March 12, 2012

So how are all of you doing? This week has been fine. Yep. So for my birthday, we had a really good lesson with one of our investigators. We taught the Plan of Salvation. So this certain investigator lives with his less active girlfriend, has for the last 8 years and they have a 7 year old daughter. We really emphasized in this lesson how in the Celestial kingdom we can be with our families forever. They are both usually really talkative people, but after we mentioned that the Celestial kingdom is the only place we can be together with our families forever, they were kind of silent. Making them think. We've talked about why they aren't married yet before, they just have excuses, but I am hoping and praying that now they will make it more of a goal to do it soon. Plus, our investigator is progressing pretty well. And they have a goal as a family to come to church more often - to be more active. And they are striving to pray every day as a family. And he is starting to read the scriptures again, but right now he is first reading the Bible and then he'll read The Book of Mormon. Anyway, that was good. They didn't come to church Sunday, but that was because they were all really sick.

Thursday we had our special meeting with Elder L. Tom Perry and Elder Richard G. Maynes from the Seventy. It was a good meeting. They talked a lot about the Rescue and how the ward council should be working with us missionaries. Elder Maynes also talked about how the golden investigators we have that we baptized. They are the ones that will stay active and they are golden because they are ‘Searchers for Truth’. The searchers are the golden investigators. The other people, we are just trying to convince them it is true. But a searcher will come to know it is true for himself, without needing to be convinced that they know. I have really come to realize this; it really does come down to the desire of the person; whether or not they are ready to receive the truth and willing to accept it. It comes down to timing. So now my companion and I are asking ourselves every lesson, "Are they a searcher?" It's been good thinking in that perspective.

Yesterday we had ward conference. That was fun. The Webbs are in the stake. Brother Webb, or I should say President Webb, is the 2nd (I think) counselor in the stake presidency. Every time he saw us at church yesterday he would step in our way and shake our hand. And Sister Webb would get a huge smile on her face and give us hugs. I love them. They are so great to us. So Brother Webb taught the 3rd hour. It was really good. He taught about revelation. But before he started, he had to tell the ward members how happy he was to be there, especially since 2 of his favorite people were there. And those two favorite people were Sister Tubbs and Sister Walston. He also told them how he loved having us live with them, but that he has one major problem. He can't give us hugs. It was funny. It's true, he hates not being able to give us hugs, but he is great. Anyway, oh! And the first time since before my mission, I had a meal that reminded me of Moms! The chicken Sunday like dinner thing you make, with rice, cooked carrots (except they had a sweet dressing on them), salad, fruit, and bread. It reminded me a little of our Sunday dinners back at home. :)

So when I first got here we pretty much had 8 investigators...but we really hadn't been working with them all... so now we have come down to realize we only really have 2 right now that we are working with. We have 2 others, but they are kind of on hold right now. Not sure what to do with them. But yeah. Besides that, we are meeting with some of the less active and our recent converts, which I just love. The older man (recent convert), we had dinner with him and his wife (which we helped with - we got there a little after they did, so they were behind- it was fun being able to help with dinner) and then the next day we did service for them. It was great.