What
a week! We saw some pretty incredible miracles this week. There was a
baptism for one of our dear friends Sherry who is just absolutely
amazing :) The spirit was so strong and it brought me such great joy to
see her make that essential covenant with her Heavenly Father, and then
to be confirmed a member of the church the next day. I know God is very
pleased with her decision and her life will never be the same again!
The
biggest miracle was probably on Sunday. To give you a little background
for this story, we have what are called standards of excellence. These
standards are set by our mission president through inspiration so we
know what is expected of us and to help us push ourselves. It's
basically what the Lord has said that members of the Ohio Columbus
Mission can accomplish on a weekly basis. We have a standard to have two
investigators at church each week. We worked hard all week to try and
help our friends come to church but when it came to Sunday we only knew
of one person who was for sure coming, which is in amazing in itself.
We tried to be so diligent, running around Sunday morning knocking on
everyone's doors giving them one last reminder and hopefully some sort
of motivation to come. No success. On the way to church we even stopped a
few people on the side of the road to invite them. It was honestly
pretty comical. The one thing that could be said was that we tried our
hardest, so at this point all we had to have faith and expect a miracle.
And it came! Our investigator we knew of came to church as planned and
then I got so excited when I saw someone I didn't recognize come through
the doors. One of the couples in our congregation brought a friend who
was able to help us accomplish our goal. The Lord always provides!
Another
one of the standards is to have two investigators working towards a
baptismal date. Because of circumstances at the end of this last week,
we went from three people working towards a date to one and we were
panicking! We knew that we were able to reach the standards, we just
really didn't know how. It ended up being Sunday night, we only had an
hour left of our evening and our success in reaching the standards
depended entirely on the decision we made in that moment. So we prayed.
We followed the first thought that we both received after that prayer
and trusted it to be inspiration. We hurried to our investigator who we
had both thought of and had an unplanned lesson on his porch. There was a
point where we were both losing faith that this was possible, but by
the end of our lesson with him he agreed to pray about the baptismal
date we extended! I know that if we had just made a decision that night
based on our own understanding we would not have been successful. It was
only possible because God told us it was and He showed us how.
I
am so grateful for the guidance of the spirit. It is because of him
that our loving Father in Heaven is able to provide comfort in our time
of sorrow or anxiety, or direction in our time of need and confirmation
of truth. I recently finished reading the Book of Mormon again and took Moroni's promise found in the very last chapter that if we are sincere
and pray and ask God, with a willingness to act on the answers we
receive, God will show us the truth of all things though the Holy Ghost.
That promise was fulfilled again as I knelt in prayer and asked God. I
can undeniably testify to you that the Book of Mormon is true, that The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's living and
true church on the earth, and that if we allow Him to, God will always
guide us to exactly where He needs us to be.
I am grateful to be His hands in helping more of my brothers and sisters come to know these truths as well!
I love you all, just keep smiling!
