Jan 6, 2013

It has been a truly miraculous week. We had a dinner appointment with an investigator- A- to share our message with her family. We were able to share the message of the Restoration and everybody- including the son who doesn't believe in God- committed to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. They all seem interested (to different levels) in finding out if our message really is true. They set another appointment for this coming Saturday, and they said it would be alright for us to continue stopping by throughout the week to see how they are doing, how their reading is, share a message, etc. We are so excited to continue teaching their family! 

We also had a fun experience with personal revelation yesterday! The night before during our nightly planning, I drew out a rough sketch of our area in Oxnard and we said a prayer and looked at the map and gave it some good thinking and chose 3 addresses based solely on what sounded good and what felt like it would be good. We weren't even sure if they were addresses so we decided that if the number didn't exist on that street, we would go knock on the next closest number. Then we decided when we would go and what we would try to share with them. At 6:00, we went to one of the houses and found that the number didn't exist- and the closest address was that of two potential investigators that we've been trying to work with lately! We knocked and we ended up finding A (who was referred to us after we met him under a different name...) and being able to set an appointment with him- a real firm "Aqui estoy esperando" commitment- and share a scripture from the Book of Mormon that he liked- and he committed to reading the pamphlet that we left him ("Para estar preparado manana" he said before we even asked him!) It was so neat!

R is another investigator that we've been trying to work with. She's had a lot of health problems and has been in the hospital and we hadn't heard from her in a while and we were concerned. But then we found her at home- much, much better. We were able to teach her and find out that she has been reading the Book of Mormon and the Restoration pamphlet that we gave her and she has an amazing testimony of the Restoration and she really wants to be baptized. This Saturday we have an appointment to teach her and arrange for her to come to church and set her with a baptismal date- she will know more then about her health. 

Hermana Player and I have been using so much more Spanish since the special language training. We are striving for 'ni una palabra de ingles' but we forget a lot.

I was reading something about grace-given gifts this morning in Romans and I liked it a lot. It talked about gifts of prophecy, ministration, teaching, giving, ruling, and showing mercy. Most of them didn't really seem to apply to me (or to be things that I have) but I sat there thinking, "I think I could work on having/developing the gift of giving and showing mercy."

I love you all lots! Grace and peace be upon you. ;)

Hermana Hardy