Dear Everyone!
This week has been a week of MIRACLES!!! Last Sunday we set ourselves the goal of putting a lot of people on date for baptism this week. We wanted to show Heavenly Father that He could trust us to be bold enough to encourage people to make that covenant with God, and also that He could trust us with those who are ready to receive the Gospel because we are prepared to invite anyone and everyone to be baptized. We role played it and we prayed with great faith and were ready to do whatever He asked of us. Well, Tuesday evening Sister Garcia invited Chely to be baptized. But Chely only speaks Spanish so I just sat there and smiled every now and then. It must've been a powerful smile, because she agreed to be baptized. But it probably was because of my companion's teaching skills. So we got off to a good start! Then on Wednesday morning in companionship study we prepared something for the Visitors' Centre, which is hard because we have no idea who will come in so we just rely on the Spirit to prepare a short message to share with someone who might need it. Well, Wednesday morning we felt prompted to prepare a message on "Baptism, Our First Covenant" from Preach My Gospel so we did just that. We prayed to be led to the person who might need that. Then Wednesday evening's shift at the VC came. I was at the front desk and in walked a man and a woman who looked about 30ish? I greeted them and the woman asked for a tour! I was like "We can definitely give you that!" and we started at the Christus. I got to know them a little bit and asked how familiar they are with the LDS church and it turned out that the woman was a member and the man was not. They met each other a few weeks ago hiking and he is from Canada but flew down a few days ago to hike at Zions with her and was leaving to go to Canada in just two hours from when we were having that conversation. She served a mission in California a few years ago and so she brought him in to the VC so he could learn a bit about what she believes in. They are just friends btw. So I took them over to the Joseph Smith painting and taught the whole restoration lesson, and just asked these deep questions that really made him think and he said "What does someone have to do to be baptized?" and so I told him about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity and church attendance and he said it all makes sense and I told him about the gift of the Holy Ghost and how it can be ours always after we're baptized. So thus I'd taught him like 3 of the missionary lessons ALREADY and Sister Garcia had to attend to someone else so I'm on my own this WHOLE TOUR but I was so calm! It flowed really well; usually I feel like I'm awkwardly moving from resource to resource but I just knew where to go next, what to say and what to ask and what scriptures to share. I showed him basically everything here and in doing so taught him all the missionary lessons. When we were at the Book of Mormon stand he said how it makes sense that God wouldn't just communicate with prophets in Israel but that He would talk to His children elsewhere too. And then at the Temple pictures he was so speechless and said it’s a beautiful thing to do baptisms for our ancestors who never had the chance and that it all makes perfect sense. He was teary the whole time! Then I put on President Monson's testimony from Special Witnesses of Christ and he just cried a ton and said he was speechless! So to finish it all of I put them in God's Plan for His Family and at this point all the Sisters in the VC knew he was a non member and were watching from afar! I went in to meet them at the end of God's Plan and just knew that he was the one I needed to put on date to be baptized. I was so nervous and didn’t want to ruin his good experience but I felt like I needed to! But I didn't know what to say because the usual PMG way of asking wouldn’t work as I can’t say "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the Priesthood authority of God? We will be holding a baptismal service on March 8th, will you be baptized on that day?" because it doesn’t matter if I'm holding a service that day as he lives in CANADA! So I just prayed avidly and went in to close the God's Plan without thinking about what to say. It went really well! The Spirit definitely led it because I just asked him "All these things we've talked about this evening, do you believe that they are true?" and he looked me right in the eyes and said "I know that they are true." and I shared the scripture from 2 Nephi 31 that talks about Christ saying to people “Follow thou me, and how can we follow Christ save we shall we willing to keep all His commandments and be baptized?" and then I invited him to be baptized and he was silent for a few seconds (that felt like ETERNITY) and looked me right in the eyes and said YES! I then said "Like we talked about before there are commitments you have to live before you can be baptized, and you have to attend church 3 times to show that you are ready for this, but I have never met someone more ready than you are. I've never invited someone to be baptized in the Visitors' Centre before, and neither have most sisters in the history of this visitors centre, but I know that you are ready to be baptized soon and I feel that you will be ready by March 8th, how does that sound?" and he cried again and said that sounds AMAZING! Then he started telling me about how all his family has died and he has no one back in Canada and he's been looking for a church and attending many different ones but has never felt anything like he's felt this evening and he thanked me so sincerely like 1000 times and I thanked him 1000 times because he was an answer to many prayers from my heart. We all knelt down and prayed together in that closing room of God's Plan and cried together and rejoiced together. It was so AMAZING! One of those life changing moments when you know without a doubt that the God of this universe hears and answers your prayers and is concerned for the one. Justin's whole eternity and life changed in that one short hour he spent here in the Visitors' Centre and I was privileged to be able to witness it. He apologized and said he's never speechless nor cries but he just was so amazed! He thanked me SO MUCH fo rchanging his life! I was just in awe of him!! I took him to the Christus and played the message and took his details and off he went to his new life. As soon as he left I ran over to the Sisters who were watching the whole thing and we all high fived and Sister Center was there too and she hugged me for like 12 seconds and the Assistants to the President were there too and it was just all so overwhelming! Everyone was there except the Mission President hahah! The senior Sister who was there said at one point she walked past us while we were at the Book of Mormon stand and that she stopped because the Spirit was SO STRONG coming from us and she didn't want to leave the glow that was around us. It really really touched me and I just went to bed the happiest missionary in the world. The Watkins' announced at the Sisters training meeting that Sister Nicholls had put someone on date at the Visitors' Centre and they all cheered again but I just felt so awkward because I don't want it to be like a pride thing to make the other Sisters feel bad. It just reminds me of the scripture:- Ask and ye shall receive. I think He gave us Justin because we asked for it and we prepared for it.
