been religiously recording everything in my planner(I'm incredibly grateful
for our planners). This will be another pretty straight forward p-day - we
keep talking about visiting Brazos Bend (A gator park near-ish us that a
ward member would be willing to take us to) on one of our p-days but we
keep pushing it back and it probably won't happen until the end of the
transfer. We have a really awesome investigator named Tyrone who has a
baptism date set for March 19th. He's one of those investigators who was
really prepared to hear the gospel. He studied the bible a lot in his ~50
years of life and so every lesson that with him is always full of "duhs"
and "that's exactly what I thought." He also seems rather excited to set
the Temple as his next goal because he got a tour of temple square once and
he said it was beautiful and awesome.
But what is really amazing is that this Sunday we met with his wife who has
been really leery of meeting us because she grew up forced into church in a
Jehovah Witness household so she doesn't like organized religion so it was
basically a miracle that she agreed to have a lesson with us at all. But
the lesson went GREAT. I think what helped a lot is that we allowed her to
talk quite about the AA program and what it's done with her and how much
she believes in it for everyone. I then related the gospel and what we do
as missionaries to the AA program and what she does as one of the mentors.
I told her that just like her we had a program (the Gospel) that we know
works because we've seen it work in our lives to help make us happier and
all the challenges in our life easier to face. And so just like her we have
a faith and enthusiasm for it and want to share that same knowledge with
other people. She agreed to meet with us again for another lesson without
her husband present on Tuesday evening so she's an official and very SOLID
new investigator.
I'm finding that my trainer being a STL (sister training leader for those
of you reading this that don't know that acronym) makes this mission quite
a bit busier and has a few advantages as well. First of all, since she had
an MLC (mission leader conference) this past Friday she was able to pick up
any mail that I may have had sent to me via the mission office. Which
admittedly was just a letter from Kasee and Seth Bailey (which was a super
awesome letter and I need to send a response but what the heck family! How
is it that my first letter was from someone who isn't a family member. Step
up your game). And I got to go with her to a Stake Correlation Meeting on
Sunday.
OH MAN!!! That meeting was super good and uplifting. Plus, the stake
president let me and S.McCleery stay and eat pork nachos with them
afterword, which was truly a blessing because we didn't have a dinner
appointment and we had started our fast at 6 on Saturday and we hadn't
broken it yet and we had an appointment that was super close to the mission
presidents home and not having to go home for supper and drive back to the
appointment saved us a lot of miles. And the nachos were ridiculously
delicious; they were almost as good as the meeting itself.
So the meeting focused a lot on the stake's challenge to the members. Which
seems rather simple but it's getting as much implementation as something
this easy should be. It's to "make friends and when the time is right,
invite them." What we talked about is how a lot of us have forgotten how to
make friends and how easy it is. I wrote one note that I wanted to share
with you all; it might seem REALLY obvious but I feel that a lot of us
aren't doing it: "to make friends you have to be friendly." That's it. You
sit down with someone you've never sat next to at church and just talk to
them. You smile at people you pass as your grocery shopping in safeway. You
ask people how they're doing and legitimately want to hear their answer.
You need to make friends. And here's what will happen. As you develop those
strong friendships "gospel discussions will be a natural fruit of those
relationships." The stake president gave us three scriptures (D&C 14:9;
82:19; 88:67-68) and told us to write a statement from those three
scriptures.
Here's what I wrote "As we seek to help and love others in following the
example of Christ, we will be filled with light which is the light of
Christ." We talked about how people are naturally drawn to that light and
how they notice something different about us. And as they notice that,
they'll ask us about it and because we have a real and honest
friendship/relationship with them they'll listen sincerely to our answer.
Here's what else I added to this discussion yesterday from my studies this
morning: Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ..." To
be a good member missionary you just have to be yourself and a big part of
who you are is what you believe. So, let it show.
It's been pretty amazing that every time I think about how long I've been on the mission my thought is it's only been 2 weeks... wait?! it's already been two weeks. I can understand why everyone talks about their mission rushing by even if the day to day and week to week seems to last forever because you're always doing to so much.
In relief society last Sunday they showed a video of a horse race where a horse named "Far From Over" stumbled out of the gate and fell far behind but eventually overtook every last horse and won first. It was rather inspiring for both a missionary and anyone else. That no matter our stumbles and losses and trials, our race is "Far From Over."
I love you all so much and I really feel myself growing in confidence,
happiness, and life on this mission.
Wishing you all the best,
Sister Gillespie
--
*Sister Gillespie*
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