Heyo Familio!
This week flew by so fast!! It's crazy that Elder Hutchison goes home tomorrow! he hasn't been trunky at all! We worked super hard this week and had a baptism all set up for Fabian, but he fell through last minute. His grandma talked with him and didn't want him to be baptized and he really respects her so he backed out, but we will still work with him and help him prepare for the future. Super sad because it was Elder Hutchisons last sunday and last chance to baptize, so it hit him pretty hard, but after chatting with him he got back to normal.
Agency is a great gift but it can be awfully frustrating. Elder Hutchison gained some insight at church and shared it with me. He said God lets us experience what it feels like to have investigators use their agency to not accept the gospel so that we can catch a glimpse of what He feels like when we don't keep His commandments or when we use our agency poorly. I hadn't thought of it like that before. It's so true! It's helped me introspect and make sure I use my agency wisely because I know what it feels like when others use their agency poorly, I don't want to have God feel like that. This week will be great though!
We saw a huge miracle this past week! We got a referral on Friday and went to see her, Barbara, that night. We visited with her and asked her questions and she started sharing a cool experience she recently had. She went to Guatemala to visit her step-mom and dad in December. While their her step-mom, who is a devout Catholic, invited her to Church with her. Turns out that her step-mom had been meeting with missionaries and was going to be baptized into the Church in a few weeks. So Barbara went to one of our Church services in Guatemala and loved it! Said it was the best church experience she had ever had! While on the plane ride home to Florida she sat next to a returning sister missionary and the sister told her almost everything about the Church. then just 2 weeks later she saw some missionaries walking by who OYM'ed her, that's how we got the referral. She connected the dots of how all of this was non-coincidental and that Jesus had sent us to her. She started tearing up when she thought about that. It was an amazing miracle to see it all unwrap and see how God has been preparing her to hear the gospel! she is preparing to be baptized on the 22 of February!
This past week I was studying the power of Bearing Testimony. I was reading in Alma 4 and at this time the Nephites are in perilous times. Because of previous destruction they were humbled and 3,500 souls were converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and were baptized. Not too long after, they let pride into their hearts and it caused the work of God to come to an abrupt stop. Alma saw the problem and knew that God could do something about it but he first needed to act. He leaves his judgement seat and sets out to preach the gospel and bring people back to the Church. He saw that there was "no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them."(vs.19) Alma understood who the real teacher was and is, the Spirit, and knew that by the words of his testimony he could invite the Spirit to touch the hearts of the people. There's a quote from the BofM study Guide about Testimony. "To bear testimony is 'bear witness by the power of the Holy Ghost; to make a solemn declaration of truth based on personal knowledge or belief.' Clear declaration of truth makes a difference in peoples lives. That is what changes hearts. That is what the Holy Ghost can confirm int he hearts of God's children." We've been working on using testimony more to invite the Spirit so that the Spirit can be the teacher.
Yesterday we got permission from President to do the first ever Miami Beach Blitz! We brought most of the zone into Miami Beach's area and knocked doors like crazy for an hour and found lots of cool referrals and people to work with. Someone came up with the idea at our stake meeting at 7am (I'm not a fan of early morning meetings) and President really liked it so he told us to do it, and it worked out quite well, so we'll keep doing it periodically.
I hope you all have a great week! I look forward to seeing pics of little audrey next week! hope all goes well Jenna!
love you!
Elder Spencer Bailey
Picture of one of our districts after D-train pulling the soccer team pose
0 comments:
Post a Comment