So apparently the super bowl was yesterday....not the most productive time for a missionary, haha. And apparently it was in Phoenix? Didn't know that. It was a little crazy.
Also, I saw fog for the first time in my mission. That was crazy, too. I forgot fog existed. :p
It's been kinda a slower week. Hopefully that was just because of the Super Bowl and it'll pick back up this week.
But the Lord makes up for slow weeks!!! :D It's the quality, not the quantity.
Man I'm so very out of time, argh, but I'm going to cram in as much as possible.
We found a less active sister who isn't really interested in coming back, but wants her grandaughters to go. At first we didn't have a lot of hope, because telling kids to do something they know you don't want to do is not very effective, especially if the adults want the missionaries to be the one to put on the pressure (*grumpy cat face "No"*), but we had two lessons with her this week, and it was seirously the COOLEST THING EVER. She believed in God, she knew He existed, but He was just kind of this vague, foggy, abstract concept that was just kinda there as truth but didn't mean anything to her personally. So when we talked about how God is her Father and she is His daughter, and He loves her, and is aware of her, it really seemed to fascinate her. She had all sorts of questions about prayer, kinda like the other high school guy we taught, "Does He hear all of them? Does He give us whatever we ask for? Does He talk back? How do we know when He does?" We knelt down and heard her say her very first formal prayer....it was the neatest thing.
THen her little niece and nephew, both younger than 7, started to get really excited about prayer and talking to God, too. So they each said a prayer.
Then they thought it was so great and had so much fun talking to God, they ran to the back of the house and dragged their dad out to pray with them! Haha. THey taught him everything we taught them about the nature of God and what prayer was, and wanted him to pray. It was so cute!!! He ended up not praying, sadly. Even though they were both saying, "We can help you, if you want! Do you want to repeat after us?"
....families are the BEST.
There's another family we've been teaching, but I haven't written about them much. MOm's name is Tara. She's been pretty quiet during our lessons and has perferred to listen rather than speak, and her answers were very short and vague, so we were never really certain about her actual concerns or what she was really thinking or feeling. We kept coming though because she watned us to and appreciated us visiting her and teaching about God. But we started teaching the Plan of Salvation, and it all led into prayer again (because once you know who God is and what your true relationship with HIm is, as child and Father, prayer becomes natural and instinctive...it's all related). And as we talked about prayer and how God knows us...it was really wierd, I was saying things I wouldn't usually say, and I was like, "man, why am I saying this? What is coming out of my mouth right now?"
THen before we knew it, she was in tears and opening up about all this stuff that she's been holding in, all these doubts and fears and concerns and trials she's been going through. And then as she was sharing these things, she began to make connections with what we'd been teaching, and started telling us how prayer would help her, and how reading scriptures would help her. Then she committed herself to actually doing those things. It was such a cool experience.
...I need to be getting off, but I love you guys and I love being a missionary!! :) Thanks for all yoru prayers and support!!
-Sister Stratford
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
No comments:
Post a Comment