January 25, 2016

This week was fantastic! So many miracles.

On Wednesday there was this super cool really awesome worldwide missionary broadcast that we got to watch! My favorite part was when Elder Bednar was speaking and he talked about how sometimes we think that if we as missionaries just have enough faith and are dedicated enough then we'll be able to make those we teach feel the Spirit. He said that if conversion was only dependent on the amount of faith we have, then anyone who stands in the presence of Thomas S. Monson would fall on their knees and beg to be baptized (hahaha I love that). But the Spirit doesn't work that way; our only job is to create an environment where the Spirit can be there. We can take the Spirit unto their hearts, but not into their hearts (2 Nephi 33:1-2).

On Saturday at about 7:05, we got a call from our ward mission leader and he told us that an investigator that was being taught by other missionaries in the stake just moved into our ward boundaries and the elders had set up an appointment with her for that night at 7 so we needed to go over and teach her, like now. Stressful, but awesome. Her name is Peggy and she's so cute. She's already almost halfway through the Book of Mormon and she's set for baptism next month! (She may have word of wisdom issues, but we'll work through that.)

And then last night was awesome too. We had an appointment with one of our investigators but she wasn't home (not that we were that surprised, since she's like 9 months pregnant and she told us she would meet with us if she wasn't in the hospital giving birth) so we were walking back to our car and there was this lady across the street standing outside smoking and so we walked to her and said hi and asked if she would be interested in learning about our message and she was like, "Yeah, definitely!" She said that she just moved in and she had actually just been telling her friend earlier that day that she wanted to find a church! She was super interested and we told her about the Book of Mormon and she was like, "Wow, I've never heard anything like that, that's so cool!" and as we were walking away, she was just standing on her porch reading it. So we were super excited about meeting her, and then later we realized that she's not married and in her early 20s, so we had to give her to the YSA elders. But it's fine, I just think it was so cool that we were able to meet her and introduce her to the church.

Quote of the week:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." ~C.S. Lewis

And here's a bonus quote because I just really love C.S. Lewis:

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. A man who gives in to temptation after 5 minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in." ~C.S. Lewis

Aaaaaand I actually didn't take any pictures this week. I don't know what I was doing . . . the sky just isn't as pretty in the city as it is in the country. So that's all I have. Bye!

~Sister Temp