We got to see Melody 3 times this week. We started the stop smoking program with her and she was all excited for it. Unfortunately, family drama got in the way and she had a setback. :( She's got a strong desire given the perfect conditions. But when bumps in the road come along, her willpower is shaken. S. Mat taught me a lesson during a teaching appointment with another investigator: the real test is how we do in the turbulent times, not the utopia that never comes. I feel for her with the situations she's dealing with regarding her adult children. But I just don't know what it's going to take for her to have the follow through that she needs to quit smoking once and for all, regardless of outside circumstances. She says she realizes the urgency in being baptized, but that doesn't motivate her to action yet. It's the difference between belief and faith: belief does not carry with it the same moral responsibility to act as faith does.
We taught Keisha on Tuesday. We talked about what goals she has spiritually and temporally and talked about how this gospel will help her to achieve all of those goals. Keisha knows the right answers of going to church, reading, and praying, but she has little to no motivation to act. She is really nice and helps a lot of her family members out. She says she wants to come closer to God, yet there's no follow through. :( It's so sad seeing that some people are so close yet so far. The gospel is so easy. Yes it takes work, but the outcome is far greater than the input. I wish I could help people just realize that! We taught 2 of her kids on Thursday. Boy, they are some of the rowdiest kids I've ever seen. Amazingly we were able to teach about the structure of the church of Jesus Christ (apostles, the gospel, commandments, and Jesus Christ at the top) and they were able to repeat some things back to us. Who knows if they'll remember it this week or not. They didn't come to church again this week. :( They said they were coming but in the morning they bailed again. Lack of motivation frustrates me.
Tuesday we had dinner and a lesson with Colton at the Schulte's home. It was great! Colton is awesome! He saw the need for a prophet because of the state of the world. We totally rocked his world by telling him there was a prophet on the earth today. Well, it was better because his friend James explained and testified about it. Mike also participated a lot in the lesson. He's getting ready to leave for his mission to Belgium. We were able to teach most of the Restoration lesson, including a commitment to baptism!! He readily accepted and had a huge smile on his face when he did accept. :) Oh I just love that kid. The lesson was awesome, and the Spirit was there. He told us he didn't know if he'd ever really felt the Spirit, so that will be the topic of our next lesson. Sadly he didn't come to church Sunday because he had promised a friend he'd spend time with him. Grr. James has a class with him at school, so he sees him every day which is good. Daily contact from missionaries is great, but better from members.
We had a lesson with Michael out on his front steps in the cold because we couldn't find a sister to come with us. We taught him about the pre-earth life, creation, Adam & Eve, and our purpose in life. He had never thought about a pre-earth life before. The things we taught seemed to make sense to him and he seemed to agree. He brought up needing to come to church, and he did come! YAY! He's not reading in the BOM yet though, so we'll need to help him with that. He's a good guy. I wonder about his level of motivation to change as well, but at least he's making progress in that he came to church and he's keeping appointments with us!
Jeanette's life is a mess. Her live-in fiance just had a stroke. She feels evil influences in her house, her unemployment runs out in 2 weeks. Her 16 year old son just got out of jail. And she's trying to go to school. She's turning to the BOM for some sort of comfort and relief. That's so awesome! She's read over and over again the verses we left her in Mosiah 24 about the people's burdens being eased. She doesn't even know fully what the BOM is, but she trusts it enough to turn to it in this time of trial. She wants specific passages to read that will help her through things. Hopefully we can help her to see that no matter what passage she reads, the Spirit will be there to calm her and give her the peace she needs. It's neat to see her trust in the BOM. Hopefully all this stress will help her to see just how much she needs to rely on Jesus Christ and His gospel and that she will be less flaky with our appointments.
We met with Deven again Thursday night. He had done his reading assignments! What was even better was that when we discussed them, he was able to relate them to what we taught him about Joseph Smith. My favorite thing he said was after reading Numbers 12:6, he said "so that means Joseph Smith was a prophet because he saw God". I am quite impressed with him at such a young age (11). We talked more about how to recognize answers to his prayers and how we feel the Spirit. The other times we've visited them, Deven and his brothers have been wild and crazy and it's hard to keep their attention (or get their attention to begin with). But this time, when we got there, he was sitting on the couch with his scriptures ready to go, and there were no distractions. It was awesome! He came to church again Sunday. It's amazing his desire. He's the only one that comes, and he comes every week. I wish he could teach some of our other investigators how to get to church every week!
