A few weeks ago, our good friend John got baptized. John had
a very unique journey coming to the church. He'd been coming to church for a year,
chosen to start living the word of wisdom, the law of the fast, and was paying
tithing, but he refused to pray and did not believe that God loved him. However,
with the support of our wonderful ward members, his testimony grew a ton during
the 3 weeks we worked with him to prepare him for baptism. He went from having
some nervousness regarding his baptism, to being comfortable with the idea, to
"looking forward to it", to being "excited". At the
beginning, John felt that baptism was just a way for him to no longer be
"a guest." But he said that as he prepared for baptism, it started to
be more meaningful to him. We had lessons over the phone every single night
until he was baptized, and John began to pray and read the Book of Mormon
consistently. When he was baptized, he brought his boss/roommate Don who really
enjoyed the service! Don especially hit it off with our ward mission leader and
we are hoping we will get to share more about the gospel with him.
At the end of John's baptism, the second counselor in the
bishopric came up to us and told us that his less active son has been bringing
his girlfriend to church every Sunday for the last 3 weeks. Her only experience
with church had been Catholic mass, and she was delighted by our church
services. Sister Friberg and I were overwhelmed with excitement to be given a
member referral right as our friend John was baptized.
I have never felt so blessed as a missionary. As though God
had just been showering me with blessings.
This last week:
Sister Friberg and I have been trying to figure out how to
find using Family History. Our mission is trying to figure out how to find
families as opposed to individuals. Facebook has been an incredibly effective
tool for finding individuals. However, families are harder.
I'm big on exhausting all options, and Family History as a
finding tool is in Preach My Gospel but has been generally underutilized in our
mission. Only recently has one Sister been the Family History specialist for
the mission and she created a master document of how to use family history in
missionary work. Sister Friberg and I have been trying to put those ideas into
practice, handing out Family History Pamphlets and creating a local Family
History Facebook page for our area. It's yet to take off, but I'm trying my
best to post interesting things in there.
My interest in family history has not gone unnoticed unfortunately,
and I have been asked to be a family history specialist in place of the
previous one who has now been put in as a Sister Training Leader (similar to a
Zone leader). Thankfully however, I am not going to be alone. Rather, they are
putting together something of a team, similar to the Technology Council lead by
the Social Media Leads. I get to be the beginning of this new team, so there
will be lots of pioneering to do. And that all begins with the experiments
Sister Friberg and I are trying in our area. Our on the ground experience will
give us a practical experiences with which to instruct others.
Speaking of our experiments, we stumbled upon a perfectly
wonderful place to use family history as a finding tool!
We watched the Sunday morning session of General Conference
with our Centennial ward Relief Society President, and as we left, she told us
about a wonderful elderly lady in our ward living in a nursing home that would
LOVE for us to visit. So, Saturday afternoon we popped by to meet her. Elle
Lambert is her name, and she is the most incredible member missionary I have
ever met! She is comparatively young in the nursing home, so she has taken it
upon herself to be the resident sunshine. She talks to everyone about Jesus and
introduced us to everybody, resident or visitor! Elle has an early dinner, so
we were in the dining room when I had the privilege of playing my harmonica for
her and her friends. Normally, my harmonica is more irritant than
entertainment, but here was the exception! Even the workers in the kitchen came
out to see!
The ladies who work in the nursing home are all African immigrants,
and their accents remind me of my brother when he first came home from Sierra
Leone! They are so sweet, all of them!
Once we were done playing and entertaining, we asked Elle
and her friends if they would be interested in Family History. We passed out
every pamphlet we had!! Our plan is to visit every week and help the residents
do family history, including, when possible, their younger family members. And
through that, WE FIND! We also plan to sing and play whenever we go and get to
know the nurses. Several of them were wearing crosses, and we believe they'd be
open to talking about religion.
Later that day we went by to visit a friend of ours, whom we
are teaching, to say hello and invite her to church. After we talked, I thought
it would be fun to play my harmonica for her. As we walked away from her apartment,
her downstairs neighbor popped his head out and said, "Was that you
playing the harmonica?"
And I’ve run out of time again…..to be continued….
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