Tim and us
us, Joanie (girlfriend), Tim, Pres. Snow, Jean (Tim's mom)
Charles & Tara
Charles and us
Hostess outlet store :)
E. Swain trying to use chopsticks
Hey everyone! Man, a few good days of nice weather, and now we're back to the rain. Luckily no tornadoes here, though there have been tornado sirens. Apparently a small tornado touched down in Indy. But S. Charsley and I just sleep through all the storms. I'm surprised, what with our crappy mattresses and all.
So we met with Frank Monday night. He told us he had not had a good week. He did some "research" about the BOM online. He told us he was really sad because the connection with God that he'd felt since meeting with us, he felt like he lost it that week. (Go figure, that's what happens when you read anti.) He was not closed off to the BOM though, he just asked what our view on the scientific studies was. Sister Scoresby was awesome and talked about faith and really focused on what was important - how you feel when you read it. Frank told us that he'd had the best feelings in his whole life since meeting with us. We taught him about the Spirit and we pointed out that he lost that Spirit when he read the other material. I hate when Satan throws down the gauntlet on a poor, unsuspecting investigator. We encouraged Frank to read in the BOM and pray specifically to know that it's true, and those good feelings will come back. He hasn't prayed specifically about the BOM (or about anything, since he just has an open communication with God throughout the day), and he readily admitted that. The lesson was good, but we were so sad for his set back. I guess there had to be some little hiccup, otherwise his investigation/progression would be too perfect. :) We invited him to the double baptism on Saturday, and he came! He really enjoyed it, and he felt the Spirit. We got lots of people to introduce themselves to him, and it was great. A few people asked him what he thought about the baptism, and he said he felt good, but anything further, he'd have to go home and reflect on it. We're meeting with him tonight, and I'm excited to see what he has to say. He keeps saying he really wants a church home, but there's something that's standing in the way of him coming to church. I don't know what it is yet. Maybe it's just a fear of this church being too good to be true? I don't know. Hopefully we'll find that out as well tonight.
We met with Karen Tuesday and Thursday. We tracted into her Saturday morning, and we talked for like 20 minutes. We came back Tuesday and she talked forever. It really helped us get to know her though, so that's good. We shared a little bit about the Restoration, and we told her next time we wanted to dive right in to our unique message. We asked Sister Peper to come out with us. She agreed, but then Karen had to change times, and it wasn't going to work out with Sister Peper's schedule. A few minutes later though, Sister Peper called us back and said that she really wanted to come out with us, so she was going to make her schedule work. God has His way of making things happen. Sister Peper fell in love with Karen (I don't know how anyone could not love her!) and she really wants to come back next time we teach. Yay for experiences that increase the members' desire to come out with us! We shared part of the Restoration, and Karen was really open to it. When we talked briefly of the BOM, she said "Oh, I need to get me one of those." I think we can take care of that. ;)
Tuesday we met with Sondrah again. The elders before us taught her most of the doctrine lessons, and we've been covering the commandments. Because of this, we were not sure where exactly her testimony was. We knew she wanted to be baptized, but we weren't sure of her understanding of the need for this baptism. So we asked her the baptism interview question that deals with knowing Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson are prophets, and she readily agreed. We then taught about the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end, and she was really impressed to see in Acts 19 that the laying on of hands is recorded in the Bible, yet other churches don't do that. She said she was going to call her grandma as soon as we left and ask her why her church doesn't do that. hehe. Needless to say, we are no longer wondering about Sondrah's testimony. We asked her how her quitting smoking was coming, and she said she's working on it. We told her that to be baptized on May 14th, she has to be smoke free as of April 30. She said ok. She's got the determination to do it. Once she knows something is required, she just does it. It's awesome. We went over Friday and taught her and Vincent (LA) about tithing and fasting. They accepted it well, and Vincent even suggested they should pay tithing and fast before we could even finish up the principle and commit them to do it. I just love them both. They're so willing to do what's required.
On Wednesday, an appointment fell through, so we called up Sister Petty to see if we could come visit. We had Sister Anderson with us who went to pick her up for church last week but she slept in. We went and had an awesome lesson on the Atonement. Erica struggles with feeling that it applies to her. We brought in an object lesson that I learned from Bishop Marler in Kokomo. We had Erica write "Erica's sins" in a sharpie marker on a white board. She was hesitant because she didn't want to ruin our board. We told her it was fine. She wrote it at the top, really small so as to not ruin the whole board. We then talked about how she'd been trying to make changes on her own and we had her try to erase the words. It just smeared a little, but it was still there. Then comes the red dry erase marker, to symbolize the blood of Christ. I covered all the sharpie writing, and then erased, and the board came clean. I was not prepared for Erica's reaction. I thought she'd think it was lame or kind of cool. But she broke down crying. It really touched her. I think it's been a while since she felt the Spirit like that, or at all. She recognized she needed to make some changes, but she's worried and hesitant because she has to change basically her whole lifestyle and her friends. It'll be hard, but she can do it if she wants. I was grateful we got to meet with her.
Wednesday we met with Tim at the Snow's house and talked about Priesthood and service. I felt it was a decent lesson, but on Friday we met Tim and his girlfriend Joanie at the church for his last lesson, and Joanie said Tim was kind of nervous. We asked him about it, and he had gotten the impression that getting baptized would mean that he was going to have to give up all of his time to go help people. He was thinking along the lines of him having to be a full time missionary like us. We allayed his concerns and helped him see that the Lord wouldn't give him anything that he wasn't ready for. We then had to adapt our lesson a little bit, because we planned to teach about missionary work. Go figure. It was a good discussion though, and Tim was feeling much more comfortable. Joanie got Tim a quad and a scripture case as a baptism gift! How awesome!
