If I could count the number of times I was amazed at how the Lord worked this last week it would take me the rest of the time that I have on my mission. WE WERE SO BLESSED THIS WEEK!!!!
lets start with the obvious one! Jacky Chen got baptised... and not only that he got baptised on my 18 month anniversary of being a missionary. My whole mission I would always joke with missionaries saying that I would have a baptism on my 18 month mark and then it just happened, as always thanks to the Lord's tender mercies. Until he was confirmed I was so afraid that something would go wrong but everything went PERFECTLY! He bore his testimony at the baptism and it was so sweet he talked about how a year ago the elders came and taught him and then a few months ago his family broke up and how since then the gospel has come and helped him see the hope and joy in life again. He said "I will stay with the big family and share my troubles and share yours." It was amazing to see how much ward support he had as well. I'm excited to see as he comes to know Jesus Christ even more how he changes.
The thing that we have struggled with most in this area is getting solid new investigators. We find people but 8 our 10 of them never keep their second appointment which is so disappointing and then out of the remaining 2 one of them needs to get married before they can get baptised, which isn't impossible but it makes it a bit longer of a process because in Australia you have to have at least a 30 day waiting period before getting married ANNOYING! so that leaves us with 1 person that we can teach out of those 10 people. We were talking about this as a companionship and we were tempted to just say well whatever next week it won't matter about our teaching pool, that will be some other missionary's problem. Let's be honest though that's not my style, or a good use of the Lord's time. We have visited every house on the ward list, all the former investigators, and visited the houses around their houses. Those are the usual ways that I find investigators, so we decided to do something that I haven't done much of at all on my mission. We have decided to try and tract 20 hours our last week as missionaries. We've all ready started and it's going GREAT!!! I was really reluctant to tract because I really don't feel like it's the most effective use of time and I don't like being rejected but we've tried everything else. We are still working with the members to get referrals but we can't go to work with them so this is what we are doing when we can't be with them.
So on Friday night we had one of the worst lessons I have ever sat through. I have never taught so poorly! The man we were teaching though really just had us over to prove us wrong. He is a born again lay minister and he'd never spoken to missionaries from our church. He asked us what was the biggest difference so we started teaching about the restoration. Every scripture we used he would stop us and tell us about how we were taking it out of context and we needed to understand the history and the reasons why Jesus Christ was telling Peter he would give him the keys of the kingdom... oddly enough I was calm the whole time he was rebuking us but I was really confused why I was confounded when in the doctrine and covenants it promises that we will not be if we declare it in meekness we will be given what to say. I was sure I was being meek, almost a push over, but we were able to bear testimony and finish the lesson. After the lesson we went and visited Jacky, it really cheered us up.
On Saturday we were tracting and I was still pondering this experience from the night before. We knocked on this bright red door and a man named Chris answered the door. For 35 years he has been studying and comparing different versions of the bible. He was so much like the man from the night before but the difference was like night and day. His doctrine was pure and true and because of the experience before I didn't jump right in and start teaching the entire restoration we gave him what the spirit told us to give and then we bore our testimonies and he accepted a book of mormon with the most sincere promise that he would read it. I was so grateful that I didn't give him all the meat of the restoration at once but gave him the milk that he needs until he's ready to learn about all of it.
We were asked to speak this week in Sacrament on Love at Home. It was perfect after the lesson I learned last week about not getting mad about the weaknesses of my companion. It helped me learn more about how I want to be when I get home. It's amazing how Heavenly Father is helping me help others but at the same time he's preparing me for the next step, coming home. I think it's kinda like mission prep before your mission, you learn it in theory but you really don't know how it'll work until you are in the field. Well Heavenly Father is preparing me to be a peacemaker in theory but who knows how it'll work when I'm at home... haha (nervous laugh) hopefully I'm not terrible!
