We had another great lesson with Bennett and Verna Harris this week, but alas, they did not come to church again this Sunday. We really struggle with getting our investigators to Church. I think that Harris' are getting answers to their prayers, but may be afraid to act on them. Bennett has had a connection with past relatives his whole life, mostly through dreams. And he said that in the last week, he had received a few visitors, but he did not tell everything that went on there, but that he thinks it could be an answer to his prayers. He also read all of 1 Nephi which is wonderful! Verna still hasn't quite gotten into the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately they will be out of town and our next appointment is not until the ninth of August.
Saturday was actually a pretty crazy day for us. We ran into so many people just walking around in the neighborhood surrounding our apartment. We walked a block and saw the Guerro family and reminded them about Church. They showed up yesterday! Also at that same garage sale was a woman we taught a few weeks ago named Karina. She speaks mostly Spanish, but a woman in our ward had called her up and invited her to go to the Spanish branch in Mount Vernon with her, which she declined but said she would come to our ward on Sunday. We chatted and reminded her about our meetings (unfortunately she did not come). Then Sandra drove past us and called at us from her window. Then we were passed by a PM Family that we had met at the beach a few weeks ago but hadn't been able to contact since then. As we were going to contact a referral from the Zone Leaders, right across the street from their home was another garage sale and woman called out, "hey, Sisters!" Turns out that she is a new member in our ward and also pretty less active, but she told us that she really wants us to come visit her this week, so we are working that into our plans. When we were almost back to our apartment, a less active woman (Rachael--I will tell you about her in a second) that we have been visiting with drove past us and honked. If nothing else, we were able to see all these people and hopefully they got thinking about Church and how important it is.
We have been visiting with Rachael every Sunday evening and sharing with her the Missionary Lessons that we teaching investigators. Since we have been regular with our appointments, she has come to church three times in the last four weeks! We also call her at least once a week to remind her about reading her scriptures. She usually deflects the conversation when we try to follow up on that, so I assume that she is still struggling on that front, but it will come. We talked a lot about going to the Temple and the Celestial Kingdom. She has kind of settled for the Terrestrial kingdom and not going to the temple again (she was sealed in the temple to a previous husband). We hope that we can change that. It has been very interesting though. She told me a few weeks ago when we started lessons with her and she started coming to church more often that she had had a dream about me. That I was standing on a hill beckoning to her and when she got to me I gave her a big hug. She said it was super random, but she woke up feeling at peace which is a big deal for her. We shared with her last night that we wanted her to be there with us at the dinner table in the Celestial Kingdom and I think she felt the Spirit nudge her a little bit. We also found out that we have a common ancestor, Anson Call (Turley side). It was very interesting to me because that means that through our common ancestry we are distantly, but eventually sealed to each other, and that she is LITERALLY part of my family. How cool to share the Gospel with my relatives! It was funny how we figured it out. She has told me over and over that I look a lot like her sister. She said "I think it's the nose..." Then she said "it's a Call nose. My sister thought she was adopted for a long time because she didn't look like anyone in our family. But then she went to a family reunion with all the Calls and they have the same nose!" So, apparently, you can learn a lot about a person because of their nose. And I look like a Call.
I have continued in the book of Mosiah in my study this week and I loved reading in Mosiah chapter 21 (Lari, you get two paragraphs this time!). In this chapter Limhi tells Ammon that in the past, they had tried to escape their bondage by taking up arms against the Lamanites. They did this THREE TIMES and each time they were met with progressing loss. Then after the third time, they realized that they had to rely on the Lord. That they could not be delivered by themselves. I really appreciated that because I sometimes forget the Lord and think that I can do things by myself, but it just gets me discouraged. Just like the people of Limhi. And once I rely on the Lord for help I am successful. Just as the people of Limhi were delivered from bondage once they relied on the Lord.
I also had a really interesting thought in our lesson with the Guerro family on Friday. We shared with the 20 year old son, Esteban, Alma 36, about Alma's great change of heart. He really felt the Spirit as we read. And I noticed something that I had not noticed before that in verse 14, Alma describes the horror that came with the thought of entering into God's presence in his sins. And then after his experience with the Savior, in verse 22 he exclaims that he saw the angels in heaven praising God and he "did long to be there." It is amazing that through the Savior we can be entirely changed to new beings with new desires and the strength to be those things. It was just super impressive to me that Alma was COMPLETELY changed. You will have to read his account to get the full spectrum of emotion, but it was amazing the drastic change that occurred and can occur in us as well.
Love ya lots and hope you are doing well!
Sister Turley
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