Hi!
This week has been good!
On Tuesday we met with our investigator
Ta'nique. I don't think I've told you about her yet? Can't remember. But she is
a 15 year old girl that the elders passed off to us. She has been taught for a
while, but her dad won't give permission for her to be baptized. :( So that is
sad. She hasn't had a very loving environment growing up, so she has a lot of
emotional struggles. She is really sweet though.
We are going to do personal progress with her, so that will be awesome.
We are going to do personal progress with her, so that will be awesome.
We just keep praying that her dad's
heart will soften!
On Wednesday the ward had a temple trip to go
to baptisms and guess who went! Rashida!!
It was the happiest thing.
When we
taught her about the temple she was so excited to go and she really wanted to
do her dad's work. She is from Sierra Leone and her mom was 13 when she had her
and her dad was 16. Crazy right? Then he died when he was 23 and Rashida was 7.
So she never really knew him and doesn't have very much information about him
or how he died.
So we scrambled to help her get on familysearch.org and get his name ready and
she got to take it! We had her call us on her drive back from the temple and
she LOVED
IT. She said she couldn't stop crying the whole time and when she got
her dad's name back and it had been done, she was so happy. She is on fire and
doing so well :) I love her so much. Yesterday at church she was telling us
that she might want to serve a mission too! It's so cool to see the gospel
change people's lives.
Our recent convert Andrew is doing well too! A
few weeks ago he didn't come to church, so we were worried, but it turns out he
was taking one of his non-member friends to another ward in Fairfax and now his friend is meeting with
the missionaries! Yay for sharing the gospel haha :)
We had to drop our investigator Anthony this
week though... hahaha he didn't have the best of intentions and was pretty much
just creepy! I have never had so many encounters with creepers as I have on my
mission, its the weirdest.
But he said he will keep reading the Book of Mormon,
so that's good!
We met with Gabriella this week. Brandon wasn't
there because he had to work, but they are struggling right now. Their
relationship is really rough right now, but they want to be baptized, so we are
trying to just encourage them to make a decision about getting married or
living in separate apartments.
Its hard because as a missionary you can't
really counsel people on personal things like that.
You just have to encourage them to turn to Heavenly Father for answers.
You just have to encourage them to turn to Heavenly Father for answers.
But I know that I was supposed to teach this family and
that everything will work out for them. They love the gospel so much already
and they have such a strong desire to be baptized.
So keep them in your prayers!
So keep them in your prayers!
We also got a new investigator this week named
Josephine! She is the sister of a member in the ward. She is here from Ghana
because she came here to have her baby in a safe environment, so she is staying
until January. She has been meeting with missionaries in Ghana for years! But
she was baptized in the Catholic church and doesn't see why she would need to
be baptized again. We had a lesson with her and she loves the church and the
people in it and knows a ton about the gospel. But the spirit wasn't really
there until we showed her the He Lives Easter video and all of the sudden the
spirit of the whole lesson changed. The member we brought, Nicole, is a recent
convert from Rwanda who just got baptized in another ward in September and then
moved into our ward. Nicole
bore powerful testimony of the need to be baptized again and how it has blessed
her life. Josephine told us she would read and ponder
more and pray about it. So pretty much she could be baptized any day, she just
needs to decide to actually do it! But she is so sweet and I have decided I
just love people from Africa. They are the best people. :) Keep her in your
prayers too!
This week I have been thinking a lot about the
parable of the lost sheep.
In Luke 15 it says:
4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if
he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until
he find it?
5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on
his shoulders, rejoicing.
6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together
his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep
which was lost.
7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just
persons, which need no repentance.
I love that parable so much. I watched this
video the other day that really changed my perspective: https://www.lds.org/youth/video/reaching-out-through-love?lang=eng
Missionary work is all about going after the
lost sheep.
Whether that is investigators, less-actives, other missionaries,
your companion, its all the same.
Its about loving people into the gospel, not
forcing them. You have to love people with a genuine love though, not anything
fake or superficial. I've learned a lot about that lately and I'm so grateful
to be a shepherd for others and also the recipient of that love, like the lost
sheep.
So I hope that you all do your visiting and home teaching and call people
and spend time with them and just love them!
They are small things, but if you
do them with love you will see miracles :)
I hope you all have a wonderful week and know
that I love you!
XOXO, Sister Fowers
Philippians 2:5-8
ReplyDeleteLet’s look at a scriptural model for the believer to follow. For one thing, as we read in today’s passage above, we should view ourselves as servants and be willing to put the needs of others before our own.
See: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1982/10/be-a-friend-a-servant-a-son-of-the-savior?lang=eng
First, Be a Friend of the Savior.
Second, Be a Servant of the Savior.
Third, Be a Son or a Daughter of the Savior.
Next, our true boss is Christ; therefore, we work diligently and with integrity, knowing that our reward is from Him (Col. 3:23). Then, since all authority on earth is God-given (Rom. 13:1), we should obey our superiors gladly—unless, of course, our human bosses tell us to do something that goes against Scripture. And finally, all those we work with and for have worth from the Creator, so we should treat them with respect (1 John 4:7-8).
Think about the Golden Rule—Do unto others as you’d have others do unto you—and how it applies here. Putting it a different way, imagine yourself as the boss and ask, How would I like my employees to work, whether I was watching or not?
We are to work as though God is our boss. That means doing tasks with joy, a servant attitude, respect for others, diligence, and obedience. Imagine what the workplace could be if all believers approached their jobs this way. Let us so live that every person who has ever met a member of this Church would know that we all strive daily to be better friends of the Savior, more unselfish servants of the Savior, more like sons and daughters given by the Father to our Savior by virtue of our taking His name upon us in the holy waters of baptism!