Happy New Year,
This week was amazing. We have seen as we are striving to follow the mission invites (especially regarding the baptism and forgiveness), becoming more unified as a companionship and increasing obedience we have seen miracles occur. At the beginning of the week we started out with one person having a baptismal date. We are super happy because this week we were able to invite and set baptismal dates for 4 more people.
The first miracle we saw was on Tuesday night. It was about 8:40 and I figured we could head home and do some calls. As we were riding back Elder Chalmers had a feeling to stop and go down a road. We started talking to this guy that we saw and he wasn't interested so he suggested we say a prayer. During the prayer I had a feeling to knock on the door right to my left. We did and a woman opened the door. Elder Chalmers introduced ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ and that our purpose here is to help people receive forgiveness through baptism. We explained a little further and we invited her to continue to meet with us and be baptized on Mar. 1st. She accepted our invitation and we are set up to meet with her again this week! The Spirit does it all we just have to listen.
We also set a baptismal date with an eternal investigator. He has been ready for a long time and we showed him the faith that he already had. We are helping him develop a habit of reading the scriptures and praying. Texting is definitely a blessing. He will be baptized Mar. 1st.
We met a W--- D-- about 2 weeks ago and had a lesson with him on the street. We set up with him again and shared the Restoration with him. He has been attending another church and really likes learning about Christ. He is definitely prepared. We invited him to baptized and he set a date for Mar. 1st. Can't wait to bring him to church next week.
We met a kid named B----on the street yesterday and had a lesson with him. Taught him to pray and explained how baptism is able to take our bad feelings of regret and guilt away and asked him if he wanted to have this happen in his life. He said yes and we set a baptismal date with him for the 1st of Mar. The former 3 baptismal dates were all set on a Saturday. Needless to say that was the best Saturday of my mission so far.
The Lord is really preparing people and by doing the invites of sharing of baptism and forgiveness in every contact with people we are starting to distinguish who the prepared people really are. God loves everybody and is preparing many people to hear the gospel. We will be blessed in the next coming month with tons of success if we keep doing what we're doing and always striving to become better.
Our companionship is becoming better. We have really tried hard to just do the work this week and do it with the help of the Spirit. We have found as we have relied more heavily on the Spirit, prayer, member help, etc. we have seen many more miracles. We are going to work just as hard this week to see the same amount of success we saw last week. It is definitely possible.
I personally am working on developing my testimony of Jesus Christ. I am starting to study more about testimony and how we develop it. I read a great talk by Elder Oaks entitled testimony from the May 2008 general conference. It described how we first must have a desire to receive a testimony, ask in humble prayer, fast, partake of the sacrament and most importantly we have to share with others. The only time a testimony is made stronger is in the bearing of it. When we bear our testimonies we have the opportunity to realize what we actually believe. It's pretty cool.
We also saw one more miracle. We have a brother in our ward who has been a member for 10 years or more. Is also a returned missionary. His parents are very traditional Buddhists and he feels like now is the time to start helping them make contact with the church. We went and ate at their house for Guo Nian and then we set up a plan with this member. We are going to bring cookies over to their house in a few days and then ask if we can come over again and have the dad teach us how to play Majiang. His dad is very social and we are going to start holding a "family home evening" without them really knowing it. It is going to be a great thing and this member really feels like this is what the Lord wants us to do to help his parents start to get to know the church. I'm honored and blessed that this member trusts us this much to start helping his parents make contact with the church.
We have eaten so much food this week it's been crazy. All of the members are feeding us every lunch and every dinner. It's been really amazing to meet so many of them and share spiritual messages with them. I love it. They all have huge testimonies.
The work is moving because we're doing what we're supposed to be doing.
Elder Meeks
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