This week has probably been the most
stressful, crazy, but most amazing week of my mission!
This week I think I've been a bit
stressed about going home. Sometimes I'm super excited because I can't wait to
see all of you, but other times I have a mini heart attack because it's only a
few months away! I'm honestly going to miss my mission so much and I think it
will be strange to go back to normal life!
This week we started it out with our
elders getting a new missionary. His name is Elder Cook. He's pretty nice, and he likes to tell lots
of jokes so that's fun. It's also nice because it makes it a lot easier to do
things with the elders now, because it doesn't look like we are on an awkward
double date anytime we go anywhere together!
We spent most of the week stressing
out about Isabella's baptism. Satan was working really really hard this week to
keep it from happening which is funny, because she had already been baptized a
few years ago. It's just they lost her
records, so she had to get rebaptized and we thought it would be pretty easy to
get done, but it was probably the hardest I've ever worked for a baptism my
whole entire mission! All the craziness this week started Tuesday night when we
went over for our usual Tuesday lesson with her and found out that she had
passed out at a football game that day and had been rushed to the hospital in Green
Valley to make sure she was ok! We were super worried because her grandma told
us she had gotten a concussion and besides that had no idea what was going on!
So that night for our dinner message with a part member family in our ward we
talked about prayer and specifically invited them to pray for Isabella that she
would be ok and be able to get baptized this week. And let me tell you prayer
works, because the next day we went to try and see her and turns out she was
feeling totally better and was even able to go to school the next day!
Then our next adventure with that
came on Thursday when we conveniently accidentally broke our cell phone in half
and weren't able to get in contact with anyone! It ended up being a blessing in
disguise because we were able to have a lesson with one of our new
investigators (I'll talk more about her later), but it's a little hard to
communicate with people when you don't have anyway to call them. Luckily for us
our phone is connected to our car, and so when we were in it we were able to
call people if we had the half of the phone with the keyboard with us. It was a
little funny using our car as our phone, but thank goodness for
technology!
Then Friday, I was a bit stressed
because we had a lot that we needed to get done and with the whole phone thing
and not being able to easily receive calls from people it was a bit rough. But
anyways on the way up to Amado to meet up with our zone leaders to get a new
phone we got a call on our car from Hermana Salgado, and she asked us if we
could move Isabella’s baptism date back another 2 weeks because none of her
family was going to be available because they were going shopping or something.
I was a bit stressed since we have probably already changed her baptism date
about 5 times since I got here. So I explained to her how it would be a bit
hard since everyone was already planning on coming, and we had everything
planned out and luckily she told us it was ok and agreed to keep it on
Saturday!
Then Saturday everything was pretty
good. The only rough part was Isabella was struggling because she didn't feel
ready to be baptized, and so we pulled her off to the side and explained to her
that if she wasn't ready we wouldn't be letting her get baptized yet. We talked to her about how she doesn't need
to be perfect to be baptized, but she needs to be trying. We then said a prayer
with her and after we could feel the spirit and she started to feel a lot more
peace!
Anyways in the end it ended up being
a beautiful baptism and Isabella was super happy and excited afterwards! I
absolutely adore her and am so grateful I got to meet her and teach her on my
mission! Also it might help that she reminds me of Natalie because they are the
same age :)
Anyways our other huge miracle of
the week came on Tuesday when we were looking for a former investigator who
wasn't home. So we decided to knock their neighbors and both me and Hermana
Delgado almost hesitated knocking on the 2nd door because we had just seen a
little boy and a mom and a daughter walk in and they all had looked a bit
frazzled, but we decided to knock it anyways because usually when we don't want
to do something that's when miracles come! As soon as we knocked a 15 year old
girl named Natalie answered the door, and she came out and we shared the first
lesson with her. She was so interested and told us how she had always wondered
which Church was true and shared some experiences of how she has had her
prayers answered. So we set up a return appointment and went over Thursday too
and she had actually read and prayed about the church and told us she felt a
lot of peace! So we talked about the Holy Ghost and asked her if we could come
over the next day. She said probably, but that she would let us know if she
couldn't. Anyways at that point our phone had just broken so we gave her the
elder’s number and told her to text them if she couldn't and they'd let us
know! The next day we went over and she answered the door and we had another
great lesson about the plan of salvation. It started out a bit awkward, but by
the end of it the Spirit was super strong and we invited her to be baptized for
November 5th and she said yes! After I felt prompted to ask her why she wanted
to be baptized and right there she bore testimony and told us of her desire to
be completely clean and to start over! It was a neat experience. Right after we
went to dinner and found out from the elders that she had text them to tell us
she wouldn't be home, but it ended up perfect because she was home and we got
to set a baptism date! I'm not exactly sure why it worked out that way, but it
did!
Then last miracle of the week came
from the Primary program! For the past transfer and a half we have been teaching
a little girl named Dylan. Both of her
sisters are members, and her mom, but her mom is less active and didn't really
want anything to do with us, so we had been teaching the girls at Sister
DeWitt's house ( the yw president and one of their really close friends). It's been hard to teach her because we've
only been able to see her once a week because they didn't want to trying to go
to Dylan's house because of her mom not wanting us so we had to work around 5
different people's schedules which usually only line up on Sunday.
On Wednesday we were a little
surprised when Dylan told us that her mom was going to come to the primary
program on Sunday! Sunday came around and there she was! It was a miracle! We
had been hoping to be able to talk to her afterwards to try and ask her about
setting a baptism date with Dylan, but she basically ran out the door. We decided instead to text her older sister
and ask her to ask her mom if the 15th would be ok for a baptism date. Sister
Lunderville said yes! Later that night though we had dinner with our bishop,
and he told us he had talked to Dylan's mom and she had said we have permission
to baptize her daughter which is probably why she so willingly agreed to the
baptism date! That night we got home and Peyton ( Dylan's sister) had texted us
telling us that it would work better for Dylan to be baptized on the 7th of
October and we said we could, but that we'd have to go and teach her at least 4
times within the week. Peyton replied and gave us her mom’s phone number to
talk to her and we were surprisingly able to plan 4 days to visit her this week!
And to make it even better Sister Lunderville gave us permission to go over to
their house to teach her daughters, and she's going to be there for the
lessons! It was insane! Both Hermana Delgado and I decided that it's due to all
of our prayers, fasting, obedience, and the Spirit touching Sister
Lunderville's heart at the primary program! And to add onto that God has really
been preparing this family for the gospel as we have worked together with the
Ward council and focused on serving and loving this family! Anyways we are
super pumped to see her get baptized this week and feel like we have been
blessed more that we deserve!
Anyways that's it for the week! I'm
so grateful for all God does for us and that even though I'm not perfect, God's
still able to work through me to perform miracles! I love you lots! Thanks for
everything
Con amor,
Hermana Burgoyne
No comments:
Post a Comment