This week has been a great week! The Lord truly gives us tender mercies in the midst of emotional trauma! Haha. My companion and I are working through the undue pressure I've been giving myself as a trainer. I'm grateful that the Lord gives us experiences that teach us. I loved what someone in our ward said about the Atonement yesterday. "I was tired of trying to carry it all, fix it all, and do it myself. That's when I let the Savior take over." I'm not a perfect trainer. I don't have all the answers. I'm not always the best example, but my Savior was. My Savior does, and my Savior is. I love that experiences like this are teaching me to rely on him. I think that's precisely why Heavenly Father made me a trainer when he did. He knew I would need to rely on him because I wouldn't know what else to do!
We are hunting, and digging, and scratching to find someone we can prepare for baptism! The Lord really wants me to be a finder, I suppose. We taught a former investigator named Nick this week. His wife died about a year and a half ago, and he is still really torn up about it. He talks about it like he's "merely the shell of a man— without a soul— and all you see is façade." My new companion did a wonderful job testifying of the reality of the Plan of Salvation our Heavenly Father has restored a full knowledge of, and together we bore testimony of his Heavenly Father's love and the power of his Savior's Atonement to heal all wounds. Unfortunately, Nick is pretty set that he will never be able to believe that again, without some physical proof the Savior's reality. As tangible as the Spirit we tried to bring might have been, Nick's heart is not quite prepared. Which is funny because I've been studying about Laman and Lemuel in the Book of Mormon lately, and they saw SO many signs. They were constantly given evidence of the reality of our God, but their hearts were too hard, and it ultimately led to their own personal apostasy.
Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe. Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it. ... And now as I said concerning faith— faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true. ... Now, as I said concerning faith—that it was not a perfect knowledge—even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge. But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words. (Alma 32:17-18, 21, 26-27)It's through an exercise of faith that we gain a perfect knowledge! And I know this is truth. I have seen it. It makes me sad that Nick isn't ready for that, but with faith on my part, I know the Lord will prepare him.
We're also teaching a guy named Ed B. He is a hoot! The first time we met him, we talked for like an hour in front of his car about Jesus Christ, Christianity, and the Book of Mormon. We've been meeting with him about every week with our ward mission leader, and I am so grateful Brother Johnson comes to those lessons. It's a struggle to teach people who already have such a solid and firm belief in Jesus Christ, and Brother Johnson really is so much help in helping us simply answer some of those deeper doctrine questions that Ed has. We're here to teach doctrine simply, Ed! Come on! ;)
We've invited him to baptism a couple of times, but I think we'll just have to emphasize priesthood restored because he's still convinced his pastor had authority to baptize him (and it sometimes makes me wish that he did, you know?). I guess Heavenly Father is just going to need me to be super learned on all things Apostasy by the time I'm finished serving my mission because I just can't seem to get enough of it in my studies. I want to know why there was a need for a restoration of Christ's church, you know? Especially if all the people I'm teaching need to know why as well.
That's currently the only progressing investigator we have. Which seems to happen to me a lot. Actually, that happened with Gary, and he got baptized this weekend. So there's hope! :)
SPEAKING OF GARY... PICTURES!
L-R: Elders Williamson and Knutson, the missionaries who taught him after Sister T and me; Brother Gary M., Sister M., me, and my companion!
Oh, my word. Gary's story is so great. I just love Gary. The Lord seriously prepared Gary so much to be baptized. He started by reading this book about positive thinking, and then it ended up being a book mostly about Jesus Christ (hehe, got him). He had sort of a religious background growing up, but not much. We had met with our bishop, who invited us to go and visit Sister Miller, maybe even hopefully be able to catch Gary at home and invite him to take the lessons. From there, the Spirit took over. We introduced the message of the Restoration to him one day, and before we even knew what was happening, he accepted the invitation to take the lessons. Sister Miller was floored. She had been super active in the church for about five years, and recently went through the temple for herself. She couldn't believe that Gary had accepted our invitation and thanked us profusely.
From there, Gary insisted that he was simply nourishing his desire to learn about the Savior, rather than about the stories. With the help of the Spirit, we taught about the Savior, we showed him "Finding Faith in Christ," and were able to help him understand that this was about his commitment to Jesus Christ. Not about becoming Mormon, not about pleasing the missionaries, not about Sister Miller, but about him and his Savior. From there, he slowly accepted invitations to come on a church tour, then to come to church... and then I got transferred. One thing that always really impressed me about Gary was that he always read the Book of Mormon chapters we left with him. He even went out of town while we were teaching him, and he let us ask him questions and give assignments over text!
From teaching Gary and watching him be baptized (twice... ya gotta do it right, ya know?), I've learned a lot about how important, yet insignificant, our roles as missionaries are. We're simply there to push the process along. It really is all about the Lord. It's about how much he's prepared them. It's about how we bring the Spirit to let him testify of truth. It's about being worthy of that Spirit and direction so that we can help these people understand that THIS is where Heavenly Father wants them; THIS is the answer to all their prayers, all their concerns, all their questions. This truly is the way. The Lord will let you know when they're ready; you just have to have the faith necessary to get them there.
I love the Lord's timing. I'm grateful that he's in charge.
~Sister Nielsen
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