Mission Journal

December 31, 2011

We visited with BB for a little over an hour today.  She asked unexpected questions and we had to stop and address those questions before we could move on, but she seemed to understand better, so we’ll just keep on addressing her questions.  She said that she had read the first and part of the second chapter of Nephi; at least she’s not afraid to give the Lord a chance.  Satan tries to hold some people back because of tradition sometimes.  I challenged her to come out to church but she seemed reluctant for now.  I don’t expect that we’ll see her yet.

Next we went to A’s house.  She’s 17 and lives with her father.  We were hoping to find them both at home but her father was working.  We gave a quick lesson on the Restoration and when we got to a certain part she said, “Assume!”   I hope when we catch her father at home that he’ll say the same thing.

We took some pictures of what we call our Christmas corner and want to post a few today.  The Primary Children back home sent us twelve stories with Christmas ornaments on them.  They are wonderful stories that we passed on to the local Primary President.  Anyway, we took pictures of those ornaments and Christmas cards we received and a picture of the Spanish speaking sisters.  I’ll post them below.

 

 

December 30, 2011

The sister missionaries came again to teach T.  He seems to be excited about the gospel, and his wife is very excited about him taking the lessons.  Their daughter will turn eight years old soon – she gave the opening prayer before the lesson started, and her prayer was better than many adults I’ve heard, and not only that, but from the heart.  Anyway, T’s wife wants him to be able to baptize his daughter as soon as he             

receives the priesthood.  That would be amazing.

Brother P’s son came in for Christmas.   He’s a junior at BYU and knows a lot of people in this area.  He took us to three people we didn’t know about and we set up appointments with all three.  One of them is a Spanish speaking family, when the Spanish speaking sisters come on Tuesday; we’ll have two families for them to teach.

December 29, 2011

BB is an older single lady.  She was baptized in Idaho as a very young lady years ago.  She still claims to be a member but knows very little about the church or the Lord.  After talking to her for a while she started asking questions which brought us to the restoration, so we taught her that lesson.  We left her a copy of the KJV of the bible and a Book of Mormon and asked her to read at least one chapter before we came back on Saturday.  She agreed to read and we will return.

The last time we were at Sister R’s house, Brother R said she was feeling pressured.  So we decided that we would just have a scripture chase and talk this time.  We looked up scriptures talking about God’s love for his children, scriptures talking about us being His spirit children and scriptures talking about prophets being called in all ages of time.  It went so well – we found out what was bothering her and why she was feeling pressured.  Her best friend is a member of the church, but her feelings were hurt by another member and has quit coming out.  Fran and I are going to visit her friend sometime this week.  We’re going to evaluate the friend’s testimony and see what we can do to help her.  We’ll call the friend “JR”.

December 28, 2011

The Elder’s from Leitchfield met us at the branch building this morning.  The district meeting went well, and as always – we learned a lot.  We drove to a member’s house we’ve never met before this afternoon.  He was baptized as a child and quit coming out to church at age 13.  We would have attempted to stay and give a lesson, except he was called in to work and only had a half hour to get ready, so we didn’t stay long and left.  He and his wife are nice people, we’ll check back with them.

December 27, 2011

The Spanish speaking sisters came up today to teach T again.  They come from the Fort Campbell area and this being the last of the month they have used up their mile allowance.  A soldier drove them up from Clarksville, but because they are sisters and he’s a man they also had to have another sister from the Spanish branch ride with them – avoid the very appearance of evil.  Anyway, they all spoke Spanish and I believe T got a lot out of the lesson, it was a good thing.

December 26, 2011

Christmas can be sad or happy, that depends on us – what do we choose to be?  When I think of how much I miss my family – I’m sad, but when I think about how blessed I am that I have a family – I feel glad inside.  I am so blessed to be married for time and all eternity to such a sweat person in Fran – that really makes me happy.  When I think about how our Lord Jesus Christ made it possible for us to actually live for eternity – that really really makes me happy.