In
movies they usually have all the bad stuff happen at the beginning and wait
until the very end of the movie to resolve it. Well that is how the past
two weeks have been for us. This week started off slow. We had appointments
fall through, investigators drop us, and my companion got sick. (Which is
starting to make me think I'm bad luck... so far every one of my companions has
gotten sick...) Thankfully by midweek we were out of the flat again. We worked
hard and were struggling to find any success. We were really wanting to find
some new investigators because of all the drops. We have a pretty small
teaching pool at the moment.
So we
were out trying to find a place to tract. We pulled over and said a prayer.
When we came to a particular street we felt impressed to go there. No one
answered on the first few houses, but then someone answered. It turns out this
family was baptized a long time ago. The son is 26 now and has basically no
knowledge of anything Gospel related. They were excited to have us over and we
scheduled an appointment. We met with them on Saturday and treated them as if
they were investigators. It went so well! They are excited to get back into
this lifestyle! It was evidence to me that God does not draw a line between
less actives and new investigators. They are both equally important.
Then
on Friday because of different things we had almost no time to find, yet again.
We had just dropped off the Elders from an activity and we were coming home. It
was late enough that we would have only got home 10 minutes early, but I really
wanted to find someone. So we prayed to be led to a street that we could tract
for a little bit on our way home. After we prayed I felt like we should go
follow up on a less active... I thought maybe I was being crazy but I was
praying so hard in my heart that we would be able to find someone. I told God I
would do whatever He asked so we went there. No one answered. I was determined
to not give up, but it was getting late. I prayed in my heart again to know
which house to knock on. I felt like we should go to this little house across
the street. The whole time I was doubting myself. We knocked on this door at
8:55. A Samoan woman answered the door. We told her who we were and asked if we
could share a message with her. She invited us in! Then she proceeded to tell
us that she had been praying for someone to come to her to teach her more about
Jesus Christ and God. She had just bought a Bible and she needed help understanding
it. She said she's felt guilty for so many things that she's done and we were
able to testify to her about the Atonement. It was beautiful. God is truly
preparing His people. God is so good to us!
Then
Saturday a lot of our time was taken up with a stake service project of
painting fences. It was great fun, but once again we were left with very little
time. We went tracting and no success. Then it was time to go home and we were
hungry so we decided to stop by a store on the way home. While we were waiting
in line to buy our food I noticed that the man behind us was watching us. Not
in a creepy way, but I could tell that he knew we were missionaries. It's hard
to explain, but you can tell when someone's being a creeper and when they're
watching you because of the badge. I felt like I should talk to him. Honestly,
I was tired, hungry, overheated and really didn't want to make the effort, but
I at least just started talking to him about random things then I could tell he
was from America so we started talking about America and how it's different
here. I mentioned that I was on a mission and some of the things that we do as
missionaries, but I'll be honest I didn't invite him to learn or anything. Bad
Sister Tanner. I was not being as good as a should have, but then as we walked
away he said, "So do you have a church that I can come to?"... Uh,
come again?!? I almost died! Of course we jumped on that. We pulled out our
card and wrote the address. He said he'd come. We were so excited! He seemed
legit, but people have said they would come before and they haven't.
But,
HE CAME! He came and He stayed for two hours! He loved it. He said he really
liked the feeling we have in our church because he's been to a lot of different
ones over the years. We asked him if he wanted us to teach him more and he said
yes! We asked when and he was like, "well there no time like the present!
How about tomorrow?" Wow can you say GOLDEN?! I was stunned, in fact I
still am. We're having dinner at a member's house tomorrow and so we invited him
along to that and he was excited about that as well. He is such a miracle! I
still can't get over it. God is so good to us. Even when I fall short of
fulfilling my purpose He picks up the slack. It made me more determined to
continue talking with everyone, no matter how tired or hot I am.
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