So the same day I got reunited with Elder Gastelum after several months of other companions, we went and picked up all the brand new missionaries, which is a blast. After we had gathered them all and were taking them out to the vehicles (which were a truck and a van), they asked if we had gotten them a limo, and we jokingly said, "Yeah, we have a white one and a black one!" Then we walked out the doors to see parked right in front of us a white limo and a black limo, only to walk past them to the slightly less glamorous twelve-passenger van.
This week we showed up to our Spanish branch, and at eight minutes until the start time, the branch president came out and said, "Elders! You're just in time! You'll be speaking today! Make it about 10 minutes long." That was definitely the least preparation I have had for a talk before.
We listened to a devotional from the former executive director of the mission department, and he shared some incredible statistics about the hastening of the work in the pandemic. For example, he talked about in seminary as a kid filling out pedigree charts with a pencil and paper and thinking, "How on earth are we ever going to perform baptisms for everyone who has ever lived?" Now, we have family search, which has 1,000,000 new names added every day. Also, not too long ago, no missionaries had smart phones. As of January, 2020, all missions were approved to have smart phones. I guess my generation of missionaries could be one of the very last technology-free eras of missionaries ever. Times change and the clock ticks.
Another thing my companion mentioned that I liked a lot was that one thing a mission teaches you is how to be comfortable being uncomfortable all the time. All day every day you just try to talk to as many strangers as possible, even when it is awkward. You don't take breaks, and then to add to that, every couple of weeks you get a phone call that tells you which stranger you will live with in whichever place you have never been to. And then, that just becomes normal!
We have had some miracles lately. A couple weeks ago, we were out walking in a neighborhood, and we saw a woman walking into her garage, we said hello and started talking, and she told us she was already a member of the church! It is kind of funny when you go out to contact people and you contact church members. But anyway, we got her phone number and later texted to say hi. In her first text she asked if we are allowed to come and eat dinner during COVID and invited us to visit her family. It turned out that she was the only member of the church in her family, but they fed us a great dinner and invited us to come back and share another message again! It was cool that this lady who has not gone to church for years still wanted to feed the missionaries. She told us, "If you ever don't have anything to eat, let me know, because I always have a lot!"
There was another lady I taught about 6 months ago who then lost contact with the missionaries who reached out on Facebook out of the blue and said, "How's it going? I know it's been a while, but I wanted to Bible study again. Learn new things like how to pray." She told us how she had been trying on her own, but just felt lost and wanted to meet up again!
There was another lady we helped move about a month ago. We texted her right after to see if she would be interested in doing a scripture stuy sometime, and she never responded . . . until now! It took her a month to respond, but she said yes and said she was grateful God put us in her life.
We also visited a member who lived in the penthouse of a 20-story building. It was super fancy, and he had pictures he showed us with about half a dozen US Presidents and another several pictures with prophets. He served his mission in Berlin when the Berlin wall was up!
In a final series of exciting events, we called someone who had been invited to be baptized and said yes, but then lost contact with us. The date she had originally been invited for was just two days away. We called her and she opened up a lot about some incredibly difficult family situations she has gone through. We then turned to the scriptures and read about Christ's suffering and Atonement and how he could help her. We then read the next verse, which talks about how we can access that power and show we are willing to follow Him by repenting and being baptized -- and the phone call ended. We thought, "Oh no! Did she get mad and hang up on us?" But we called back and it was just an accident. She jumped right in and said, "Oh yeah, so baptism! That is coming up this Saturday, right?" We hadn't been able to talk to her for weeks, but she still remembered! While she wasn't ready to be baptized this weekend, we invited her to prepare to be baptized on a date just a little farther out, and she said yes! First time I have invited someone to be baptized on the phone. We still had never met her in person, but we finally did the next day -- at a baptism we invited her to attend! The person being baptized was actually a little girl whose family was being reactivated that I helped teach. The lady we were teaching came to the baptism and loved it. She was introducing herself to everyone and is super excited for her own baptism. When we gave her the address for the baptism, she actually arrived several hours early to make sure she knew where it was and checked out the building before anyone was there. Then she went home and came back again for the baptism.
There is one last family we are teaching where the mom is a member, but the husband is not. They have a daughter who is 10 and not yet baptized. It has been so cool to see the mom start to come back to church with her daughter. Last week we had a lesson with them and our ward mission leader's family because he has a daughter the same age. After the lesson, both the girls went to play with our ward mission leader's rabbits, which he has 17 of and always tries to convince us to adopt. Then, this week we had a lesson with them and members and missionaries from the ward they are assigned to, where we talked about the Plan of Salvation. We and the other missionaries invited them to help the daughter prepare for baptism. The daughter was so excited and looked at her mom, who said, "It is up to you!" She readily agreed, and right there we calendared out all the days and times for all the visits she'd need before her baptism. They had made us tacos to take home. Such a great family.
Anyway, the field is white! You don't have to look very far for someone who needs some help.
'Til we meet,
Elder Harris
No comments:
Post a Comment