So this week was great :) I think that my spiritual thought will come out of Monday's events with Sr. MIngione so read carefully over that paragraph about "Come Follow Me". :) It's a great message that the Spirit taught Fr. Lavene during that lesson :)
Monday the 14th:
That evening we got to see Sr. Mingione. We were with Fr. Lavene which went well. She's just bogged down by a lot of things in life and in her past but Fr. Lavene brought out one simple phrase. « Viens et suis-moi » Come follow me. Come is our present action. Following is the future. Christ doesn't care about our past. He wants us to just become better. It was powerful :) Then we gave her a simple list of verses to read over the next week so that she could ready every single day in the Book of Mormon :) It was great!
Then we visited Aliane for our 3rd lesson with her. Something had changed with her and it was easy to tell. But we did our best to hear her concerns and help her resolve them. The only problem though is she isn't really willing to pray every day. That's a big hinderance in finding out the truth. But we couldn't force her to do anything but we left her feeling better than when we came in.
Tuesday the 15th:
We passed by a potential in the morning and he couldn't receive us sadly but he did give us a referral so we took a walk and passed by the referral and another investigator in the area. It was fun just being out in the open and not freezing cold. Spring is finally here!
We got to help out that evening with a move in the ward. There were 6 of us in total moving from the top floor to the bottom floor of a building with an elevator so it was a piece of cake. It's kind of fun being the muscles in the group though as a young buck haha ;) But the elderly members that we moved were so grateful and it just makes you feel good after that :)
Wednesday the 16th:
As we were working in an area we hadn't had any success really but then as we were heading back to our car we saw in front of his house our good friend Jean who's a potential. He was so happy to see us and he introduced us to his friend too. It was awesome! The only problem is that Jean works nights on the highway so he's super busy all the time. But we're keeping in touch because he really wants to learn more.
Then I made us a pretty nice meal back at home. Enjoy the pictures of my nice plating ;)
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| The dinner of chicken, veggies and rice :) |
After dinner we went and saw Sr. Mingione. She welcomed us in very warmly and after the opening prayer we could tell something was different. She was all aglow and happy and we found out that it was because she had read all the scriptures we left her and more! It was a miracle! We got to then have a beautiful lesson on repentance and the many blessings that come from it. She's making steps to coming back so we're happy! :D
We had a little time left in the night so we thought we would stop by Marisela. When she let us in we were surprised to see a small party with some ward members and friends. There was cake on the table and sparkling cider... It was her birthday. We had totally forgotten the day of and we totally crashed her party. It was a blast!! We had a lot of cake and it was great celebrating with her some :) She was really grateful that we came by :)
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| Marisela's birthday. Yeah the flash made me look really white next to Elder Barreiro and Marisela haha :) |
Thursday the 17th:
We got to have dinner with the Vallejos family. I love food so much. Seriously she gave us a huge plate full of rice, meat and mixed veggies with black beans and sour cream. Delicious. But after the dinner we started talking about the Plan of Salvation with them including their non-member nephew Rolando. Right after we started talking Sr. Vallejos explained that this was something they had been talking about already this week. So then we got to answer Rolando's questions about the judgement and the three degrees of glory. It was awesome! Rolando felt like he understood things a lot better. It's definitely a perk when your companion can speak their native language :)
Friday the 18th:
Friday night we visited the Losier family. We gathered all the family together in their living room and started with a prayer. Then we gave Ethaniel (the father) a blessing since he has some health difficulties. The Spirit was very strong and afterwards I asked what he was feeling and he simply said that he felt the Holy Ghost. It was too perfect. So with that as our introduction to the lesson we started by following up on their questions about the redemption of the dead. Then began the torrent of questions and hypothetical situations. It was three young adults against me because it was a little over Elder Barreiro's head with French and all. It was pretty intense and they weren't really looking to get taught sadly. I tried to just stop it because we weren't getting anywhere with it but they wouldn't. I did my best to help them understand but it was to no avail. Finally Ethaniel put his hand up and stopped the raging storm. He then went on to give the most beautiful and inspired testimony of Christ. He testified that we are all here to speak primarily of Christ and what he did for us. He read from Romans 5 with that and it was just pure doctrine. I could tell that the Holy Ghost was really inspiring him to say everything. It was amazing! Then he shifted over to the Book of Mormon and testified that Joseph Smith was a servant of God like Abraham and Jacob and that the Book of Mormon was the Word of God. Wow. It was amazing. Then we finished out by watching the Alléluia video and the Spirit was so strong! It was awesome! :D
It was a great learning experience but we came out the better in all aspects :)
Saturday the 19th:
That afternoon we passed by Celine but she wasn't home. Instead we got to teach Helene, Celine's sister. The only problem, she only speaks Creole. So after saying an opening prayer with her we ran out to the car and grabbed some Creole pamphlets and we prayed for the gift of tongues. But then we taught her a mix of the first three lessons from some pamphlets. It was incredible. I spoke in broken Creole at moments and she understood. She would even speak Creole and we understood a good amount of what she said and we got to ask questions and answer her questions too. It was so cool! We even invited her to be baptized after explaining the doctrine behind it in Creole. Now she's going to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. So cool :) The gift of tongues is real :)
In the evening we passed by a Haitian less-active member that we haven't been able to teach yet. When we arrived at the door it was easy to hear that a party was going on inside with thumping music haha :) But we rang the bell and knocked anyway :) Then a woman came out to talk to us and she was super happy to see us and started asking us questions about the meaning of life and everything. I was amazed at how easily scriptures came to mind to answer her questions. But she just opened up to us so much without us having to say too much and even though the music was super loud in the background we had a great experience with her and got a lesson set up with her for later :)
Sunday the 20th:
So I got to play piano in sacrament meeting for the second week in a row. I really do love it so much :) It's my way of sharing my talents :) Church is always a great experience though :) Also some members are starting to bring people to us to be taught so stay tuned til next week to see some great miracles :) Although there's a couple that the sister missionaries have been teaching that are going to be getting baptized soon. The only problem is that their testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon are a little shaky so we're not sure if they're going to pass their interview... But their baptism was announced multiple times in church. And who's doing their interview?... Me. No pressure. So I've been praying a lot that things will go well either way. But nothing like the first baptismal interview to be a trial of fire eh? It should be good though :)
But that night we had a miracle of synchronicity. We passed by the Bentancurs who got stuck with work again and after we rang the doorbell they drove up in the driveway. So we got to talk to them for a while and have a great conversation. It was great :)
So there's my week! The Lord is making things happen here! Time is slipping by and I'm running to make the best of it! :D
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| So the pocket on one of my shirts started coming off so I hastened the process... Made for a cool picture :) |
I love you all so much!
Take care! Fresh courage take!
Love,
Elder Brooks :)
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