Dear....
All Y'all,
Feliz dia
de Amor y Amistad!! (Happy day of love and friendship!!)
Some love scriptures and a quote <3 <3 <3
2 Nephi 26:24 - "He doeth not anything save it be for
the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his
own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that
they shall not partake of his salvation."
1 Nephi 11:17 - "And I said unto him: I know that he
loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all
things."
"We may never understand nor comprehend in
mortality how He accomplished what He did, but we must not
fail to understand why He did what He did. Everything He did was prompted by His
unselfish, infinite love for us." -Ezra Taft Benson, Oct. 1983 "Jesus
Christ: Our Savior and Redeemer"
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends." John 13:15
2 awesome experiences this week!!
1. I had an investigator come to church for the first time.
His name is A., and he's from Iran. We only had a short lesson outside his
home with an English sister in our branch where we discussed briefly the Book
of Mormon and he in turn told us about his beliefs as a Muslim and about their
scriptures. He accidently went to the wrong church at first (there are 3 within
a quarter mile or less on Sparkman, namely ours, St. Luke's and Baptist church)
but we made it in time for the sacrament. He seemed to enjoy it. We introduced
him to the Sparkman Elders (Power and Stuart) and they got his number so now
they can get involved in teaching him. We were in the overflow and there weren't
any hymn books, but it turned out to be a tender mercy because one of the hymns
was "If you could Hie to Kolob" and the other was "O My
Father" - awesome songs, but a little bit too much deep doctrine for a new
investigator. Luckily he speaks Arabic, Farsi, and Persian much better than
English sooooo I don't think he was paying close attention to the lyrics.
2. Our ex-Christian, currently Atheist investigator, T.,
brought the Plan of Salvation pamphlet with him to soccer on Friday night and
it was completely marked up with questions about the pre-existence, the Fall,
the Atonement, and the Afterlife, - not "I
disagree"/bashing/extremely deep doctrine questions (for the most part);
just sincere "I want to learn more" type of questions. MADE MY WEEK.
We have a lot of hope for him- he just needs to pray and feel the Spirit again.
He used to be super religious but he changed his mind because of very difficult
trial in his life, so because he felt that God had abandoned him, he abandoned
his belief in God. I've been focusing a lot of my personal study on the Plan of
Salvation so that I can explain it to him in the way that will best help him.
3. Bonus experience thanks to Hermana Portilla. We
had been trying repeatedly to contact a referral that we got about 2 weeks ago
from the Huntsville Elders- a Spanish woman named "Maria". However,
we tried and tried and tried (both with Acosta and Portilla) to no avail, so
Sister Portilla said "Obviously there's someone over here we need to meet;
that's why we're here and she's not answering." We walked across the
street and then we met M. K., an ex-investigator from Kenya. We got to
clarify the relationship of "Blacks" and the church and the
center focus of the Church being Christ rather than Peter because of the
scripture in Matthew 16: 13-18- that the "rock" that Christ was
referring to was that He is "the Christ, the Son of the living God"
(as Peter had stated) and not that Peter was ...Peter. We went on to explain
that Peter was an amazing disciple and diligent apostle who had the authority
of God, but Christ suffered for our sins, was the perfect example, and
established the true church of Christ ....not Peter. So, our center is Christ, not Peter.
#Helaman5:12
1. How long has Sister Portilla been serving in
Alabama? ---A little over a year, she goes home in June
2. What have you learned from Sister Portilla
about missionary work over the past couple of weeks? ---Give your all and have
the Spirit or else it's useless and you should just go home xD
3. Have you tried asking less-active families to
allow you to “practice” teaching missionary discussions with them? ---We found
a 'new' LA that we might do that with (he's Spanish), but usually we share
messages for them more than practicing the same, set missionary discussions.
Roses are Red,
The Book of Mormon is blue
Christ isn't dead
His lives just for you!!
~Hermana Martin II
Hna. Portilla, Laurel, Hna. Lopez,
Hna. Cruz, Hna. Santos, Hna. Mitchell
Laurel with Hna. Mitchell
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