We met with Charles for his last two lessons, and one of them included chicken Parmesan. Yum! Charles is a great cook! It also included Darrel (4 years old) flirting with S. Charsley. Oh, it was so cute. We talked a bit about missionary work, service, temple work, and teaching and learning - all things that Charles already knows. It's been interesting trying to teach him since he's already been converted, and he already lives these things pretty much. He talked about again, telling his mother-in-law that he appreciated us sisters because we brought something new to the table that the elders couldn't. I still haven't figured out what that is, but Charles saw it, and that's all that matters.
Sister Forrest came with us again to see Sister Robinson. They went to the stake Relief Society meeting last week together, and Sister Robinson loved it! She spent most of our visit talking about it. She and Sister Forrest have become good friends already. I'm convinced that that is what's going to get her back to church. She's ready, she just has to make the commitment to come. She'll be such a great asset to the ward, and I know the ward will just love her.
We finished 1 Nephi with Peter this week! He's getting better each time. I can testify of the power of the Spirit in giving us what we need. This week we read some Isaiah chapters, and Peter is still not fully able to comprehend the BOM on his own due to his stroke. So we usually read a few verses, and then me or S. Charsley will explain what it means. I was nervous about the Isaiah chapters, because I don't really understand them all that well. But we were able to help him understand. Definitely a gift of the Spirit! Hopefully that same gift is available when we get to the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi!
We tracted an ornery street Saturday afternoon. I think it's the most angry/rude people on one street that I've seen my whole mission. I jokingly asked S. Charsley why she picked an ornery street. We then decided it was Satan's only hope in making Saturday not a perfect day (with a double baptism in the evening). It didn't work though! We met a really nice older lady named Shirley. She let us in and she was just so sweet. We told her a little about our church and invited her to attend. She seemed interested in checking it out as she doesn't have a church right now, and her friend told her to try at least 3 churches before deciding on one. I'm not sure whether she'll investigate or not, but she sure was a ray of sunshine to us!
The double baptism of Tim and Charles was awesome! The Spirit was so strong! There were a lot of people there to support them. Tim's mom came, and she really felt the Spirit. One of Charles' nephews who is 7 (and not a member) walked in to the church and told his grandma (a member) that it felt different and asked why. He said it felt good, and it was something kind of familiar. How neat, that even a child can recognize the Spirit. Charles has been working with the YM, so the talks were given by the deacons and teachers quorum presidents. They did a great job. The deacons quorum president - Pres. Ficklin - really impresses me. I've heard him speak/bear his testimony 3 times now, and he makes me cry every time. I am so moved by how powerful he is. He is going to make an awesome elder some day.
Yesterday we met with a referral from the Bedford elders. They met him at his dad's house a few weeks ago, and they had talked with him a bit and asked if he'd like to know more and they'd send some missionaries. All we knew about him was that he was Baptist and interested in learning. So we went and found out quickly that he is a man of strong faith, who believes what God says, and doesn't depend only on what men say. He emphasized the need to have a change of heart and to know things by the Spirit. He asked us about Joseph Smith, and we laid out the pride/apostasy-dispensation cycle for him. He agreed with the pattern we talked about. We told him that Joseph Smith was the beginning of the cycle again, as he was called to be a prophet. He kind of went off a bit and talked about the need for Christ, etc. We reassured him that yes, we do need Christ, and Joseph Smith in no way replaces Christ. It was nice that he was willing to be quiet long enough to hear us out and let us explain our beliefs. Because of that, he came to see where we're coming from. He thanked us for teaching him, so now he could tell other people that we don't worship Joseph Smith. We gave him a BOM and read Moroni 10:3-5, and he made the connection of that with John 14:26, and he really liked how they say the same thing. We really stressed reading and praying to know the truth and finding out through the Spirit. It was so neat to see him open up and soften over the course of our visit. He told us that he couldn't say that the BOM wasn't true, because the Spirit wasn't telling him that. Wahoo! The Spirit was present the whole lesson. I have high hopes for him!
I learned something from our lesson with Bill and also from visiting with John Pherson in Kokomo. I learned the extreme importance of focusing on Christ. I've heard many people say that we elevate Joseph Smith and that leads to people thinking we worship him instead of God and Christ. I always had the mindset of "well if you just listen to our message, you'll understand where Joseph Smith fits in". Bro. Pherson brought up that Christ wasn't mentioned enough at our church. Then in the lesson with Bill, after he brought up the need for Christ, I made a conscious effort to tie everything back to Christ. I was able to see how people can think we elevate Joseph Smith - the whole first lesson builds up to him and his experience and the work he did. I found during the lesson how easy it is to tie everything back to Christ, but I was having to make a conscious effort to do so. How sad! It should be natural! So that's my goal from now on - to blatantly tie everything back to Christ and our dependence on Him. I'm sad to admit that it's taken me so long to figure this out. I think I do a good job when I teach the PoS and the gospel of Jesus Christ, but not in the REST. Along the same lines, testimony meeting yesterday was awesome. Every single testimony mentioned/focused on the Savior and His Atonement. The Spirit was so strong! I loved it! I wish all sacrament meetings were like that - they should be!
Well, that's it for now. Happy May!
sister smurf
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