And then we had a lesson with a 12yr old girl whose mum is less active but wants her daughter to be baptized. She obviously didn’t want to meet with us because she had her back to us the whole time and laughed with her little friend at EVERYTHING that we said and when asked any question she would respond "i dont know". It felt like she was sucking the happiness out of everyone's life. Sister Garcia started crying because she thought they were laughing at her English. It was bad times. But we invited her to be baptized and she accepted a baptismal date for March 15th so we'll see how that goes. We don't want to baptize her if she doesn't actually want to be baptized. She's home schooled and has only online friends and is obsessed with celebrities so she just needs some love and some confidence. I'll update you on how that goes. Then we had a lesson with Dave. We really love Dave! And he loves us! He sent us a tender text on the weekend just thanking us for everything we do for him and for the care we show him! We did invite him to be baptized and put him on date for baptism on March 15th and it is amazing how you can't just invite everyone the same way. The invitation changes for EVERYONE! So we said with him will you be baptized and he said he so wants to be but he likes drinking wine and doesn’t know if he can give that up. We told him to set the goal for March 15th and that we would work with him. We told him he is living just like a member (despite the wine) just without the blessings that come from being a member like having the Holy Ghost or having the Priesthood! It went well :) we're excited! So we invited FOUR people to be baptized this week! Our zone leaders challenged us to do it this week too so we called them after every time of extending the invitation to tell them how it went and they were like SISTERS WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!!! Haha it was a GREAT WEEK!
Then another miracle happened on Sunday! We had been praying all weekend to be led to someone who is thirsty for the Gospel and like always to be led to those who are prepared. Well we were going to knock on a door of a part member family when a woman was smoking outside her house so naturally as missionaries do we went to talk to her and she invited us into her home promptly! We went in and she told us that she has been going to the LDS church for Sacrament Meeting and that last night she prayed to Heavenly Father that the missionaries would come to her home!!!!!!! WHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! MIRACLESSSSZZZZZ!!!! We shared a message and have a return appointment. She gave us four bananas and a box of chocolates hahaha! After we left her house we gave each other the highest of fives out of pure jubilation for prayers being answered and miracles occuring! She just needs to stop smoking!
We went to Jacob Hamblin's home for Sister Training Meeting this week! It was very interesting. He was a fearless missionary :) I cant wait to show you all these things when you come to pick me up! Another highlight of the week was when I was sitting down with Sister Allen and Sister Pearson and some girls walked up to us and said “Is there a Sister Nicholls in this mission?" and we all just stared at them for like 3 seconds without saying anything and I pointed at my nametag and said “Which Sister Nicholls?" because there are two and they said "Her brother told us to come and - " and I jumped up and gave her a massive massive hug and almost cried and said "YOU WERE WITH MY BROTHER JUST YESTERDAY??!!?@!?!? and she said YEAH!!! AND we hugged and hugged and talked for ages and then Sister Allen and I gave them a tour and they were really spiritual and it was just so nice to talk about Luke with someone haha! (She loves you Luke! She said you're the best student and that she likes helping you with your finance homework or whatever hahaha.) I liked her. Oh so we had this special man come into the VC who just stares at all the Sisters and the Watkins' have told us to beware of him, and he came up to me and he said “You know who you look like?" and I said “Who?" and he said "Alfred Hitchcock" and I just BURST OUT LAUGHING because it’s sooooooooo hilarious and so rude! I just thought it was hilarious and so did the other Sisters. I was like "Alfred Hitchcock? The MAN? Thank you." Hahaha he's really funny. We get so many regulars come in!
Well I need to go but it's been a lovely warm and sunny week. Tanning will begin in no time. It's President's Day weekend this week so it'll be busy in the VC! We had our first bus of Germans (only like 5 though) and we gave out four Books of Mormon!! it was great! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! It's the best work I've ever done and brings happiness like nothing else. I seriously smiled for like 3 days after Justin's experience. I've spoken to his Branch President on the phone and him on the phone and all is going well. I just love nothing more than sharing the Gospel, it's a beautiful thing and I love my time here! Sister Garcia and I are going to make Tres Leches this p-day!!!
I love you all SO MUCH!
Moroni 7: 29 And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither haveaangels ceased to minister unto the children of men.
This explains my week perfectly.
Sister Nicholls
No comments:
Post a Comment