Week 71, 2/6/17

Number 5?!

Ok, the answer is yes, when I title this email "Miracles", I am referring to one of those being the Patriots overcoming a 25 point deficit late in the third quarter to win their 5th super bowl:):):) I may or may not have witnessed their game winning drive in overtime from a sports bar/restaurant parking lot when it was -27 windchill outside.... Yeah lets just say Sunday night was a good one for me:) And considering the fact that I could've easily watched the whole game at several different members' homes its also a miracle that I only watched that much of the big game. It was playing downstairs at our supper appointment that night and I could hear it the whole time and I literally had a mini anxiety attack hahaha..... It was brutal!!   

 

We happened to be walking by Boston Pizza during overtime of the Superbowl...

Anyway enough about the Pats, even though they are most legendary team in the history of the NFL, this week was pretty awesome and also pretty patience testing sometimes.  I had a pretty unique experience on Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to interview someone for baptism.  It was all going great and I could tell this man was truly doing all he could to be baptized the upcoming Saturday.  Out of the blue after question #4 he confessed something that was pretty "hardcore" I guess you could say.  I knew he was going to have to get interviewed by the mission president or one of his counselors, and I tried my best to hide my thoughts of "oh crap"... but I could still tell he was really stressed and worried that he might have to wait even longer than he already had to be baptized, despite my best efforts to reassure him.  I was praying super hard that night and the next day that he would still be able to be baptized on Saturday, and he got an interview the next night and got baptized on Saturday!! Little miracles like that keep me going sometimes:)   

We found a new investigator while tracting on Thursday named Jxxxx! He is YSA age so we will have to pass him over, but he is super cool and was excited to read the Book of Mormon and "experiment upon the word".  Friday the assistants came and picked up our beloved third companion and took him somewhere else in the mission.  It was an interesting week we had with him! 

Loving this Payne-full exchange

That night we started exchanges with the assistants and I got to go to Southgate area with the new assistant, ELDER PAYNE!  The exchange was definitely the highlight of my week. It was so good to catch up with my homie EP.  It felt like we just resumed being companions, even though it was been like 13 months.  We did some sweet finding in the morning at the transit station, it brought back memories from Greenfield (we went contacting at that station all the time in Greenfield).  We taught, or I guess we attempted to teach, a super crazy dude who asked us multiple times if any elders would ever take him up on "a night out to the gentlemens club to get some drinks," and then he took us out to an Indian restaurant afterward.  He was a super nice and strange guy:)  

Now on to the extra miraculous part of the day.  We had a lesson scheduled in the evening with their recent convert Lucille and her investigator boyfriend, Conner.  It was a pass-over lesson with the Greenfield/Rutherford sisters (its a sisters area now...) because Conner lives in their area.  It turns out I had met Conner before!  I actually was the first missionary he had ever talked to when Elder Jenson and I were contacting forever ago at the Southgate transit centre (the same one Elder Payne and I contacted at that morning).  I saw him sitting down on a bench and went and started a conversation, and one thing led to another and a week or so later we taught him the restoration and he seemed pretty interested, but he was always too busy to meet after that.  It was the epitome of what most of my mission has seemed like: Teaching people who seem super promising but for some reason nothing ever happens after the first or second lesson. 

Getting ready to tract in -27

Apparently a little while after that he started dating this Lucille girl, and a missionary gave her a mormon.org card on the train, and she actually went to the website and talked to the Mormon.org missionaries and got baptized a few months later.    He has since met with the Southgate elders twice because he now is done with school and actually has time to meet.  So the one night that I am there we get to teach him.... is that just a coincidence?  Definitely not.  I think it was the Lord showing me that even though there may not always be immediate results from my hard work, it does make a difference. Whether I am the missionary who first talks to someone or the missionary who participates in an investigator's baptism, it is all the Lord's work and is equally important.  I just need to keep working as hard as I can all the time and leave the outward results up to the Lord and His timing.  Just as Alma says: "by small and simple means are great things brought to pass". :)     We taught him about pre-earth life, the purpose of our life here and earth, and the Atonement. The spirit in the room was so thick the entire time.  We committed him to be baptized and he accepted, and at the end of the lesson he gave one of the most sincere prayers I have ever heard after telling us he didn't really know how to pray.  It was definitely one of the most spiritual lessons I have been in on my mission.  I'm thankful for tender mercies like that:)   

Thats all for this week!  I hope you all have an amazing week:) 

 Weekly Scripture: Alma 26:12 12 Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.   

Sometimes you just have to fake a fire alarm