We witnessed a couple of bigger miracles this week, and far too many small miracles to count. The first big miracle happened to Elder G and myself while we were on exchanges earlier this week. We were on exchanges Tuesday, and despite our best efforts seemed to be having very little success, early on in the day we did a considerable amount of Personal Finding and only met a few people who were polite enough to talk to us for even the shortest amount of time, the vast majority were severely disinterested. We tried dropping by several potential/former investigators, all of whom were not home. However we were able to have a wonderful dinner appointment with a member family, we shared a message and committed them to invite their neighbor (who we had met earlier, and given a box of doughnuts to. Different story.) to come watch a session of Conference with them. After dinner we tried contacting some referrals that we had received from members of the Ward, but were unable to get in contact with them. It was getting fairly late in the evening and I was pretty disappointed. Elder G is such a good missionary (he's from Japan and is serving an English speaking mission in BC. Also he served for a transfer with Elder M [who was in my MTC district] in California), and we had worked very hard all day and had seen little or no positive reception of our message from nonmembers, and no one had even said that we could come back. So having a few minutes before we needed to return to the apartment we decided to do some work on the other end of one of the same streets that we had been working on earlier in the day. It was pretty late (8:30ish) and many of the houses were completely dark so we decided to knock only on those houses with lights on (nobody is happy to be woken up just after they have gone to bed, no matter how good the news is). We knocked on a handful of houses and only 2 or 3 people even bothered to come to the door. Finally we decided it was time to be heading back to the apartment, but we noticed that the house that we had parked in front of had its lights on as well, so we decided to try it. We knocked and a man answered. His name is D, and we talked for almost 40 minutes at his door. We talked about Prophets and the Priesthood, we talked about the Atonement and the Book of Mormon, and we talked about Temples and the Restoration. D has lots of questions about the Church and we tried to answer as many as we could, in a short amount of time, but we told him that to answer all of his questions would take a long time, so we asked if we could leave him with a prayer and come back a different time to share more about what we know. He said we could. We are going back this Wednesday. We didn't get back to our apartment until after 9:30, but that single event turned a rather disheartening day into a good experience, and I dare say - a Miracle.
Our second big miracle happened only yesterday(Sunday),
during planning Elder W had remembered a man named D that he had
spoken to at the door over a month ago. D had seemed really excited to talk to
the Missionaries and said that they could come back. However, they had not been
able to get in contact with him since, due mainly to his work schedule. But
Elder W felt like it would be a good idea for us to try back again. We went by
in the late afternoon and when we knocked on the door we were immediately
invited inside, we sat down and began to talk with D and less than 5 minutes
later his wife (A) and 2 children (twin 8 year old boys) arrived
home, they invited us to move to the living room and began to ask questions,
they asked questions about the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, and the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't think I have ever met anyone on my
mission that is a prepared to hear the gospel as they are. In answering their
questions it led us perfectly into teaching about the Restoration. As we taught
about the Restoration D and A began to answer their own questions. It was
amazing- a miracle to be sure! We talked a lot about the nature of the Godhead,
about our purpose in life, about the Gospel and Prophets, about the Priesthood
and Ordinances. Before we could even offer them a copy of the Book of Mormon D
was trying to buy one from us. We told them that it was a gift, if they would
read it. They agreed. They invited us to stay for dinner. We agreed! ;) We
got to know them and their background even better, A shared some experiences
from her own life that have helped her to come to believe in Christ, and talked
about how since they have been in Canada they have been looking for a
church. D told us about an accident in which he had injured and
damaged his ankle and it was having a hard time healing. He asked if we could
give him a blessing. We did. The spirit was very strong. The words of that
blessing were certainly not our own. I know they were guided by the
Holy Ghost. After D's blessing A asked for a blessing as well for her
knee which has been bothering her. After A's blessing we said a prayer and
left. We will be going back before next Sunday.
Those are some HIGHLY abbreviated versions of what happened,
but I hope they convey the sheer awesomeness of the experience.
Sofie is going on a Mission!?!? But where? I’m guessing she must
be going to Washington or Alberta, (Aaron already has Alaska) and I'm guessing
Alberta. But she dreamt our Missions were combined? I doubt it. Missions
are going the other way Sista! Dividing, not combining, I could see a
third mission coming out of the two... maybe. But not being combined
into one. Can you give me a hint? Edmonton or Calgary?
What is "Prayer Tracting" you ask? It is a pathetic cop-out excuse for poor planning.
And even I, in all my awesomeness, am guilty of it sometimes. It’s when
you are too lazy to pick the streets you are going to tract in daily planning
the night before, so you just write "Prayer Tracting" on your planner
and figure it out when you come to it. The actual process involves praying over
a map or about a specific street to decide where to tract.
Love,
Elder Thomson
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