anyone (human) on what to teach. She noticed that the Ensign this month talked a lot about the Spirit, so she thought our mission president instructed us to focus our lessons this month on the Spirit. She was really taken aback to realize that our instruction came straight from inspiration and prayer and was very individualized from her. (We don't even have our Ensign yet, so we didn't even know about it.) She's been looking for "big answers". I'd say that this was a big answer. Our lesson Thursday was in Sister Shurtz's home. It was another great lesson. During study that morning, S. Latu and I both had different ideas of where to take the lesson. As we headed to the appointment, our minds were blank on what we had studied (aka stupor of thought). A little bit of what I had studied came back to our minds, and we decided to go with that. The lesson turned out totally different than what either of us had studied, but it was perfect. And everything that Sister Shurtz shared was so perfect. We talked about how to study the scriptures and how to get meaning for us today out of them. It was a miracle to go into the appointment with my mind mostly empty and not knowing where to go and seeing the Spirit fill my mouth so that Destiny could hear what she needed to hear.
Wednesday we stopped by to give Debra a BOM. She was so excited to get it and she asked for another REST pamphlet because she lost it. We introduced the book of 1 Nephi to her, and she was excited to start reading. She was going to bring her friend to church with her Sunday. We were supposed to meet Saturday night and she wasn't home though, so we didn't set up a ride for her. Not sure what happened, but hopefully we'll see her this week.
Mary came back! We got to see her Wednesday. She seemed like a different person. We mostly just talked to see where she was at with things. She fell out of the habit of reading everyday - she didn't read at all the whole 3 weeks she was gone. She was down; she brought up a lot of superficial concerns/excuses. She said she doesn't want to be baptized yet, but she still wants to meet with us, and baptism will come in time. She was focused a lot on negative things and was kind of depressed. We tried to help her focus on her blessings and the things that are going right. By the time we left she seemed happier. We went by Friday and read Mosiah 24 with her. She is almost back to her normal self. She committed herself to get back to reading everyday. She was learning a lot from that chapter. I think that she'll be back to good ol' Mary as she gets back in these habits. The one hang up though is that she doesn't want to come to church until she can walk, or bring her power chair because the wheel chair we have at church is too uncomfortable. Hmm. We'll work on that.
The Baileys are an awesome PM family. The kids are so "God-oriented" and love to visit with us. I wish all kids were like that. :) They're something like 9 and 11 maybe. I love to visit with them. Hopefully when the new chapel is finished in the Spring and they start coming to church they'll have the desire to come unto Christ through baptism and eventually be sealed as a family.
The Bunchs are also awesome. He's inactive and she's Catholic. They love to have us over, and though they have no money, they always have food for us. We teach their great-granddaughter who they have custody of, who is also a very intelligent 2.5 year old.
With Sister Hand, we discussed Pres. Uchtdorf's talk "Of Things That Matter Most". That theme has come up a lot since conference. S. Mat brought it up to me, we used it for another lesson, and then yesterday Elder Ireland (district leader) brought it up to us. I'm finding that lately, the things we're teaching are things I need to hear. S. Latu and I are so crazy busy here, there's no way to do everything. So we need to focus on what matters most and prioritize accordingly.
We had an awesome lesson with Latasha on Friday. We tracted into her Nov. 11th and she was really interested. We set up an appointment, but she missed it, then she went out of town, and then we couldn't get a hold of her. We finally left her a drop note telling her to call us if she was still interested. Never in my life have I gotten a call from someone that we gave a drop note to. Until now. Last week Latasha called and left a message saying she was still interested and wanted to meet Friday at 4pm. So we went and brought along Sister Henderson - her upstairs neighbor. Latasha is so family oriented, and so eager for knowledge. She's scared of "things she's not supposed to know", basically afraid of anything that might take her away from truth. But she wants to know truth. She was physically and mentally prepared for our visit. The room was arranged, she had paper and pencil out, she made tea (Word of Wisdom will come later), the kids were occupied. Wow. She knew we were coming to share something important. I'm really impressed with her. The lesson was awesome and she's excited for us to come back each week. Sister Henderson invited her to church. I love when members take that role!
We finally got to meet with Anthony again. Things kept coming up that made him have to cancel. We were so excited to finally teach the lesson based on his question of "what is sin?" that we had planned for the past 2 weeks or so. And then he was late. And we had another appointment to go to (which unfortunately fell through. Ugh.), so we didn't get to spend as much time on it as was needed. It was a great discussion though, and Anthony was really starting to open up and express his thoughts. Tonight we should finish our discussion. We were going to address him coming to church. He has some school club meetings on Sunday. We asked if he was coming this week and he said yes. Bro. Boomhower asked if he had a meeting, and Anthony said he didn't care. :) Right on.
We met with Jimmy again last night. We haven't gotten anymore drunk phone calls from him. We called to set up an appointment and he was sober, and he called yesterday and was sober. He is totally a different person when he's sober. We talked with him about church and the importance of taking that step, showing that he wants to turn his life around. He said he's willing to change, and ready to work at it. One of his problems is that he has so much time on his hands. He suggested volunteer work in the summer. Great idea. Too bad it's winter and he doesn't want to go out in the cold. If he can stay sober, I really have hope for him progressing. S. Latu mentioned from the get-go that she didn't have much patience with him and wanted to drop him. Call me naive, or too hopeful, but I see potential in him and want to give him the opportunity to change.
Christmas is fast approaching! Crazy! We're having a special Christmas zone conference Wednesday. Our zone is getting matching ties, and us sisters get matching hair thingys. Ha. :) Then, our zone is also awesome for Christmas. Pres. Ellis (stake pres) is feeding all 18 of us missionaries on Christmas Eve, then we're going caroling. Far away missionaries will spend the night with us and Christmas day we're going to the church for breakfast, a gift exchange, a devotional, and fun. Then we'll go home or to members' homes to call home, and then we go out to appointments from 6-9pm. I'm excited. It should be a lot of fun.
Well, take care all! Love you!
sister humpherys
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