Dear Fambamly and Fry-ends,
Hello from the land of
rainbows, butterflies, and Sunshine. Literally. We've had all three this
week! Sorry if you haven't had such things. I also got sunburned this
week as we were out on bikes and talking with people for long periods of
time in the sun. But don't worry, January is over! And February has
the redeeming quality of being only 28 days long! So the end is near!
(Of winter, not of my mission because we're not going to talk about
that)
This week I accomplished something I had never done
here before. We left 15 blessings in one day! Saturday was filled with
knocking on doors and not much else. But hey, check off that goal.
Much to our dismay, we were only able to see our awesome
Haitian Friend Pierre once this week. He was really busy I guess.
Actually, he went with his wife to a different church on Sunday so we
didn't even see him then. But in our lesson on Friday, he said he wanted
to put a picture of the Plan of Salvation on his wall because it showed
the whole picture of Life. He really loved it. That's because it is
TRUE, Pierre!
On Thursday we went to the Malcarne's again. Pretty
good turn out, except for OUR recent converts. Good thing the Elders'
converts are always there!
Looking back, my
week doesn't seem too completely exciting. So here is some highlights I
wrote to President! (shocking that I would resort to this, I know.)
"I love Fast Sunday! None of our
investigators came to church, but a less active guy that moved here from
Idaho showed up! During personal study, I sought out the answer to the
question of what I could do better to help Sister Jackson and our
companionship unity. I read the account of Samuel the Lamanite and
noticed this time how he had preached for days with no success before he
was finally cast out. Then he was directed to return and preach again
among the same people. I realized that not everyday is an "Ammon
converting King Lamoni" day or a Nephi and Lehi baptizing 8,000 type of
week. Sometimes we have those days that barely get mentioned in the Book
of Mormon, when the great prophets and missionaries were preaching
tirelessly with no success. But the reason we can continue moving
forward and continue to knock on the next door is because we have that
hope and faith in Jesus Christ that all will be made right and that
there are people in this area that are waiting for us at this time. As
we continue to better ourselves and make sure that we are trustworthy
instruments in the hands of the Lord, He is preparing people for us.
There is occasionally some disappointing or discouraging moments we have
to face, but I know they can help us grow. So here we are, growing the
best we can, and pasting that smile on our face until it becomes real.
I truly love this work. And even though it is WORK, I am so glad I am here doing it.
I
feel successful as a missionary this week because of an experience we
had on Wednesday. We were on bikes all day long, checking on people. We
were trying so hard to get new investigators. We were returning to as
many people as we could. We stopped by a guy that we had met several
weeks ago, even though he hadn't said yes to baptism. We found him at
home and very willing to talk to us. We got to do some how to begin
teaching and learned more about him and got him as a new investigator.
Then we unsuccessfully visited others. Around 5:30, we knew we hadn't
gotten any blessings yet and we only had an hour before Correlation
meeting. So we got on our bikes to go to the street we had thought of,
but before we even left the area we had been in, I saw the car of a
potential investigator at her home. She hadn't been a very solid
possibility because she was a little distracted when we blessed her. We
hadn't even planned to go back and visit her. So when I stopped and
decided to go visit her, my companion was hesitant, knowing that we
needed to meet our goal for blessings still. But I felt it was important
to see her and knew that somehow everything would work out. We went up
to her door and she readily welcomed us in. She said she was about to
pray after getting home from a long hard day at work and knew that God
had sent us again to visit her right at that moment. As we talked with
her, she committed again to come to church and we found out that she
used to have a Book of Mormon, but had left it behind. We gave her
another copy and set up another time to see her. As we were walking back
to our bikes, I realized how the Spirit had guided us that afternoon to
be able to see her. Plus, by the end of the week, we had more
blessings than we have all transfer! God definitely orchestrates this
work!"
Well, I'm going back out into the sun now because
I'm tired of this cave-like family history center. Have a wonderful week
and find a way to bring sunshine to someone's soul by sharing your
testimony!
Love, Hermana Sheffield
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