Hello family!
This week was awesome! CONFERENCE WAS AWESOME!! Seriously, Sister
Kiene and I were like spiritually hung-over for the few days after. Elder Holland's talk blew me away, holy cow. SO powerful. That man knows how to afflict the comfortable. I love conference! This conference felt so applicable to pretty much every single one of my personal needs. We had 3 investigators come to conference, and they all went the Sunday morning, which was definitely the most spiritually powerful. We were in Wan Chai (on the Island) to watch it in English with one of our investigators, Agatha, who's lived in the US for 40-some years, while the other 2 were back in Kowloon watching it in Chinese with members. Agatha went with us the the Saturday afternoon session, and afterward was like "I really respect you guys and your family values, but I don't believe there's life after death," etc, more doubting words. But after the Sunday morning one when we asked her how she felt about conference, she said "they were good stories," with some wavering of confidence in her voice, and Sister Kiene says, "They were experiences." But it was so cool because we could tell she
didn't believe herself when she was telling us they were just stories that time, because the Spirit was there so strong. Elder Eyring's talk spoke directly about a lot of her doubts and struggles, and I was praying so hard that she'd feel the Spirit of it, and I got a real burning in the bosom feeling that she was feeling the Spirit. Nice! I think it'll really come down to whether she is willing to change, because I know some part of her believes and recognizes that what we teach her and what she's heard at general conference is true. She's going to New York for the next week to see her daughter, and I felt prompted to give her Elder Ballard's "Our Search For Happiness" to read on the plane, and she said she would read it, and she's really honest, so when she says she'll do something she actually does it. I'm hoping she has some kind of spiritual moment of reckoning with herself while she's gone.
We taught 2nd Lau Jimuih this week, who we affectionately refer to as
Lau Pohpo (Grandma Lau) since we have 2 Lau Jimuihs, and she had read the entire intro stuff to the Book of Mormon and 1 Nephi 1 twice, when all we assigned her was 1 Nephi 1! She remembered so much-- Lehi, Nephi, Laman, Lehi's vision of the Savior and the 12 Apostles, the 4 plates talked about in the Book of Mormon-- we were shocked! She hasn't prayed about the Book of Mormon or whether Joseph Smith is a prophet, but she believes in both of them. When she said that Sister Kiene and I exchanged shocked/excited glances. Haha. We thought she would be our slowest progressing investigator, but she's actually doing the best right now! She said conference made her really happy because she could tell the speakers were really happy. We invited her to be baptized when she had received a spiritual confirmation that these things are true, and it sounded like her biggest concern was that she'd have to wear a dress. She said she'd wear pants and then change to a skirt in the bathroom, which we were completely alright with. Haha. She still didn't agree to it, and I think she does have other concerns, but she's goofy and tends to make anything too serious into a joke. I would send our picture with her today (as well as the chicken foot from last week), but the library we've done emails in the last couple weeks doesn't allow us to send pictures. She's so awesome and so funny. I seriously just love our investigators right now! They're all so different from each other-- like Agatha and Lau Pohpo are the same age but so polar opposites. I actually would really like to see them together; I think it'd be really funny. Really, just thinking about it makes me laugh.
Another cool experience from this week about answers to prayer comes
from our Filipina investigator, Lilibeth. First off, her husband's heart has been softening, and now he'll let her get baptized, even though she wants to wait until she knows he's not angry or super annoyed about it. But the other thing is that she's apparently been praying to somehow obtain skirts or a dress, since she doesn't have any, and Sister Kiene has clothes she doesn't want to take home, so she decided to give a couple skirts to Lilibeth since she didn't know if she had any, and when she gave them to her, Lilibeth was so excited, and said "God heard my prayer! He answered it by sending me you two! Now I can dress nicely to worship the Lord!" I love her. She has so much faith. There are so many times when I feel like she's teaching me, not the other way around.
We also started teaching this less-active woman and her 2 younger
kids, ages 6 and 9 this week. Those kids are so cute!! I'm really excited to keep teaching them. Hopefully we'll be able to start teaching her 14-year old son as well.
I thoroughly enjoyed Daniel's birthday pictures. He's getting so tall! Scary!
RACHEL BOODY!! Christina Childs!! Missionaries!! NICE! Update me on
when they get their calls!
My first Monday P-day is this coming Monday, so everyone respond
fast-- you only have a few days this time!
Love you all! Thanks for everything!
Sister Heaton
No comments:
Post a Comment