Happy Fourth of July, y'all!
My mission president switched our preparation day to today so we can more fully
enjoy the fireworks and celebration. We are allowed to stay out past 9:30pm as
long as we are asleep by 10:30pm!
At district meeting
last Tuesday, we discussed how we represent what Christ would be doing if He
were here on earth, and that if we tell our investigators when we invite them
that it is really Christ inviting them, it is that much more powerful, and they
will be more willing to change as they realize the invitations are coming
directly from the Lord, not nineteen and twenty-year-old girls. I took this to
heart and at our lesson with Brady the next day, we invited him to pray. He
said he didn't want to and asked his girlfriend to pray. Afterwards, I was able
to tell him that we ask him to pray, not just because we want him to, but
because Heavenly Father wants to hear from him and that we know praying is one
way he can draw closer to God and receive answers. It was such a cool
experience to be lovingly bold and feel the Spirit speak through me. He then
agreed to say the closing prayer, and it was so wonderful! He was really able
to open up to us in that lesson and tell us how the church members have been a
huge blessing in his life. I am so excited for his progress!
On Saturday, we helped
a new family move into Semmes. Their friends are members and asked us to help
them so we can meet the non-member family and hopefully start planting seeds
and teach them. We also had an amazing lesson that afternoon with Chris, who
isn't actually in our area, so we will have to hand him off next week to the
Sisters in Mobile. He had some really great questions and had to 2 Nephi 7 in a
week! This lesson wouldn't have been possible if the Johnson couple hadn't
changed their plans to be able to come with us. They are angels from above! We
had to reschedule the lesson that morning because our interview times with
President Smith changed last minute from 4pm to 2pm... right when our
lesson was scheduled! But a lot of miracles happened because the Lord loves us,
and Chris was able to negotiate with his roommates to get the car to come
at 3pm instead of 2pm, and we were able to find some members to
come. And I passed my interview with the mission president ;).
This has also helped
me realize the importance of members in the work. This past week, I've wished I
was an even better member missionary before my mission! I'm excited for after
my mission to be the best member missionary for the rest of my life! My
challenge and plea for y'all is to please work with the missionaries in your
area! Sister Wall and I sometimes have to cancel lessons if we can't find
members to go with us, but fortunately we have many members who are willing to rearrange
their day to help us! Also, the most stable investigators we have are ones who
are closely associated with members, have been friends with them for many years
and noticed their example. Ask everyone you know to meet with the missionaries,
to learn more about your faith and religion. Invite friends to dinner and have
the missionaries over. But most importantly, just be a member missionary
yourself, giving out pass-a-long cards and the Book of Mormon (I'm positive the
local missionaries would LOVE to give you some to hand out).
Funny Moments of the
week:
We went to a Fourth of
July Festival last night and handed out pass along cards. I approached one
lady and she said, "I already got my church. Now y'all don't have a quota
to reach, so just enjoy yourselves tonight."
We got referred to our
own bishop... We were in a neighborhood talking with a man, and he said there
was a lot of religious people in the neighborhood who went to church
"every Sunday. EVERY Sunday. Like clockwork." He said one
of them had a big red truck down the road and we should go talk to him. We
started walking down the street and then realized it was Bishop's
neighborhood... and bishop had a big red truck! We felt so stupid, but it was
so funny to tell him that we were referred to him!
Much love,
Sister Burnham
 |
| Writing home on P-Day |
 | ||
The umbrellas they use here because of all the rain (Just kidding, it's really Brother McCullough's camera lighting reflector).
|
No comments:
Post a Comment