Remember that family we are teaching and the husband is not a member? So we have been working really hard on getting him to come to church. We have taught lessons about church and the blessings that come from going, but he just will never commit to coming. So at Zone Conference we had a training about explaining the sacrament and Hermana Blackford turned to me and said "We need to teach him about the sacrament!" So last week we did. And the lesson went incredibly! We explained how before baptism, taking the sacrament doesn't have the same significance, but that even coming and taking it and using that time to think about the things we need to change and working on bettering ourselves, will help us become who we need to be. At the end of the lesson Hermana Blackford challenged him to come to church 3 times and see the difference it makes in his life. Usually when we invite him to church he says "oh, I can't." or says that he is busy. But we challenged him and he said "I'll be there". BAAAAH! We were so stoked! So Sunday rolls around... and guess who came to church!? He was there! He really seemed to love it(: A member came up to us later and told us that he had been talking about how he wants to be baptized! So we are going to go visit them this week and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it was just the thing he needed to receive his answer!
Miracle number 2: Remember that family we are teaching of the mom and two daughters! So a few weeks ago the mom got her schedule changed and finally got Sundays off! She wasn't able to come for a few times, but this week we visited her and she said she was going to be able to come! We stopped by her house in the morning so that she could follow us there and she was so excited! And she just fit right in. She had gone to the branch barbecue a few weeks ago and had met some people there so she was able to have people to talk with. But she was just so happy and bubbly! We had a combined lesson for the third hour and we were talking with a member later who said "I thought that she was already a member! She was just nodding with everything and participating so much". We were so beyond excited to have her there. We went to visit her later on that night and talked a little bit more about what she had thought and she just kept saying over and over that "it just feels good. it feels right". Goodness gracious! I am not even sure how to explain that excitement we had and still have! So we shared a short message about latter day prophets and how we are led and guided by one. We also talked a bit more about the priesthood. She didn't know that we have a living prophet and got so excited to know that there is one again. She was saying "it just makes sense. If God called them long ago, why wouldn't he still call them now?" Before we left we asked her if she had thought and prayed anymore about baptism. She told us she had and that she was really feeling good about it, that she loved church and wanted to keep going, but that she just wanted to be 100% sure about whether or not it is what she needs to do. We told her that as she prays with a big question like this, it is good to have a specific question because then Heavenly Father gives us specific answers. So we invited her to pray about being baptized on July 26 and she said yes! Well... to say that we are excited is not enough. But we are really so happy to see her making these changes and progressing! Can't wait to hear about how her prayers go!
So we worked like crazy this week and just keeping our lessons to about a half an hour each. That way we can visit more people a day. And it worked out! We hit standards this week! Standards are a set of numbers we have that relate to how many lessons we taught, how many progressing investigators we have, how many lessons we had with a member present and how many new investigators we are teaching. We worked hard and our efforts paid off(: So Sunday night after we calculated everything all up, we were just on cloud nine(: It is so fun to see how hard work and obedience pay off!
Sean is still doing really well! He passed his interview on Wednesday and is just as excited as ever for his baptism on Saturday! Can't wait to tell ya'll how it goes!
One more random fact; so there was an earthquake Saturday night in Lordsburg New Mexico. It was a 5.2 and we felt it here! It was crazy! We live right along the highway and whenever a semi drives by it shakes our apartment. So at first we thought it was that, but then we realized it went too long to be a semi truck. All the missionaries started freaking out and calling each other. It was fun haha
Well i love you all! Hope this week goes well! Keep the Gila Valley in your prayers. We really need some rain! If not, I will probably shrivel up into a raisin haha
Hermana Lundquist