I have so many storied to tell, but not enough time to tell them (and I dont know if I can even remember them all). I am sure though that when I get home I will want to tell stories and talk all the time and everyone will get sick of it. Haha. Last week was super fun with all of the Christmas parties and everything. We ate wayyy too much and I thought I would explode.
Well anyways, I have just continued to see miracles everyday. We have an investigator who wants to be baptized, but she wants her parents consent (even though it is of course not required because she is thirty, but she is not married yet so in tradition, she is still kind of under her parents care). Well I guess that for a long time she has been not sure what to do. She comes to church every week and is really awesome. So we sat down with her and talked to her about this. We had some really awesome fellowshippers there that shared their stories. One of them met the missionaries in the Phillipines when she was 13. Her family did not like the church at all and so they told her that if she wanted to join, she had to pass a test. Her father was retired military and owned a very large plantation. He fired all but a couple of his workers and told this sister that if she wanted to be baptized she had to be able to take care of the plantation for a year and get more crop even though there were almost no workers to help her. She was really worried and when she first showed up to the plantation, she was surprised to see the entire ward and missionaries already there working away, because they had found out about her situation. they continued to come all year around and then in the end her family's hearts were softened and they let her be baptized and also some of them joined the church. It is so crazy how so many people would sacrifice so much time and effort for an entire year just so that a 13 year old girl could have her parent's permission to be baptized.
It reminds me of a talk during General Conference that talks about how we dont use the cross as a symbol for our church. The symbol of our church is the lives of our members. We should always strive to be like Jesus Christ because we ARE members of his church, and us males hold the SAME priesthood that millions of miracles have been performed by, including parting the red sea, raising the dead, healing the sick, etc...
So anyways, this investigator said she will be baptized in three weeks. Next week she will fast, then after her fast she will call her father and tell him she is getting baptized.
We have another investigator who is super cool. She is from Indonesia and her parents disappeared when she was young so her grandpa raised her. He was converted to Christianity, but wound up dying shortly after. So she literally has no family on the Earth.
Well a recent convert brought her to church my first week here and we taught her. She was so great. She loved the message we shared, and said she right away wanted to be baptized and believes everything we taught. Well the day after, her employer fired her and she didnt know why. She was heartbroken over it, and didnt know what to do. She went to a boarding house and started trying to find another job. But every single day she went to church with us, and everyday she brought a referral who was usually someone she had met at the boarding house, and every day without fail during the sacrament, you could see her closing her eyes praying, and crying. We finally asked her if she is okay and why she cries, and she said it is because of how grateful she is that she found the church, and because she feels so much love and appreciation for the Savior and what he did for her.
Well anyways, she found an employer and had to exit to Macau for a month to wait for a visa. But when she got there the first thing she did was buy a SIM card to call us and let us know she was safe and is excited to be baptized when she gets back, and that she had already called the missionaries in Macau to let them know that she is there.
I am just so blessed to serve here. I love it.
Well I have to go, but thanks for everything!! Have a great week!!
Love, Jordan
No comments:
Post a Comment