Dear Mom and everyone
else,
I feel like the
subject line sums up my entire week, but I know that many of you wouldn't be
happy campers if I just left it at that so I'll elaborate.
To start off, let's
just say that my new companion Hermana Broyles is the best! I can't even begin
to describe how blessed I feel to be her companion. Working with a brand new
missionary is definitely a new experience and so much has happened in the past
few days and I have learned so much. We have been SO busy this week but we have
seen so many miracles! I won't go into all of them because there's not enough
time, so here's a few examples:
Wednesday right
before we were about to head to dinner, we said hello to a man walking by and
he stopped and asked if we had any pamphlets. The only English one I had in my
purse at the moment was the Plan of Salvation, so we pulled it out and began
talking to him. As it turns out, he has been studying about God and Jesus
Christ and he has questions and he wants to learn more about them and change
his life. He has a young boy and another child on the way and he wants his
family to have religion in their life and he wants to surround himself with
better influences. He told us which apartment was his and said we could stop by
another time to talk. We stopped by on Friday and he wasn't there, but we left him a
pass-a-long card and our number. When Sunday came, we decided to stop by his apartment on
our way to church just to invite him, but there was no answer again. Then,
during church we received a text from him apologizing for not answering the
door because he just woke up and that he said "he'll be ready to join the
church next
Sunday." We set up an
appointment to meet with him Tuesday and it's going to be great. He does speak Spanish too we found
out and it sounds like he wants to attend the Spanish branch. Milagros! It's
not always that people approach you instead of you approaching them and asking
if they want to learn more.
Another neat
experience happened on Sunday too, which was one of the busiest and craziest days yet but one
of the best. At we were walking up to the man's apartment to invite him, we got
a call from the first counselor in the branch presidency saying that there was
a mistake on the program and they needed speakers and they wanted me to fill in
one of the spaces. Keep in mind this is right before church starts. Luckily
sacrament meeting was last so I had a minute to think, but Sunday School and Relief Society were so busy and so
fast that all of the sudden it was time. Then we walked into the chapel and we
had to find some people to ask some questions and everyone was running late (or
simply running on normal hispanic time) and we needed to hurry to get up there
to take our seats (my companion was replacing me and the branch chorister) and
as we were walking up to the front we walked past a member talking to someone I
hadn't seen before but I didn't think too much about it until suddenly I had
the thought to tell them both good morning and my body immediately turned
around without even thinking, even though I needed to be walking forward and
not backward. As we talked to them, it turns out the visitor is a member who
just barely moved here from Mexico and was baptized within the last month or
so. He looked up the address and came to find out the time and didn't end up
staying for the meeting, but we got his phone number. When we texted him after
church and invited him to the activities this week too, he said he would love
to come and thanked us many times for being so kind to him today. And to think
that we almost walked right by him without stopping! It was one of those
moments where I knew afterward that the Spirit was guiding me and my companion.
Another spirit-guiding
moment: my companion and I were trying to do a few minutes of language study
before church so we were reading out loud together from the Book of Mormon when
I remembered that my first week in the branch they asked me to give a spiritual
thought in Relief Society and I realized they might do the same to my companion
and it might make her nervous because it's her first week. So I stopped reading
and asked if she wanted to prepare a thought just in case, so she did and
practiced sharing it with me. Then first thing that happened when we arrived at
the church is that they approached her and asked her to give the thought. And
she was prepared and didn't have to stress too much about it! The Spirit is so
merciful. I had also found something in my studies that morning that really
caused me to think about the Savior and how He ministered and taught one by one
and I was able to share that in my talk, which seemed to touch some people's
hearts.
I guess the moral of
the story is that we have been so busy and so blessed this week and have
definitely seen God's hand guiding us and providing for us. I think it's
because Hermana Broyles and I have such similar desires and we just want to
work hard and do what the Lord needs us to. We're not perfect and Hna Broyles
is much closer than me, but bit by bit we're making progress. Well, I hope you
all have wonderful weeks too! Lots of love!
~Hermana Burton