Sister Healton came with us again to visit with Mike. We were running late, and we were afraid that he might have given up on us and gone home (we meet at the library). We got there and he wasn't there. It was about 15 minutes after our scheduled appointment. But then he showed up. He had some things to take care of and so he was running late and he was praying that we wouldn't leave before he got there. Both our prayers were answered and we were able to meet with him. We talked about meaningful prayer and recognizing answers. S. Healton shared her experience with losing so much weight and how it was a matter of much prayer and it took a number of years. I learned a little about how Mike's brain works while S. Healton shared her story. Mike would interject factual questions that were not needed for the concept to get across. But that's how his brain works and unless those facts are given, he's stuck on that. We'll keep that in mind when we teach him. Mike then opened up and shared some things about his past leading to some nervous breakdowns. He shared that his 2nd wife was a Mormon (though it sounded like a less active). He met the missionaries shortly after high school (he's 69 now). His first wife wasn't too happy about it. He had a baptism date, but then he talked to his pastor, and he gave him an anti-Mormon book and that "really taught him about the Mormons". Sister Healton caught him though when she asked him if he checked out the credibility and truthfulness of the book. He had no response. I can't figure out why he's meeting with us and why he's coming to church. He says he wants to learn what God wants him to do. He says he's trying to have an open mind about things. His mind and heart are quite hardened and closed against anything contrary to his current beliefs though. We brought the lesson back to prayer and S. Mat extended the commitment to take some time before and after each prayer to ponder what he would say and then listen for what God would say. Mike said he felt uncomfortable doing that because he doesn't believe what we teach is true. In his mind, we had an ulterior motive for extending this commitment. I had to explain to him the purpose was simply to help him have more meaningful prayers and recognize answers that come. S. Mat then again extended the commitment. He said he'd try, but we all know that that answer means "no". We explained to him that we don't expect perfection, but we've learned that when people say they'll try rather than they'll do it, it implies an admission/expectation of failure from the beginning. Saying "yes" gives more motivation to accomplishing the commitment than saying "I'll try". Mike then said because we explained it that way, that he would accept the commitment. Yay! Something finally got through to him! He came to church again. The lesson was on the creation. He again piped up and asked for scriptural references that we were spirit children before coming here to earth. Our poor gospel principles teacher. He doesn't quite know how to handle Mike. He tends to dig himself in a hole and allows Mike to take the lesson off on a tangent. (That's one thing Brother Mills was really good at in Lafayette. Steve would ask crazy questions that were unrelated or he'd give a crazy comment and Br. Mills knew how to handle it appropriately or ignore it.) Mike stayed for the linger longer afterwards and he talked with some of the members. One member mentioned endowments to him. Agh! I hate it when members do that! I'm glad that people were talking to him, but then Mike had questions for us about the temple, and it led to another mess. Note to members: stick to the basics!
We were able to see Eric finally on Saturday. We only got to talk for about 20 minutes, but we shared with him what we offer and invited him to investigate and he agreed. We promised him that this gospel will bring him pure happiness, and he said that's what he's looking for right now. Yay!
Bishop asked us to teach the combined Priesthood and Relief Society meeting yesterday and asked us to talk about Preach My Gospel. It was hard to solidify our thoughts and ideas and find how to make them mesh together, but we were able to give the presentation. It didn't go as well as we would've liked, but it went. It was so sad though as I asked for a show of hands as to who had a PMG in their home. Just about everyone raised their hand. However, NON of those hands stayed up when we asked who uses their PMG. Oh, my heart just sank! PMG is a GOLD MINE for personal study. If they only knew what they were missing! So, that's what I decided our member lessons/dinner appointments will be about - getting them into PMG. Member missionary work is mostly at a standstill right now - except for with the youth - and that's why. We're going to work to put an end to that! I hope I'm here long enough to see that change happen. Another note to members: get a PMG and use it!
We finally contacted a potential named Angie yesterday. The sisters had tracted into her and she said she had a BOM already. We sat and talked with her and she said sisters came by about 6 years ago and that's where she got the BOM. We got to know her religious background a bit and then S. Mat asked her if she thought the true church of God was on the earth. Angie honestly said she'd never thought about it. As we talked she said that if there was a true church, she'd want to know and she obviously would attend it, but she didn't know how to go about finding out if there is a true church and if so, which one it is. We testified to her that we are the true church of Jesus Christ and that we were here to teach her about it and to help her develop the personal revelation line with God so that she can know for herself that this is true. We invited her to investigate, and she accepted. Yay!
Well, that's it for this week's happenings. Though I do need to write about 2 other things I keep forgetting about.
Paul (in Fishers) wrote me a letter a few weeks back and informed me that he'd gone to do baptisms from the dead for his family. He was able to have about 8 names male and female done. Man, just reading that brought tears to my eyes. This gospel is so amazing! He is so strong!
Friday before last fast Sunday, President Collins' car was broken into and his briefcase was stolen. It had sensitive information about the mission and missionaries, keys to all the church buildings, basically President Collins' life was in there. Saturday night all the missionaries were notified by the assistants and we were asked to fast for the recovery of the briefcase. Sunday evening, a lady saw a set of scriptures on the ground outside an ATM and thought that it wasn't right for them to be on the ground. She walked over and saw an open briefcase next to them and assumed they went together. She looked inside and found a missionary phone number and called and was redirected to Pres. Collins. What a miracle. In addition, the only thing missing from the briefcase was a bottle of Ibuprofen. Wow. What a testimony builder! That'll teach you not to mess with about 150 missionaries on fast Sunday! :)
Take care all!
sister humpherys
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