Georgia Blows My Mind

January 20, 2014

Hey ya'll! ("Ya'll" is not slipping easily into my vocabulary, so I'm forcing myself to practice ;).

Georgia blows my mind with this weather we're having! Today it's in the upper sixties and feels like summer outside. Last week and later this week it'll be down in the 30's. Utah loses the most bipolar weather award; send the trophy on down to Georgia.

Sister Mellott and I had a wonderful week! Most of our appointments fell through, but we did a lot of tracting, found some interested people, and have several appointments lined up for this week. Hopefully they come through and we'll have some stellar teaching experiences. :) 

I've seen and I love how God puts us where we are for a reason. Music came in handy this week. We were talking to an asian man at his door and he wasn't very interested, but I saw a piano behind him in the entryway (their first mistake ;)). I enthusiastically complimented the baby grand and asked who played, to which he mentioned his 12 year old daughter. He ended up inviting us in to hear her play. 

She played a beautiful Beethoven sonata on the Steinway grand in the adjacent room, which I enjoyed listening to very much. She really played quite well. They invited me to play, so I warmed up my fingers and then played an arrangement of Lead Kindly Light. For having cold hands, long fingernails, and being out of practice, God helped me and I was able to play a nice arrangement that brought the Spirit. We were then able to share the basic message of the Restoration and a Book of Mormon with them. The daughter, Emily, seemed very interested. Hopefully we will have opportunities to teach them in the coming weeks! I'm grateful that music opened a door that wouldn't have opened otherwise. 

Another good tracting experience happened yesterday while we were knocking doors before church in a pretty affluent area. An asian man in his early thirties wearing pajamas invited us in from the cold. His name is Danny. We found that he had no religious background whatsoever, which makes sense since he's from China and has only been here a few years. He had no idea what prayer was, and the idea of God or spirituality had never crossed his mind. He was a blank slate as far as spiritual knowledge goes, and we started from square uno. 

We simply taught that God is our loving Heavenly Father and we can talk to Him through prayer. Danny had the look; the searching, questioning look one gets when a light begins to flicker in their minds, as if reminding him of something he knew once (oh wait, he did know! :)). I've only seen it a few times, but he had it. He accepted the invitation to pray (after we reassured him that it is quite alright to pray in your pajamas), and it was a sweet experience to hear him pray. It went something like, "Hi, I'm Danny, I've been in US about two year, please help my family, thank you for these two ladies." He seemed pretty proud of himself. He accepted the commitment to pray every day and we should be meeting with him next week! It was so neat to teach on such a basic level to someone willing to listen. I loved it.

We had a new bishopric called yesterday! We're going from one fantastic bishopric to another. Sacrament Meeting went thirty minutes over-- there was a missionary homecoming, then both the new and former bishoprics and their wives bore their testimonies. It was a beautiful meeting-- all testimonies centered on Christ and the Atonement. 

It was also great because our investigator Victor came! He was very impressed with how friendly the ward was and he enjoyed the meeting. He felt the Spirit. He plans to come again in two weeks when he's off work, and he wants to meet with us in his home again this week. That was the first time I've had an investigator come to church that wasn't friends with members already! Please keep him in your prayers as he continues to investigate.

Jamie and Trey (the mom and eight year old) didn't come to church, and we haven't been able to get ahold of Vivian for weeks now. Please pray for them as well. 

One of my favorite scriptures this week is Alma 41:6-7. It says that if we repent and desire righteousness to the end of our days, we will be rewarded unto righteousness. It doesn't say we need to be perfect. In order to repent, there must be a need to repent, and in order to desire righteousness, we must have fallen short of righteousness in some way. Mom said it best in a letter-- while in mortality we cannot be perfect in our actions, only in our intentions. I encourage each of you to continually center your lives on Christ this week. :)

Much love!
Sister Taylor