Hello, hello! What a week it has been. Some amazing miracles have happened in the past 7 days. Let's begin with the fact that Monique is getting baptized this Saturday!! So far, so good. Hopefully the Lord will continue to give her the courage and faith to be baptized on the 23rd. We taught her about the Law of Tithing and Fasting this week. It was fantastic! We did an object lesson, which is always fun. We ran to Kwik Trip and got a couple bags of skittles and set aside ten green ones. At the beginning of the lesson we gave her the skittles and then asked her to give us back one of them. She was hesitant at first, but realized she still had nine more. So what was one skittle to the nine she had left? When she gave it to us we acted sooo happy and sooo grateful for the skittle she sacrificed for us! It was a little exaggerated, but we had to do it for dramatic effect. After fawning over the one skittle we told her to hold out her hands and we proceeded to pour the whole bag of skittles into her hands. So much so that the skittles overflowed into the bowl! We read with her Malachi 3:10 "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." We talked about how when we pay our tithing Heavenly Father recognizes our sacrifice and will bless us in ways we cannot imagine at the time. She couldn't eat the skittles cause she has braces, BUT it was still a powerful object lesson nonetheless.
On Wednesday the Sheboygan sisters called us with a referral. Woohoo! While looking through their area book they found a teaching record for a young guy named Yu. They called him up and he said he was now a student at UWOShkosh so they referred him to us. Since we were conveniently in Oshkosh at that exact moment we gave him a call and set something up for that day! He sounded a little taken back, but agreed to meet. His story is super cool. He is from Japan, but spent his sophomore and junior year of high school living with a host family in Utah. The family was LDS and took him to church and mutual every week with them. He moved back to Japan for the summer then to Wisconsin for his senior year. That's when the Sheboygan sisters began teaching him. Then he went back to Japan and now he's back in WI for college! We had a powerful lesson with him about the Restoration of the gospel and committed him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and we talked a lot about the obstacles he would have to overcome if he got baptized. We will be meeting with him every week now so we're pretty pleased about that! Fun fact: "Segoi" means "awesome" in Japanese.
Later that evening we met with our investigator, Vince. Such a nice guy. He began the meeting by telling us that because of us his faith has been rekindled and that he is eternally grateful for the blessing we have been in his life. Then he proceeded with the "but". No, no, no! My heart just sank as he then told us the "answer" to his prayer. Which was that at this time he doesn't think that this is the path he needs to take. He did tell us quite a few times though that just cause it's not now doesn't mean that it's not never. He asked me to bear my testimony of the Atonement to him which isn't something any nonmember has requested of me before. But I did. Guys, the Atonement is so, so real. It works. It works for everyone. Christ loves us.
Did I ever mention anything about Ben? BEN, guys! We met him while street contacting on LU. He's a gem. Had a super powerful lesson with him on the Plan of Salvation and his mind was basically blown! Afterwards he just sat there saying, "I know that this is true. I don't doubt it one bit". I think the guy was a bit overwhelmed, but we are excited to see him progress!!
I'm almost out of time, but I have to say a few things about our meeting with T & Co. Woof. What do you get when you have a Satanist, an Agnostic, and an Atheist all in one teaching appointment? Chaos, that's what. There was profanity, anxiety, and so much anger. I've never been in a lesson as quite as high stress as that! God protects, that's fo' sho.
Have a fabulous week! I love your guts! CTR!
Xo,
cute companions
gonna miss this asian! take care of rexburg for me!
