This week started off really great! On Monday afternoon we received a media referral. Someone had gone to mormon.org and he requested a Book of Mormon and so we contacted him later that night. As we are pulling up to the house there is a “private property, no trespassing” sign. Sister Thomas and I looked at each other and decided that we better go anyways. So we drive up to the house and park. We said a prayer before we went in. As we are walking up I am just picturing a grumpy old man to answer the door well to my surprise it wasn’t. He was a nice young man and his daughters who came to the door. He immediately invited us in to talk with him and his family. Their names are John and Amalie and they have three cute little girls. John had so many good questions about the church and about the process of becoming a member. I could feel the spirit guiding us as we answered these questions and explained our purpose. When we would answer questions he would say “that was a good answer. I wasn’t expecting that.” His wife Amalie has met with missionaries before when she was in college. Nothing came of it then, but doesn’t mean she isn’t ready for it now! We gave them both a copy of the Book of Mormon. John told us that he wanted to read some of the Book of Mormon and do more his own research before he takes the lessons from us. He has researched a lot of other religions before and he doesn’t like things about each of them. His family doesn’t belong to a religion at this time, but they are searching. They are a cute little family and I know that this gospel will bless them. I know it will bring them closer. We haven’t heard back from them yet, but we are continuing to pray for them each day.
We received another referral from a member this week as well. She is a less-active that we have been teaching, her name is Kristin. Her brother’s girlfriend wanted to sit in our next lesson with Kristin. Our lesson with them went really well. We taught the restoration and they both learned new things. Kristin was raised in the gospel, but she was never fully taught the importance of the restoration. While things were clicking for Kristin, Valerie was feeling the spirit and everything we taught made since to her. Valerie cried a couple of times during the lesson and she told us that she can just feel when things are good. She really liked it and she wants to learn more! Valerie and Kristin have been reading the Book of Mormon together and Valerie always wants to keep reading. We are seeing her again tomorrow and we can’t wait to see what happens!
We went a visited our less-active Jeanette and her non-member husband Tiny on Saturday. They are so sweet to us. It feels like Christmas every time we go there because they always have gifts for us. This week Jeanette surprised me with a blanket that she had crocheted for me. It was so nice of her. Our mission president has also been putting a real big push on using family history in missionary work. Jeanette is really into family history and so we asked her if she could show us how to do it. She got really excited and then had to show us a bunch of the things she has found in her and Tiny’s families. It was so awesome to see the spirit of Elijah working with in her. She just lit up as she talked about her ancestors. We also had a really cool experience with her husband Tiny. He has never taken the lessons from missionaries before, he doesn’t like the Elders, and he has only recently let sister missionaries come into their home. We have strengthened our relationship with him over the last eight weeks since I have been here. He has so many deep questions about the gospel and so we decided to ask him if he would like to take the lessons. We told him that all these questions are great and we would love to answer them, but we feel that having an understanding of the foundation of the gospel would help him answer a lot of these questions. Tiny agreed to take the lessons from us! I have learned that becoming friends with people first makes sharing the gospel with them a lot easier. They are more open and more willing to hear the things that you hold dear. This is why sharing the gospel with our own friends is so important. We are closer to them than the missionaries or anyone else in the church. It is our responsibility to share the gospel with them. That is something I wish I would have done more before I came out here. I want everyone I know and love to have the blessings of the gospel in their lives.
We had a crazy experience this Sunday. Last Sunday we committed our investigator Angie to come to church and then we followed up at our lesson on Friday that she was still coming. She said yes both times and that she was excited to come. Raphaela, a member, went on Sunday morning to pick her up. She arrived at 9:15 am and we have church at 10. Raphaela drove 20 minutes in the opposite direction of church to get there and it is about 45 minutes to church from Angie’s. Sister Thomas and I are at church and we get a text from Raphaela that her and her son, Kevin, are waiting for Angie to get ready. This is around 9:45. We expected Angie to get ready quickly… that didn’t happen. Raphaela and Kevin ended up waiting over an hour for Angie. We told them to leave Angie if she wasn’t ready. They ended up leaving Angie and missing Sacrament meeting. I felt so terrible! Things like this make me realize that not everything goes as planned. This happens a lot, but I have learned to trust in the Lord that everything will work out in His time. So I have know idea when Angie is going to make it to church, but I do know that I will not stop trying. Raphaela and Kevin were so good about it and they said that they were on the Lord’s errand and they did all they could. I am grateful that they had good attitudes about it. They are so strong in the gospel and they desire to be missionaries.
This week during my studies I learned about patience. Something that I have grown in, but I am still working on. Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave a talk on patience titled “Continue in Patience”. He defines patience so well and he starts off by saying that patience is the ability to put our own desires on hold for a while and it is a “purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace.”I love this! As we are patient and wait for things to come in the Lord’s time we begin to understand His will, our happiness grows as we put more trust in Him, our eyes begin to become single to His glory, and we know that peace will come. Patience hasn’t always been my strongest quality, but I have been developing it as I have been out here and I know that all of this happens as we become more patient. My understanding of God’s will has grown tremendously, happiness comes even when hard things happen, I have become more focused on things that matter, and I know that things will work out in the end. I love the gospel and the joy that it brings into my life. I am grateful to have it in my life because I know that I wouldn’t be happy without it. Eternal happiness comes because of the fullness of the gospel.
I love you all and I hope you have a great week! Here are some fun riddles a member told us. I’ll tell yins the answers next week.
1.What happens once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years?
2.You are driving down the road, it’s pitch black, you don’t have your lights on but yet you can see everything. How?
Let me know your answers!
Love yins guys!
-Sister Jones
Jeanette and the blanket she made me.
SISTER JONES' BLOG 