Yay for miracles! After a long drought in Mt. Vernon, we found six new investigators this week. Four of them are part of a FAMILY. We found all of them tracting but one, who was a referral from the Visa Waiters. We used the new teaching method and were able to get return appointments with all of them and almost all of them prayed. The goal this week is to continue to find more investigators while we get the ones found last week to church. I am starting to love the pamphlet teaching because we really can see where each investigator is individually and what their personal interests and needs are. It makes planning a lot easier, too! In our lesson with Matt (the investigator that said he did not want to come to church) we taught the Plan of Salvation using the pamphlet (unfortunately before our MLC practice, but oh well). He also said that the Plan of Salvation is essentially what he believes, just in different terms. He also shared with us a little more about who he is and what makes him tick. It was exactly what we needed to know to be able to help him! I attribute his willingness to share more about himself to the pamphlet teaching. I firmly believe that since Matt knew we wanted to know what he thought on different topics or saw in the pictures and really wanted him to ask questions, he felt comfortable to share more of where he was and the things that will help him understand and grow. This week we just need to get him to church and help him more fully understand prayer.
Here is a story for you: (Sister Webster, you will appreciate this...)
Friday Sister Turley and Sister Holt went to Marysville for MLC and a special training conference with President Moon of the BYU 10th Stake, who is the brother of Sister Bonham and also works for the Franklin-Covey Institute. They had their regular Mission Leader Council until 3:00pm and then met with some of the other missionaries for a Leadership Training with President Moon at around 3:30. Sister Lawson, who was serving in Oak Harbor 1st was in attendance, which worked out nicely to get her back home since Sister Holt and Sister Turley had an exchange with her and her companion that night anyway. So the three Sisters drove to Mt. Vernon and met up with Sister Lawson's companion and the members that she had been working with for the day at the Stake Center. The Sisters exchanged and Sister Turley and Sister Lawson got in the car to make the trip to good ol' Oak Harbor. The wonderful member that drove us the 45 minute trip dropped the Sisters off at the apartment. They got out of the car and realized, to their dismay, that the keys to the Oak Harbor apartment were still in Mt. Vernon in the other Sisters' pocket. So, Sister Lawson and Sister Turley made calls to the Mission Housing Coordinators, and several of the Building Managers to no avail. The kind man next door did what he could to try to open their apartment door or a window, but the Oak Harbor Sisters were too secure. The District Leader and his companion came over and scaled the balcony and tried to open the sliding glass door, but that was a bust as well. So, the Sisters were homeless at curfew. After some more deliberation and calls to the Mission President, the Sisters were given permission to spend the night with the Oak Harbor 2nd Ward Sisters. Thankfully, the wonderful Military Relations couple, Elder and Sister McArthur, picked up the Sisters (the car keys were also in Mt. Vernon and the bikes were locked in the apartment) and took them to the 2nd Ward apartment and provided them with some extra blankets, toothbrushes and banana bread. Sister Turley and Sister Lawson bunkered down for the night at around 11:00 pm, but after all the excitement (and...the cold floor) they were wired and it was a hopeless case. So, they talked and talked and it was loads of fun. They were lucky that in the morning, many of the good members of the Oak Harbor 1st ward were willing to drive them around the island and sit in on visits with them. They were blessed to hear the powerful and motivating testimonies of many of the members as they visited, drove and shared meals with them. "Bad things happen in the best possible way." It was a great exchange :) A fun time was had by all.
We had a lesson with the Benitez family yesterday where we talked about the Anti-Nephi-Lehies burying the "weapons of their rebellion" and we drew some swords and wrote on them what we wanted to work on or give up to get closer to God and then crumpled them in a ball and disposed of them. Mine was charity. I am really really going to pray to love my companion and everyone else. I have been praying all along, but I am really going to make a concerted effort to care about others.
Our Stake puts on a weekly Addiction Recovery Program class to help those struggling with addictions and their family members. I attended the ARP last week just to see what it was so we could invite more people that we meet with to attend, and I loved it! I want to attend it just for me to cope with regular life! They taught such great tools. I hope that many of our investigators will desire to attend and benefit from it. This weeks' step was giving it up to God. That is so hard for me, but I was inspired by a quote by Reinhold Niebuhr called the "Serenity Prayer" that was shared in the class. Probably most of you have heard it before, but I just felt like it particularly applied to me. It goes like this: "God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." At MLC this week, Sister Bonham also taught about not worrying (they know me too well). She drew a flow chart on the board that also put life into perspective for me. It looked like this:
--> No -->
There is a problem --> Can you fix it? Then don't worry about it.
--> Yes -->
Brilliant. This is not to say that you shouldn't try and work on problems that you can fix, but you don't need to stress because there is a solution. And with the things that you cannot fix, don't worry about it because you can't do anything about it anyway. I am going to try to live like this this week so I can continue to progress and not get stuck at the "Can I Fix it?" phase.
This is not really from my studies, but it is something that I have learned and tried to internalize from our training meeting with President Moon. When he asked what God thinks of us, I immediately thought of this scripture from my study a few weeks ago. Doctrine and Covenants 67:13 reads "Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected." God sees us as imperfect. Not perfect. Obviously, he knows our potential to become perfect and become like Him. He tells us to continue on in patience and keep working at it. Because He wants to bless us with all that He has, and wants us to appreciate and understand it, He tells us to keep trying and become perfected and He will help us. But he is fully aware that we are flawed. And He is okay with that. He does not condemn us for being mortal (after all, He made us that way). I just love that God is fine with us being imperfect. It doesn't concern him because He already thought of that when He created the Plan. He provided us a Savior so the rest can be made up through Christ if we follow Him.
Love ya lots!
Sister Turley
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