So while we were planning this past week I was flipping through the calendar I have on my wall and realized, Of the 104 weeks allotted to me to serve the Lord fulltime, I am now down to single digits.... What is this! Well, that just means I only have a little bit of time left to go and do everything good that I can and believe you me, I'm going to make this a 2-months to remember.
This has been a bit of an interesting week here in Mihara. Every Monday we have family home evening with this one family in the ward who have been have a pretty rough time recently, and it's been really good to see them progress from week to week, but really sad whenever we see them regress instead. The goal that we've set is daily prayer as a family. I know in my own companionships there have been times where we pray together at night and times that we don't, and it's always been a huge difference between the times we make the effort to pray together and the times where we let our own feelings, exhaustion, or any number of other influences put a stop to our prayers. How much better it is when we show God and ourselves that we are better than whatever Satan tries to throw at us.
This past Thursday we had a companion exchange over in this place called Kure. They've been having a little trouble as of late finding people to teach, and so we made our way over there to try and help them find and establish a teaching pool. It was really cool to see the Lord guide our way as we worked in Kure over the course of a day. While we never officially found somebody who would immediately continue learning, we met many people who had met missionaries before, rejected them, but for some reason this time listened and showed some genuine interest. It's hard sometimes to meet somebody the 2nd time, but everything we do is going to have a great influence on the lives of the people where we work. I've come to learn that even if we don't find people through our own finding efforts, it is the effort we put in that counts. The Lord will bring people into your path as you show your faith.
While in Kure we had an opportunity to go around with a member of the stake presidency to go and visit some members. On the online membership records it shows a little update whenever somebody’s records move into the ward/branch boundaries. There happened to be just such a record the day before and we went on the hunt to find the address. After driving around for a good 30 minutes we finally found a place where we thought it was and decided that all there was to do from here was to knock doors. The missionary that I was on splits with just went straight for the first door he saw and started knocking. All we knew was a name and a general location, but through the work of the divine the very first house we went to was this Woman. We learned that she had been baptized over 30 years ago and had fallen out of contact with the church, and didn't even know that there was one close to her home. After some 15 years or so of living in Kure, her records just happened to come, the 2nd counselor just happened to see it, and we just happened to catch her at the only time in her busy day that she would be able to talk... I've long since learned that there are no such things as coincidences.
This past Sunday we had 3 people at church! Well, in addition to the other 15 or so members who always come, we had 3 investigators! 2 of whom we weren't even expecting! A mother and her daughter that we've been teaching for a little while finally made it to church for the first time in several months. The Daughter had a really great time and is going to come with her mother to our Eikaiwa brownie making party this Tuesday! They've been having a bit of trouble recognizing, and feeling the spirit, but I think they had a really great time at church. 2 people we expected to come didn't come, but instead 2 people we didn't expect to come, came! Now if only the other two will come too that would be best!
The work here continues to move on and we continue to see miracles almost daily. (A member took us to go visit a friend of hers that she wanted to refer to the missionaries and we learned that it was a woman that Elder Urakami and I had found and taught nearly 2 weeks ago and planned on meeting again) And the land of Mihara is heating up (well, not temperature-wise, I would like that, it's freezing here) and I couldn't really ask for more (except maybe a bit more sunlight....).
I hope you all have a great week! Go do cool things.
Elder Everett
エベレット長老
No comments:
Post a Comment