We met with Angie again Wednesday. She is SO golden!! We decided to hit more on prophets and then get to the Restoration. But first off, we asked about her BOM reading. She apologized for not getting as far as she wanted in it. But in a week's time, she got to 1 Nephi 10! She's really loving it. She has such a drive! The lesson we had was amazing! We testified that God had called a prophet again and shared with her the account of the First Vision. We had the pamphlet open to the depiction of it, and as I quoted Joseph's words, tears came in abundance - to all of us. Angie was SO touched by the Spirit! I am so so so impressed with how in tune she is to the whisperings of the Spirit. She is so ready for this gospel! We invited her to pray about Joseph Smith and the BOM and to continue reading. She readily accepted. She just soaks everything right up.
We met again on Friday, this time to have a lesson with her two daughters. But before that, we followed up on her reading and praying. She said she was impressed to read chapter 10 over again, so she did and found some verses she really liked. She made it to chapter 13 then. She had prayed and she said she wasn't sure if she'd gotten an answer yet, but she shared an experience. She works at a pharmacy, and she said she'd been thinking about everything we'd shared and at work one day (between Wednesday and Friday) she called another pharmacist for something. He was telling her the name of a drug, and in so doing, he slipped and accidentally said "Mormon". It took her so off guard that she hung up the phone without even finishing the conversation. :) The Lord works in mysterious ways!
The lesson with Emma and Mikela went really well. They are young (still baptism age!), but they are so bright. We used the Apostasy cups lesson to teach about Christ's church. They really liked it. They were such attentive listeners! I've never met kids their age so interested in learning! The lesson was a great lead in to inviting them to come to Christ's church that we had just "built" in our lesson. The girls were so excited and begged their mom to come. Unfortunately, Angie had to work. We'll get them next time though! I am so impressed with that family! Angie's husband works a lot, so we haven't gotten to meet him yet. Hopefully he'll jump on board too. That'd be awesome to baptize a family of 4!
We finally got to meet with Michael inside, rather than out in the cold. Any time we got another sister to come with us, he'd cancel, and when we didn't get a sister, then he was there. But Sister Isaac was with us this time, so we got to be inside where it's warm. We talked with him about the Atonement, and taught how important it was to read the BOM to gain a greater understanding of the Atonement. He hasn't been reading too much lately. He kinda seems like a guy that just goes with the flow. Hopefully getting in the BOM will give him a push. We read Alma 7:11-12 with him, and he related very well with vs. 11 and said it sounded like everything he'd gone through. Hopefully that connection will help him read more. He was supposed to come to church Sunday but his ride said he wasn't there. :(
We finally got back to see Sister Eshelman with Sister Isaac. She hasn't been to church since about 1996 when her husband left the church. She says she's still got faith though and she reads from the scriptures daily. Something I've learned about faith though: it's more than just an acknowledgment - it requires action! If it doesn't result in action, it's just belief, and belief doesn't have the power to save that faith does. She's in desperate need of a job right now to help make ends meet, and we promised her if she came to church, a way would be provided. She sounded hopeful, and said she'd try to come. No such luck though. :( We need to help her strengthen her faith. She's such a great lady and would be such an asset to our relief society.
We were finally able to meet with Melody and Ethan again. We had a lesson prepared about baptism and exaltation, in hopes of helping her see just how crucial baptism is. She had great news for us. She told us she talked to her mom (finally) about a baptism date, and she's planning on March. She chose for herself to restart the stop smoking program this week, and begin it with a fast. We hopped on board and decided to fast with her. And she finally made it to church again - the first time since I've been here. I really hope this drive and motivation will last so that she and Ethan can finally be baptized. They both need it so much. They need those blessings and the added strength that comes from the gift of the Holy Ghost.
