We have been working to better advertise English Class on campus, and recently we met with the heads of the writing centers so they can become familiar with us and what we have to offer. We have had quite a few lessons this week (46!) and so we are just teaching like crazy. We also were given a list of all the less-actives in the Ward by our Bishop this week, so we called all of them and set up appointments with four of them! This is a success! It is so exciting. One guy picked up the phone, and said, "Oh ya, the missionaries. Well, I guess now is as good of a time as ever to come back to Church, so ya I will meet with you. What time is Church again?" Our jaws all dropped! Some people are just waiting to be invited back!!
So this week we had a lesson with a new investigator named Caroline. She is such a sweetheart! She is from northern China, and became a Christian last fall when she was an exchange student in Florida. She is a freshman here, and after meeting the aforementioned Michelle, she decided to learn more about our Church. We had an appointment with her, but then one of our less actives needed to meet at the same time, so we went on splits. So I went solo with an RM from Taiwan, Laura. First off- Laura has been back for 7 months and is still rocking it. She has completely kept up with her Chinese, and her scripture reading. She was the best person for the lesson too, because we just team-taught the Restoration! Poor Caroline was really confused with Christianity in general, but the Restoration is perfectly set up to answer her questions. Then, I knew that teaching the Apostasy would be rough, so first off we really emphasized the Priesthood and how you need the authority to act with God's power. She was able to understand that, and then to show the apostasy I took a square piece of paper and compared that with Christ's true church. Without the authority from God, it fell apart, (so we ripped up the paper). Some churches took these teachings of the bible, and some took others (now we are grouping the pieces of paper together).
At this point, it just clicked with Caroline! She had looked into a lot of different churches before and was not sure why there were so many different ones. But then she got really sad, and looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, "But Sister, does no one have the Preisthood now?" She was so concerned! It was so cute! So we then shared the story of Joseph Smith, and the Spirit was crazzzy strong. We then pulled out a new piece of paper, and put it on top of the little piles of torn paper from my planner!
She asked more questions about the Priesthood, and so we taught her about the Priesthood line of Authority that the Church keeps track of, and bless the Chinese- they keep such detailed records as a culture that as soon as she heard there was one for the members of the Church, it just clicked! She understood it all, and then got concerned again. She asked, ''How essential is baptism? Do we need to get it to get to heaven?" I told her yes, but it was more of a step to get there and the ultimate goal was the temple (Caroline had been taken to walk around the temple last week with Michelle). She got a little smile and said about how she felt peace there, and wanted to go inside one day! Then Caroline got concerned again, and said that she did not think her host father, who had baptized her, had the Priesthood. So, we helped her to make the decision to be baptized when she found out that this was true for herself. She got so happy, and then after asking about the Book of Mormon she wanted to take it home and read it in one sitting! She was so excited!
I am so grateful for awesome members that take the initiative and share the Gospel for their friends. It is such a great support for these wonderful children of God, and they feel more comfortable and open to learn about the truth.
We also have been taught a new way to teach the Lessons. I guess you could call it Preach My Gospel 2.0. It is a lot faster paced, and perfect for Western cultures. It is great with these college students, and we have had some success! Last night we went contacting on U-Dubb campus, and we had some great conversations and I taught a guy from Boulder, CO using the new method and it was great! Jake is interested now, and wants to find out for himself if God is there and this is true!
Also this week we went down from the UDistrict to Downtown to meet with a member who goes to Cornish College of the Arts. She wanted to meet with us, even though she had her musical theater audition into her major in like 20 min! So dedicated! I love it :) She even performed a little bit of her song for us and she was fantastic. Everyone is so talented here! After that, we were running late and so decided to stop by McDonald's on our way to catch our bus to make it to our next appt. While we were there, we had a guy stop us, and want to learn more from us! Totally worth being sick the next day from the hamburger!
This week has been wonderful, and I have loved it!
I hope you have a great week!
I loved reading this.
ReplyDeleteMy love thoughts and prayers are with you!
Love Daryllyn