hey all,
i hope you guys had a good week! i certainly did. we had 3 baptisms this last saturday and it was an absolute miracle. i dont even know where to start.. i guess i can start with these last changes. it was coming to the end of this last change and i was was thinking my companion would most likely be leaving and to be honest we were both ready for the change. i mean, we had been with each other since my first day in the field.. so, we got the list of who had changes and it turned out that neither my companion, O., or i had them. at that point we were super upset with each other and just the situation in general. we were both anticipating a change and it never came so we actually didnt say a word to each other the rest of that night. oh, and btw we found out about that all sunday night.
so on monday, we went to the internet to email and i was able to instant message Kylee for a lil bit. we were talking about our comps and i was complaining to her a bit about my companion. she just told me that i was with my companion for another change because Heavenly Father still had something to teach us, myself and Elder O. after Kylee mentioned that and a couple more things, i realized she was right and that i needed to be more patient with my situation. later that day, we had district meeting and we were having a discussion about making and keeping commitments with our investigators. then, our district leader brought up an experience we had with an investigator. the investigator he was talking about was an investigator who is in our area because his area was ours a couple changes before i came. anyways he was talking about a hermana names angelica a. she is the wife of the 1st counselor in our ward bishopric. her husband was baptized 6 years ago and is one of the srongest members i have seen here but hna a. just couldnt accept to be baptized then. her reason for not wanting to be baptized was basically because she didnt feel ready.
hno and hna a. have 2 daughters named a. and a. ages 10 and 11. the whole family of 4 are super strong in the church and go every sunday and to all he activites but hna a. nor her daughters
are actually members. missionaries call these type of people eternal investigators because no matter how many times you go to their house or what you say they still cant pull the trigger to accept the baptismal invitation. so, for 6 years, every set of missionary that has been in there area, my area, has been to there house trying to get them to accept baptism. 6 years and nothing! we had already been with her once and we ended up staying with her 2 and a half hours that time and she said no, im not ready yet.
so, to bring you back to the district meeting when our district leader was talking about her, my comp whispered to me, hey, we are going to go with hna a. again. when i heard that, i was thinking to myself, ´great.. we are going to go with her and waste 2 hours to get nothing accompished except frustration from her not accepting our invitation to be baptized.´´but i said ok, fine, lets do it.
just a fyi, we have every lunch meal with members every day so they take turn feeding us. so, the next day, which was tuesday, we opened our agendas up to plan for the day and we saw who we ate with. familia a! so, we planned to have a lesson with them after lunch since we would already be there. after lunch that day, we asked them if we could and they agreed. so after the opening prayer, we asked what we normally do.. how are you? hows it going with the family? etc. hna a. then replied, not very good.. i made a terrible mistake.. and then she looked over at her husband
and said, should i talk to them about it? her husband nodded and then took the two daughters outside for a walk. hna a. then preceded to tell us that she had (made some mistakes in her life). ... she was sobbing, said, i just feel terrible and i dont ever think this feeling is going to go away. then, we shared with her about the process of repentance. we explained that all of these terrible feelings she was feeling were part of her own repentance process. we then went on to explain with scriptures and our own experiences about repentance, and baptism by immersion. we explained that she could become clean again through baptism.
now, in this moment, i was thinking about what i could tell her and i kid you not, everything thought or impression i had in my mind, my companion said himself. i felt the spirit of the Holy Ghost stronger than ever in those moments. and i knew everybody else could feel it too in that room because we were all crying. so at the end of our discussion, we asked her to be baptized on
the coming saturday, and before my companion could finish the commitment, she shouted, yes! now, i want you to remember that for 6 years, elders have been trying to get her baptized but each time the commitment was asked she said, no. the difference between those times and our time was that it was in Heavenly Fathers time not ours. so, her and her 2 daughters were baptized
this last saturday by the father and almost the whole ward came to the baptism because everyone was amazed at what had happened. Hna a. was being baptized!
after that lesson when we committed hna a. to be baptized, my companion and i were talking about what had just happened and how it came to be such a great miracle. we both understood why we were supposed to be together for another 6 weeks. it was because of her. everytime a companionship changes, the one who has more time in the area leaves especially when its the younger ones first area. if we would have had changes, O. would have left and i know i wouldnt have taught her a lesson after that lunch that day because i honestly thought it was a waste of time. so many better missionaries than me have tried so many times and failed. what could i have done.. the next part of this miracle was that we didnt have to track her down to set up an appoinment to teach. the day after my companion told me that we needed to visit her again, we had lunch scheduled with her! the next part was that evrything that i couldve said, my comp said exactly and visa versa. Heavenly Father wanted her to hear specific words and phrases and we were just the mouth pieces for him. the final thing was that once my companion scheduled the baptism for her which was on saturday the 20th and she said yes, we asked hermano a. if he had work that day and of course he didnt. he is a police officer with a super busy schedule but that day was his one day in the week.
so, my companion and i were lucky enough to be part of something miraculous. we were able to see with our own eyes how when our Heavenly Father wants something to happen, it happenens no matter what. After 6 years, Heavenly Father said it was time for her to be baptized an she was baptized within 4 days along with her two daughters. this is why i absolutely love the mission. its so easy to see the miracles of God when you do nothing put serve him all the time. im so blessed to be here and i cannot wait to see the next miracle our Heavenly Father sends me.
i hope all of this made sense for you. i kind of wrote it in a hurry but you get the gist of it. i love you all so much and thanks for reading this email. Merry Christmas!!!
Elder Anderson
C
Corson Anderson
On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Corson Anderson <corson.anderson@myldsmail.net> wrote: > > hey all, > > i hope you guys had a good week! i certainly did. we had 3 baptisms this last saturday and it was an absolute miracle. i ...
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