Thursday we saw the Engles. The sisters have visited them about 5-6 times now. Again, we committed them to come to church. Sunday morning, as we sped out of the parking lot to pick up Deven last minute, we saw the Engles coming to church! Sister Healton (our ride) told us they've been gone for about 20 years at least. Wow! After sacrament meeting, there were lots of old timers who remembered them and welcomed them warmly. Sister Engle wasn't feeling too well, so they only stayed for sacrament, but they said they planned on coming back next week! What a miracle!
We saw Ethan Thursday afternoon. He's the 10 year old grandson of Melody. We reviewed with him the establishment of Christ's church using the apostasy/restoration cup lesson. He enjoyed it, and he learned a lot. Melody told us he hasn't been praying lately, so we talked about how important each cup is in the church, and in our testimony. We told him to remove the cup that said "pray often" and see what that did to our pyramid. He saw just how important praying is. We committed him to pray often, and he agreed. He said the closing prayer and it was an awesome prayer. It was more than just a child's sweet little prayer. It was like a seasoned veteran's prayer. :)
Melody has been suffering from surgery on her toes. She found out the nurse wrapped the bandages too tight, and that caused excess pain. She's starting to get better now. But because of that, we haven't been able to start the stop smoking program with her yet. We plan to start it with her tonight.
Thursday night we stopped in to see Deven, an 11 year old investigator from a part-member family. His stepmom is kind of against the church. We brought up meeting with Deven more regularly (once a week) and she brought up his concerns about him being vulnerable (though I would choose "impressionable" instead) and not wanting him to just go with the flow. It actually turned out really good because we're holding him more accountable now for reading and praying, and doing the things he needs to do so that it truly is his progression. Deven's a good kid. Hopefully his example will help get Br. Hanson back to church and soften his stepmom's heart.
Friday we met with Mike again with Sister Healton. It was great to have her with us. Just the fact that she's not a youngster like us helped Mike. We had planned to talk about the importance and role of the BOM. Mike gets sidetracked at times by details that really don't matter (such as a seeming grammatical error in the gospel principles book), and it's frustrating at times. And he also says things such as "well that's what you believe" that also make it frustrating. As the discussion got sidetracked to the 2nd Coming and heaven and hell, I got kind of irritated. I thought about how I could bring it back to the BOM. I felt the need to be bold/firm with Mike. I tried to reign in my natural tendency to just go off on him and rebuke him. I then opened my mouth and boldly shared my testimony and the need for him to have an open heart and mind so that the Spirit can talk to him. I did feel the Spirit confirm to me about being bold, but I may have had a little much of the tone of rebuking. I think it took him off guard a little. He did commit to begin reading the BOM and to try to have a fresh perspective about it. Sister Healton was awesome and told him he would need to put the same effort, energy, and love into the BOM as he had done with the Bible if he was going to come to know that it was true. S. Mat and I talked about the lesson afterwards. She was not so pleased with my boldness and said I needed to love Mike more. I agree, that probably my tone and words were partly motivated by frustration, but I do know there was an element of love in there, otherwise I wouldn't have cared. Mike's an interesting character. I really do want to help him find what he's looking for. I hope he'll let us help him.
Saturday we were able to meet with Keisha finally. We had a good lesson with Sister Jones about the need for Jesus Christ and faith in Him. Her house is very chaotic with kids running around everywhere, so it was kind of hard at times to focus on the lesson. Keisha seems nice, but she's quite passive. She's cancelled or missed a few appointments with us, and she's bailed last minute on church the last 2 weeks. She doesn't seem motivated to do anything with this message that we share. We set up a standing return appointment, so we'll see what happens if she keeps those.
Keisha's attitude is quite commonplace here in Kokomo. If we catch them at home, sure we can come in and talk, but they're not motivated to do anything, and they miss appointments. It really got S. Mat down Saturday since appointments kept falling through. It's hard when we have so few people to teach and then those people don't show up. We talked a bit and we discussed possibly dropping everyone except Deven, Melody & Ethan. It seems scary to wipe out our teaching pool, but that gives God more room to work miracles. I didn't want to sound heartless, but after meeting the investigators that I have, I felt that they weren't really the elect that we should be spending our time with. I decided to give them a chance though to see if miracles would happen with them. But I do feel that we should go out and find others. Yay for tracting in freezing temperatures.
Sunday we were blessed with a miracle. James brought his friend Colton to church (both sophomores). We met with him afterwards, and he's awesome! He said he doesn't really live a Christian life right now, though he is Christian, but he knows he needs to change and live his life for God. We explained what we do and invited him to investigate, letting him know upfront that that would entail keeping commitments and a spiritual journey of becoming. He excitedly hopped on board! We're having dinner with the Schulte's tomorrow night, and James invited Colton for dinner and then a lesson afterwards. He is awesome! And James is awesome! He's such a good example. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to teach Colton. What a miracle that the Lord blessed us with!
I think I finally learned my lesson - Saturday night I need to read the Sunday School lessons. Bishop asked us 10 minutes before class started if we would teach the lesson. Luckily it was on agency - a topic we study often - rather than the scattering/gathering of Israel or the Millennium like the last times I've had to teach.
Trials are beginning to come to S. Mat and I now. It's mostly just an issue of communicating. Not that we don't communicate, we just communicate things differently and have a different way of doing things. So what I see sometimes as a lack of communication, S. Mat really is communicating in a different way. We're working at it. I'm really learning to be humble this transfer. It's nice to be able to learn such a hard lesson with a companion that I love and adore. She makes me want to be better. She's also teaching me how to relax and have fun and not be so rigid. Anyone who can teach me that lesson deserves an award! :)
Well, that's all for this week. Hope all is well back home. Send some warmer weather my way!
sister humpherys.
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