Hola Familia,
This last week was great! Sister Smith and I had a lot of success and some amazing lessons. I wish I had time to tell yall everything that happened this week..... but I don't so I will give the Peak and the Pit of the week :)Pit:
Probably the worst thing that happened this week was when we went to visit a family (the best family in our teaching pool) and we found out that we had reactivated their family to church, the Union Baptist Church haha.
We started teaching this family about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and things were going great with them. When we first met this family they told us that they both were raised Baptist, but they stopped going to the baptist church because they didn't agree with the teachings of the Preacher in the First Baptist Church. So we began teaching them the restoration and described to them the great apostasy and we helped them to understand the goodness of the faith that they were raised in, but that the Baptist Church does not contain the fullness of Jesus Christ's teachings and the Priesthood authority. They really enjoyed that lesson.
The next time we saw them we taught them the Plan of Salvation and they enjoyed that as well. So this last week we had an appointment set with them for Friday night and they cancelled Friday morning, because their daughter had come down with the flu. Sister Smith and I, knowing if we didn't see them Friday that it would be two weeks total that we would not be able to teach them. WE decided that even though they cancelled, we wanted to stop in and invite them to Church on Sunday and leave them with a commitment that they could do before next week. So we go to their home and the mom answered hesitantly, slightly shocked that we are there, but she invites us in. We talk with her for a minute and she seems so happy and we asked her how things have been going. She proceeded to tell us that they decided to go to church last week ( Sister Smith and I looked at each other thinking, did they slip in the back of the chapel without us knowing last week.)
Excited, I asked "how did you like it?" She said, " We loved it, we felt more welcomed then we have ever felt in a church. everyone said hi to us, and the preacher had a great message! When yall started teaching us about Jesus Christ we decided it was time for us to go back to church, the kids have been so interested in learning more about the scriptures and going to church." We replied that is great we are so happy that you liked church. She replied, " Oh us too, I have been wanting to visit the Union Baptist church for awhile now, and I am so glad that we did. But we still plan to come visit you church one of these days :)"
My heart just dropped when she said this. Sister Smith invited her to continue to read the Book of Mormon and to come to church with us tomorrow" then the mom said it was time for us to go. As Sister Smith and I walked down their driveway we felt so much disappointment and a slight amount of rage, saying comments like, " we should go collect our check tomorrow from the Baptist church for helping them reactivate their members."
Sister Smith and I have come to peace that we did fulfill part of our purpose to invite others to come unto Christ, haha. Obviously when we see them next time we have a little more expounding to do with the Restoration lesson. We find peace in knowing that God has a plan for this family and they are at least starting to act in faith by reading their scriptures and recognizing the importance of church attendance.Peak:
This week we started teaching a new lady named Sally Singles, and we taught her the Restoration Lesson and she started crying when Sister Smith said the first vision. Sally committed to being baptized !! It was great.
Love,There are a lot of details that i don't have time to write out in my email today, but just know that Sally Singles is a Miracle!!Sorry out of time, the Church is true and the book is blue!
Hermana Ayre
