Ladies and Gentlemen: Buckle your seat belts!
Great things are on the verge of coming to pass here in the EMM:
Our mission will be getting iPads between September and October! Yay for technology! Once we have iPads we will be allowed an hour each day to use them for proselyting (i.e, skyping people from around the world to share the gospel with them).
At our Zone Conference on Friday, President Ulrich also shared with us revelation he received about the hastening of the work in our mission-- The work here in the EMM is going to, I quote, ''EXPLODE!'' and ''the work is going to move forward in a very fast pace.'' Woah. I feel so blessed to be in this mission at this time. Its about time we all buckle our seat belts in anticipation for this work that is about to take off.
So great news on one of our investigators, Garry. Garry was found back in April/May. He is originally from Hong Kong but has lived in the UK for more than 20 years. His English speaking and listening ability is superb which is helpful when he attends church. He works at a Chippy and works everyday of the week except for Sunday and in the past he was only available to meet with him once a week during one of his lunch breaks. As a result, he has been coming to church on Sunday but we really haven't been able to meet with him. He has been leaving after the first hour until recently when he has stayed for one hour more. Because of his diligence in coming to church, we decided it was the right time to set up a time to teach him. It is not very often you get such great church attendance from an investigator! We met with him this past week and taught him very simply about the Holy Ghost. It was an inspired lesson because when we asked Garry why he has been coming to church he told us it is because he feels peace and comfortable at church. We linked this into the lesson on the Holy Ghost and explained how these are the feelings from the Spirit. Both Sister Chu and I felt prompted during the lesson to invite him to be baptized. He told us he wants to be able to have more experiences with feeling the Holy Ghost. We have been praying that he can learn to recognize the Holy Ghost and during Gospel Principles he asked the teacher, who happens to be our ward mission leader, more about the Holy Ghost. I was so grateful our ward mission leader left the lesson plan to focus on the needs of Garry. Garry is willing to meet with us more often now. It is funny how a slowly progressing investigator can all of the sudden shoot to the top of your most progressing so quickly.
Our next progressing investigator would have to be Lukman. He recently got a job and is super busy. Fortunately, he still sets aside time to meet with us. This past week we taught him the laws and ordinance lesson on Missionary Work. He loved it a lot and even mentioned that he agrees with so much with what we teach him. He desires to have the same conviction we have about this gospel. He still attends church at a nearby Methodist church and is always assigned to give a sermon on Sundays which conflicts with him coming to church with us on Sunday. He told us, however, that he will turn down the next time they ask him to ''preach'' so he can come to church with us. We took the time to establish the fact that he should be making these promises to keep commitments with God and not us, the missionaries.
We have found great success on the streets the members have prayed for. While tracting one of the streets, the first lady we met knows the 2nd counsellor in the bishopric! There is no such thing as coincidences.. Even better, she told us we can come back and share more! We also talked to this elderly couple that was walking their dog on the same street and turns out they know Bishop and his family. This street is too good to be true! We went back Sunday night to finish tracting the street. It was soon time to head back to our flat and we had just a few more doors left to knock. I felt we needed to knock the rest of the doors so we did. Behind the very last door was a man named Nick. We taught him the restoration on his doorstep. He feels like there is too much doubt in his heart to learn more but he is still a miracle because he accepted a Restoration pamphlet. I have faith his heart will be softened and the Lord will continue to prepare him. We plan on following up with him in a week or so.
I love our new mission president and his wife so much already. Quick funny moment: I love how Utah they are and how ''guys'' and ''awesome'' are a common feature in their vocabulary. These happen to be words we are taught to avoid saying in our mission since we try to be dignified in our language. Sister Chu is still working on not saying guys and awesome anymore and one night she innocently asked ''does that mean we can say those words now?'' I shook my head saying ''Nope! I still expect you now to say them'' :) She was like ''Oh man!'' I thought it was pretty funny.
President Ulrich is what I would like to call a DEEP doctrinalist-- he knows this gospel inside and out and his vision is for us to become gospel scholars by the end of our missions. In preparation for our multi zone conference last week he had us all commit to memory all of the 13 Articles of Faith. There is so much power in knowing these by heart! If you don't have these already memorized, get to work! President Ulrich also emphasized being bold missionaries. As it says in Proverbs 28:1 we are to be ''bold as a lion.'' I know he is just what the mission and I need.
I have recently discovered that I have a spiritual gift of being able to bring peace to others around me. Since being on my mission, I can recall countless instances of people that I have been around telling me that I have a calm energy around me to that I have helped them feel less stressed and greater peace. I wonder what other gifts I have that I don't know about..
Do you all realize the spiritual gifts Heavenly Father has given you? These gifts are given to everyone and the scriptures tell us that, with the Lord's help, we can all work and develop more. He really is a giver of the best gifts :) Don't be selfish though-- These gifts are meant to be shared and bless the lives of those around us!
Love you all!
Sister Jordan
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