Dear fam and friends...
There's another week! It went by so fast! And guess what it's Typhoon season! So it's been raining like crazy. So that's been fun! And cold and wet! But I'd rather be cold and wet than hot and sweaty. Huge blessing!
This week was seriously awesome. It started out good with an awesome Zone Training on Wednesday. Last week (so before zone training) something Sister Lykins and I decided we needed to focus more on was inviting people to church. People won't come if we're not even inviting! We can't just assume they would say no if we don't even ask! So we had made the decision do that with all of our investigators during the week. Then comes zone training, and what is the focus this month? Revelation through church attendance! So awesome. Our zone leaders, Elder Mumford and Elder Perry gave a great training. They gave me an added enthusiasm to invite people to church. They gave us the commitment of in our companionship to invite 5 people to church each week, either in lessons, or on the street, wherever it may be. At first I thought wow that sounds impossible.. 5 is a ton! Well within the next 2 days of the meeting, we had already invited 3 of our investigators, and a woman we met on the street. No one has accepted yet, but it has been such a miracle to be able to see myself applying the focus and striving to truly find people to come to church. It has been a miracle for me because I often struggle trying to apply focuses and improve.
Like I said, we invited everyone to church this week in our lessons. Leann is doing well. She is progressing in the sense that she is reading the book of mormon and keeps her commitments, but right know fear is really holding her back. After we invited her to church, she really expressed her concerns to us. Her husband is really against anything 'happening' with her and religion. He is okay with her meeting with us, as long as it doesn't go anywhere. She knows that if she honestly tries, with sincere desire when she reads and prays, she will get an answer. And that really scares her. She is holding back. She doesn't want to act. When she told us this, I wasn't quite sure what to say, because it really is a tough situation. I just promised her that if she acts, if she continues to try and understand the scriptures, pray about it, and come to church, she will find her answer, and everything will work our with her husband. She's not too convinced yet. She is worried about hurting us too. But she said she will continue to try. She's just not quite ready for church yet.. But we will keep inviting and keep trying!! We also saw a little bit of progress this week with Kim Kooee Young. She's been having a hard time understanding Jesus's role, and his atonement, so we have been really focusing on Him and His role with her. On tuesday we met with her and had a lesson centered on his life and atonement. We read some verses with her from the book of mormon about his atonement, and she really liked them. We asked her what she felt about them, and she said that she thinks Jesus is a very wonderful person. I asked her.."Do you believe that He really did this?" She said "...yeah!" But she doesn't quite understand why or how yet. She needs to feel Christ's personal love for her. We met with her again on Thursday and watched "The Lamb of God" together. We thought learning more about his life and seeing the images of his suffering would help and impact her. Well she really liked the movie! She still thinks Jesus is awesome! But it didn't change too much. We invited her to church and told her that by coming she could understand everything more. She said no.. She couldn't this week but said "maybe next week!" So.. even though she hasn't accepted the invitation for church yet, she is reading the book of mormon. She thinks its a good book.. but doesn't have a desire to know its true for herself. She says she's studying 'buddah book' right now so she doesn't have time for the book of mormon. We've been texting her every night to read for 5 minutes, and she has been. So progress is progress!
Also we got a couple new investigators this week! One is an english interest referal from one of our members. We only met with her for about 20 minutes and she can't start meeting regularly for a couple weeks because she'll be in Seoul so I don't know much about her yet.. The other is a woman we met on the street a couple weeks ago names Jong Sung Kyong. She is such a nice lady. She also has english interest.. but I think she's actually more gospel! Before meeting with us the first time she had already read a few chapters in the book of mormon.. and after our meeting she texted us saying that she thinks God wanted her to meet us. So I think that's pretty neat. :) I hope some good things happen with her!!!
Yesterday during personal study as I was reading about Ammon and Aaron, loving it and learning so much from it, I came to a realization. It is so easy for me to read the book of mormon and know that it is true because literally everything applies to me as a missionary. Every chapter I read applies to my feelings and experiences as a missionary, and I can learn how to teach and testify better from the examples I read about. It is so true for me! But how can I help a busy wife/mom with a husband and kids to take care of, who is already happy with their life find that the book of mormon is true for them? How can I help them find that same love and strength I feel when I read it? I love our investigators, so so much. I want them to feel the same excitement I feel when I read this book. This is something I'll be thinking and praying about a lot more.. Speaking of that.. Yesterday we had a LONG day of knocking doors. Rejected all day. At the end of the day I was feeling thoroughly pooped and a bit discouraged.. wondering if what we do even matters. But then I remembered Aaron and his brothers. They went to every corner of the city, preaching the gospel, even when they were cast out, spit upon, rejected, hated and unwanted. It didn't stop them, so it shouldn't stop me. And actually I love it. I've had some of the best moments on my mission knocking doors. Scary, funny, super awesome experiences that I wouldn't change for anything.
I love this work. Until next week! xoxo
Sister Holmes
ํ์ค ์๋งค
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