Any way just one more week, can you even believe it!!?!?
xoxo
Sister Wyatt
ps here are the pictures from this week. One for every day :)
pps this morning we got our eyebrows waxed and nails done for free... that's the most I've done to prepare for home.... promise I'm not trunky!lets start with the obvious one! Jacky Chen got baptised... and not only that he got baptised on my 18 month anniversary of being a missionary. My whole mission I would always joke with missionaries saying that I would have a baptism on my 18 month mark and then it just happened, as always thanks to the Lord's tender mercies. Until he was confirmed I was so afraid that something would go wrong but everything went PERFECTLY! He bore his testimony at the baptism and it was so sweet he talked about how a year ago the elders came and taught him and then a few months ago his family broke up and how since then the gospel has come and helped him see the hope and joy in life again. He said "I will stay with the big family and share my troubles and share yours." It was amazing to see how much ward support he had as well. I'm excited to see as he comes to know Jesus Christ even more how he changes.
The thing that we have struggled with most in this area is getting solid new investigators. We find people but 8 our 10 of them never keep their second appointment which is so disappointing and then out of the remaining 2 one of them needs to get married before they can get baptised, which isn't impossible but it makes it a bit longer of a process because in Australia you have to have at least a 30 day waiting period before getting married ANNOYING! so that leaves us with 1 person that we can teach out of those 10 people. We were talking about this as a companionship and we were tempted to just say well whatever next week it won't matter about our teaching pool, that will be some other missionary's problem. Let's be honest though that's not my style, or a good use of the Lord's time. We have visited every house on the ward list, all the former investigators, and visited the houses around their houses. Those are the usual ways that I find investigators, so we decided to do something that I haven't done much of at all on my mission. We have decided to try and tract 20 hours our last week as missionaries. We've all ready started and it's going GREAT!!! I was really reluctant to tract because I really don't feel like it's the most effective use of time and I don't like being rejected but we've tried everything else. We are still working with the members to get referrals but we can't go to work with them so this is what we are doing when we can't be with them.
So on Friday night we had one of the worst lessons I have ever sat through. I have never taught so poorly! The man we were teaching though really just had us over to prove us wrong. He is a born again lay minister and he'd never spoken to missionaries from our church. He asked us what was the biggest difference so we started teaching about the restoration. Every scripture we used he would stop us and tell us about how we were taking it out of context and we needed to understand the history and the reasons why Jesus Christ was telling Peter he would give him the keys of the kingdom... oddly enough I was calm the whole time he was rebuking us but I was really confused why I was confounded when in the doctrine and covenants it promises that we will not be if we declare it in meekness we will be given what to say. I was sure I was being meek, almost a push over, but we were able to bear testimony and finish the lesson. After the lesson we went and visited Jacky, it really cheered us up.
On Saturday we were tracting and I was still pondering this experience from the night before. We knocked on this bright red door and a man named Chris answered the door. For 35 years he has been studying and comparing different versions of the bible. He was so much like the man from the night before but the difference was like night and day. His doctrine was pure and true and because of the experience before I didn't jump right in and start teaching the entire restoration we gave him what the spirit told us to give and then we bore our testimonies and he accepted a book of mormon with the most sincere promise that he would read it. I was so grateful that I didn't give him all the meat of the restoration at once but gave him the milk that he needs until he's ready to learn about all of it.
We were asked to speak this week in Sacrament on Love at Home. It was perfect after the lesson I learned last week about not getting mad about the weaknesses of my companion. It helped me learn more about how I want to be when I get home. It's amazing how Heavenly Father is helping me help others but at the same time he's preparing me for the next step, coming home. I think it's kinda like mission prep before your mission, you learn it in theory but you really don't know how it'll work until you are in the field. Well Heavenly Father is preparing me to be a peacemaker in theory but who knows how it'll work when I'm at home... haha (nervous laugh) hopefully I'm not terrible!
Any way just one more week, can you even believe it!!?!?
xoxo
Sister Wyatt
ps here are the pictures from this week. One for every day :)
ppps just found out... baptised in australia is spelled with an s not a z.... still really bad a spelling....
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