We met with Deven again Thursday night. He wasn't as focused as he has been the last 2 weeks, and he hadn't completed his assignment. :( He said he lost the sticky note it was written on. Add to that that he didn't even know where his scriptures were. We talked with him about the importance of reading the scriptures so that we can receive answers to our prayers. He shared with us that he was getting more answers. He told us he went to another church for basketball, and he felt sad and alone, and he felt like that was the Holy Ghost telling him that that church wasn't true. Wow, what an amazing 11 year old to be on top of something like that. Sister Hanson (not a member, and doesn't like our faith) tried to discredit Deven's thoughts/feelings about it, but he stood firm. It's sometimes hard in lessons because Sister Hanson brings things up (this time she questioned us having a prophet today, as well as that all the apostles were American). She doesn't want to investigate though. It distracts Deven at times when she brings things like that up. It's hard to know what to do at times. Deven also wasn't at church Sunday. :( Don't know what happened there because as of Thursday he was planning on it.
Friday we met with Mike again. He had brought up the time before that he wanted to learn more about authority since our church stresses it so much, and his doesn't. Our lesson started out on a tangent though about prayer. Sister Healton made a comment that there was nothing more important than praying to Heavenly Father, and Mike disagreed with that. He didn't even have an answer for what he thought was more important. I swear sometimes he argues just for the sake of arguing. So many times, he follows a comment that we make by "well that's what you think". We finally got off that tangent, and we talked about the need for authority and the Restoration of the Priesthood. He wasn't as argumentative, probably because there was no counter side he could see. He came to church Sunday. Oh boy. He wasn't even paying attention in sacrament meeting - he was doing something with the scoreboard section of the newspaper. Sunday School was a trip. We got in to the fall of Adam and Eve, and he disagrees with our viewpoint and was almost malicious about it. It's almost to the point that he may be uninvited unfortunately. I don't know why he comes, since he is convinced in his mind that we are wrong. He argues about nit picky things that don't even matter. He asked (again) why we say "Heavenly Father" instead of "The Heavenly Father". Satan's definitely got him distracted from what's important. Ugh. We're going to have to talk with him this week about church being a place of worship and he is not welcome to disturb that atmosphere.
Saturday our 3 solid appointments all canceled. Ugh. We weren't sure what to do. We were going on exchanges with Sister Spencer, and we decided since we had the time, maybe we'd ask her to take us to a referral that lives in the middle of nowhere. Well, the Lord decided to tweak that plan just slightly. We got to the Spencers' house and Brother Spencer said he had a referral for us. A lady named Desiree called the church that morning and talked with the Bishop. She said she needed to find God, and he told her he'd send us. She lives in the middle of nowhere too. So, the "who" of our plans changed, but the "what" stayed the same.
Desiree is very ready for this gospel. Her parents are members in Washington, and it was her mom who told her to call the church. Desiree was blessed and in the church until about 10, but she was never baptized. She's been reading in her triple combination, and she's already prayed about this church being true. Whoa! We asked her what her answer was, and she said the fact that we were there should mean something. She said she felt a quiet reassurance about it. We committed her to baptism and she accepted! The catch is that she 1) lives in the middle of nowhere and 2) works every Sunday and her boss won't let her off. Sister Spencer informed all of us though that there's some state law that prohibits employers from forcing you to work every weekend or something of that nature (it's somehow related to being able to go to church). So, there's hope. What a Godsend that our appointments canceled so that we could go out there, and amazing that we had asked Sister Spencer to come with us (that's the only way we would've gotten that referral from Bro. Spencer that day).
A mission is kind of like climbing up a down escalator. I've realized as of late that I haven't been as proactive in climbing up as I need to, so I've been slipping down a bit. I've really learned a lot from being with Sister Mat. I'm more aware of things that I need to do or do better. I don't really know how to be a good junior companion. Guess that means one of 2 things: I'll either go back to senior, or I'll stay junior until I figure it out. :)
Well, my head is still fuzzy from this darn cold, so I can't think of what else I was going to share. Gonna go take a nap now.
sister humpherys
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