Tuesday:
When we got home from the beach, we were able to email at Ellen's house. She heard that I needed a new water bottle and gave me a new one she had bought and never used. Then we did some shopping and cleaning!
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| With my companion, Sister Jarvis |
We went to visit a referral sent from church headquarters this morning. The house was very sketchy looking, and the lady, Yolanda, seemed a bit paranoid and skittish. But she was very friendly, and we felt the Spirit as we taught her the Restoration. She loved it and was so excited to get her hands on the Book of Mormon. We were so happy after that lesson, and then went to see Diane, who lived just down the road. Diane told us that Yolanda is not mentally all there, so we will have to take things slowly to see if she can keep commitments and is accountable to be baptized. We went tracting that afternoon, but everyone turned us away. On the bright side, we felt so good to be out and about, diligently working. As we put forth our efforts, the Lord blesses us with miracles, all of which are completely unrelated to the work we do. Awkward moment of the day: I tried speaking with a lady, and when she told me she didn't speak English, I straightway slipped into Spanish. Then she informed me she didn't speak Spanish, but Romanian. Whoopsies. The Wrights fed us dinner and we read The Book of Mormon with them. What a great way to end the night.
Thursday:
Happy Birthday Aaron! In celebration, we weekly planned all morning :). That afternoon, a place came to mind to go, so I just headed there. As we were finding a place to park, I saw two people walking down the street. I hurried to park and said we were going to talk to them. Well, guess what? It turned out to be the cousin of Trent, whose mom had passed away a few months ago. We'd been praying to get back into contact with him, and we saw his 15-year-old cousin again, who we'd met at his house and had given a copy of the Book of Mormon. We set up a time to visit her, and we also found out where Trent is living. What a miracle!
Friday:
Well, after having a very spiritual lesson at the senior center (we walked there and back) and eating lunch, we went to crank up the car... and nothing. Just clicking. Our battery had died! Our neighbor tried jumping us, but nothing happened. We had a thought to call Diane and ask her husband to come help us. He is a non-member, and we are hoping that her example in the church will give him a desire to learn more. He was able to charge up our battery and get us going. We got permission from the mission office to unplug our TIWI (or nosy-neighbor, as Jessie calls it. It monitors our speed and driving). Since it is defective, we believe that it is draining our battery, since the battery is still fairly new. But it is amazing to see how willing everyone is to help you, regardless of if they are members of the church. Getting our car fixed took a long, long time, so we had to cancel our dinner plans in Century, FL. Fortunately, the branch mission leader and his wife took us out to dinner in Brewton as we discussed how to help the branch.
Saturday:
This morning, we decided to stop by the house of a lady who had referred herself to us. She was out walking her dog right when we pulled up, and she recognized her car and came up to us and invited us right in. She said she'd been waiting for us to finally come over! (We'd tried a few times before, but she had never been home). She said she used to see elders biking around and they met with her husband. She has felt the Spirit around us, which has drawn her to us, and she wants to know what we believe. We had the most powerful restoration lesson ever. It's amazing how all the seeds planted by previous missionaries have grown, and now we are the blessed and lucky ones to get to teach her. It was amazing to see how all of the How to Begin Teaching points positively affected the lesson and brought the Spirit in so strongly. And she showed us how her dog can sing! She sings loudly and he raises his head and howls along. It is the cutest thing EVER. Afterwards, we had to get our battery checked out again, and the guys said it still wasn't fully charged up. Jessie said to come on over and he would charge it up for us. It took about an hour, so in the meantime, we decided to walk down the street and talk to everyone we saw. We met one lady who was backing out of her driveway and parked to talk with us. Her great-grandfather started the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and she invited us back to do family history with her (and to go fishing). We also got to teach another lady the restoration. She wasn't as prepared, but we definitely planted a seed.
Sunday:
We had an amazing sacrament meeting. I really enjoyed the talks, especially as the Branch President spoke about the use of our time. It made me realize how much time I truly wasted before my mission on things that don't actually matter that much. That's something I will change after my mission. I want to schedule out my time to accomplish the most service and to do what God wants me to do. That is the secret to life and to discipleship. What you spend the most time on shows what matters the most to you. I want to show God that He is the most important person in my life by always giving Him my time. And that's what I get to do on a mission! We visited some less-actives after church, then had dinner with the Wrights. Warm chili because it was a chilly night! We received permission to stay up until midnight and to watch a church movie... so we watched 17 Miracles, but only stayed up until 10:30pm (well, 10:31 if you ask Sister Jarvis).
Monday:
This morning we went to visit Sister Longs. She has been asked by the stake president to speak at Stake Conference this Sunday, and she is very nervous! We went over to help her plan what to say. She will do so amazing, and it just came to my mind to tell her that her testimony would help strengthen someone else's testimony and help someone on the road to conversion. Then we had another lesson with Yolanda. She is comprehending things very well and says she already knows that The Book of Mormon is true because of a dream she had. We will take things slowly and see how she progresses. Afterwards, we decided to drop by another referral we had received from headquarters for a Bible. We were able to go inside and teach him and his wife the Restoration. They also have an adorable one-year-old girl.
One thing I am learning to recognize as a missionary is how prepared someone is from the second you meet them, and from the amount of Spirit that is present in the first lesson. The most powerful lessons I've had, the individuals were very prepared. When they aren't, the Spirit either isn't there, or it isn't as strong. This is truly God's work, and He knows His children. As I follow the Spirit, He will continue to lead me to those who are prepared.
Much love,
Sister Burnham
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