Hi everyone,
This week was full of some highs and some lows, and it was so great. I can defintely say we were lead by the Spirit. We saw so many miracles.
Yesterday, the investigator who had a baptismal date and her husband both came to church. (I'll call them both Golden.) They had an interview with the district leader, and they both want to be baptized on Saturday. One of the elder's investigators, she's from Latvia or Lithuania (I forget which), is also getting baptized on Saturday, so that means we'll have three baptisms in one day! We're so excited. The husband said he wasn't ready to get baptized last week, but he changed his mind, which is a huge miracle. We're getting them ready this week, and it's going to be so awesome.
We saw other miracles too yesterday. One of our investigators (I don't know if I've nicknamed her yet, so I'll call her Repeat) hasn't been promising to keep commitments. She always says, "I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to promise," and she especially won't promise to do anything like pray or read if it's "every day," but yesterday when we met with her she said she would try to come to the baptism on Saturday. We were sitting on a big, metal pipe outside, and it was really warm to sit on, and it was really peaceful. I also asked her if she would read "today, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday" (we're meeting with her again on Wednesday), and she said yes. Step by step, she's progressing.
It was almost the end of the day, and Sister Watts and I were going to visit a potential's house and try to meet with them, and we were waiting for the bus when we started talking with someone who belongs to the Evanglical church. She didn't seem very interested in our message, but she talked with us for quite a while, and in that whole time, our bus didn't come. While we were talking with her, who shows up but Hopeful, whom we haven't seen or talked to for over a week! She's been very busy with work, but she came with us to the church and talked with us for a couple minutes. She is progressing so well. She's read almost half of the Book of Mormon, she's praying, and we set up a new baptismal date for February 14th. She said she would try to meet with us again tonight, maybe with her husband. We know it's no coincidence that we were at that bus stop last night. I'm really glad we had that chance to meet with her, and I'm also glad she is receiving answers to her prayers.
We've also been visitng with some less-actives, and we're starting to see them come back to church and to activities. One woman came to an activity on Saturday where the branch president (Elder Vecelov) taught how to make easy soups and salads. Another less-active gave us a referral. We've also had other members take the challenge we've given them of writing their testimonies in a Book of Mormon and giving it away, and we've seen some success take place. We're going to keep following up with them. The other members are so willing to help clean the church and help with the baptism. They're all so faithful!
I did say there were some downs, but Sister Watts and I worked through them together, and things are picking back up. During weekly planning, we set goals for each individual key indicator like President Klebingat taught us to do, and I think we are learning and improving a lot because of it. We commit to do things in order to see success for each key indicator. For example, Sister Watts said that she's going to run for 10 minutes every morning during exercise time in order to have a baptism, and I committed to call 2 potential investigators every day for the goal of having new investigators. We've seen that as we push through hard times and work on reaching our goals, blessings come, but only after the trial of our faith.
Love,
Сестра Спрингер
This week was full of some highs and some lows, and it was so great. I can defintely say we were lead by the Spirit. We saw so many miracles.
Yesterday, the investigator who had a baptismal date and her husband both came to church. (I'll call them both Golden.) They had an interview with the district leader, and they both want to be baptized on Saturday. One of the elder's investigators, she's from Latvia or Lithuania (I forget which), is also getting baptized on Saturday, so that means we'll have three baptisms in one day! We're so excited. The husband said he wasn't ready to get baptized last week, but he changed his mind, which is a huge miracle. We're getting them ready this week, and it's going to be so awesome.
We saw other miracles too yesterday. One of our investigators (I don't know if I've nicknamed her yet, so I'll call her Repeat) hasn't been promising to keep commitments. She always says, "I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to promise," and she especially won't promise to do anything like pray or read if it's "every day," but yesterday when we met with her she said she would try to come to the baptism on Saturday. We were sitting on a big, metal pipe outside, and it was really warm to sit on, and it was really peaceful. I also asked her if she would read "today, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday" (we're meeting with her again on Wednesday), and she said yes. Step by step, she's progressing.
It was almost the end of the day, and Sister Watts and I were going to visit a potential's house and try to meet with them, and we were waiting for the bus when we started talking with someone who belongs to the Evanglical church. She didn't seem very interested in our message, but she talked with us for quite a while, and in that whole time, our bus didn't come. While we were talking with her, who shows up but Hopeful, whom we haven't seen or talked to for over a week! She's been very busy with work, but she came with us to the church and talked with us for a couple minutes. She is progressing so well. She's read almost half of the Book of Mormon, she's praying, and we set up a new baptismal date for February 14th. She said she would try to meet with us again tonight, maybe with her husband. We know it's no coincidence that we were at that bus stop last night. I'm really glad we had that chance to meet with her, and I'm also glad she is receiving answers to her prayers.
We've also been visitng with some less-actives, and we're starting to see them come back to church and to activities. One woman came to an activity on Saturday where the branch president (Elder Vecelov) taught how to make easy soups and salads. Another less-active gave us a referral. We've also had other members take the challenge we've given them of writing their testimonies in a Book of Mormon and giving it away, and we've seen some success take place. We're going to keep following up with them. The other members are so willing to help clean the church and help with the baptism. They're all so faithful!
I did say there were some downs, but Sister Watts and I worked through them together, and things are picking back up. During weekly planning, we set goals for each individual key indicator like President Klebingat taught us to do, and I think we are learning and improving a lot because of it. We commit to do things in order to see success for each key indicator. For example, Sister Watts said that she's going to run for 10 minutes every morning during exercise time in order to have a baptism, and I committed to call 2 potential investigators every day for the goal of having new investigators. We've seen that as we push through hard times and work on reaching our goals, blessings come, but only after the trial of our faith.
Love,
Сестра Спрингер