Shirley Temple, Woodstock, And A Miracle; The Way Is Lit
June 16, 2014
Hey y'all,
If you want to take a shower without the effort, just come to Georgia in the summer and stand outside. It's either raining, or ridiculously humid, or both. You're welcome.
We had a successful week, but not in the ways we wanted or expected. Last week all our investigators dropped us, this week several return appointments and investigator lessons fell through, and we've struggled to find decent places to tract. (Houses are often scarce, sketchy, have no parking on the wooded roads, too far apart, too far away, or more wealthy than we'd like.) But you know what? We also got three referrals this week, some fabulous less active work done, and we're doing our best. It's like mail. Some of the big packages of success we wanted were sent standard mail, and the small packages of miracles got sent priority. We got lots of blessings envelopes, a couple miracle packages, and we're hoping to open some big whoppers soon. ;)
A big blessing this week was finding five new less-active families to work with! How we found the Beatty's was a miracle. We were tracting, but after only a door or two there was too much thunder, lightning, and rain to continue knocking doors. (*Note from 2018...Sister Alvey insisted we leave because she was paranoid we would be struck by lightning in this neighborhood...even though an hour earlier she had insisted we contact people in an open field park...? She's a quirky one!*) Sister Alvey said (or, commanded), "I'll drive, you be led by the Spirit and tell me where to go." So, I did my best, giving her lefts and rights. I felt like we needed to get to the main highway; lo and behold, the lefts and rights got us there. We saw a town-home complex across the way and felt good about it. We ended up at a less active family's home, pulled up at the same time as their family, and we have a return appointment this week.
(*Added details - more original text on this in the next letter*) They were such a sweet family and incredibly receptive to our message. The father of the family was incarcerated; and the mom, although a baptized member, admitted she'd mainly joined the church because her husband had been a member, and she had never been active. She knew quite little about the church and it's teachings. She was shy and a little reluctant about taking the lessons herself, but she said we could ask her eleven year old son if he was interested. We whipped out a visual aid lesson designed for kids and taught him one on one. At the end of the lesson, we asked him if he'd like to keep taking the lessons. He said yes! We hope to reactivate the mother and baptize her 11 year old son. :) We literally had a spiritual GPS guide us to their house!
(Note: My setting apart blessing by President Livingston said I would literally be guided to the homes of families prepared to hear our message; that the way before me would literally glow and that angels would whisper instruction in my ear. This experience, along with the day we found Victor in John's Creek, was undoubtedly one of those foretold blessings, fulfilled in the most literal of ways. The Lord can guide us in subtle and straightforward ways; I'm so grateful that the Lord chose to work through me to find this family ready to hear the gospel.)
(*Added details - more original text on this in the next letter*) They were such a sweet family and incredibly receptive to our message. The father of the family was incarcerated; and the mom, although a baptized member, admitted she'd mainly joined the church because her husband had been a member, and she had never been active. She knew quite little about the church and it's teachings. She was shy and a little reluctant about taking the lessons herself, but she said we could ask her eleven year old son if he was interested. We whipped out a visual aid lesson designed for kids and taught him one on one. At the end of the lesson, we asked him if he'd like to keep taking the lessons. He said yes! We hope to reactivate the mother and baptize her 11 year old son. :) We literally had a spiritual GPS guide us to their house!
(Note: My setting apart blessing by President Livingston said I would literally be guided to the homes of families prepared to hear our message; that the way before me would literally glow and that angels would whisper instruction in my ear. This experience, along with the day we found Victor in John's Creek, was undoubtedly one of those foretold blessings, fulfilled in the most literal of ways. The Lord can guide us in subtle and straightforward ways; I'm so grateful that the Lord chose to work through me to find this family ready to hear the gospel.)
So remember last week's poetic tale on the porch of an angry preacher? His wife, Tina, REFERRED HERSELF TO US ON MORMON.ORG. She requested a Book of Mormon, so we're going back! We haven't gotten ahold of her yet, but we plan on visiting her next-door neighbors first because we don't want a repeat of last week's theatrics. Both Sister Alvey and I felt the Spirit tell us to just go back, don't try to plan it out, just let the Spirit lead us (I thought of 1 Nephi 4:6 when Nephi enters Jerusalem by night, and is led by the Spirit to get the records from wicked king Laban). Looking forward to what happens with Tina!
My favorite miracle was Sunday morning. Saturday night we prayed for a solid investigator to fall into our lap on Sunday, because we'd done everything we could to find one and hadn't succeeded. Sunday morning, the bishop approached us and said a member's girlfriend, Brittney, had come to church several times, is ready to be taught, and wants to be baptized. HALLELOOYAH!!!! I'm working on exercising specific faith, because every time we've tried it this week, it's worked. We are being blessed.
God's sure teaching me bunches about faith and patience. (I did pray for patience...so...I asked for it.) Sunday night we went to a park to contact. It looked empty, except for some Latino men playing soccer on the other side, and a few small children I played soccer with for a minute (Latino kids are adorable). We walked around and found one or two people to contact. At one point, we sat on a bench and Sister Alvey said, "Let's just wait here till more people come to us." I didn't want to do that-- sitting around waiting for people to approach us sounded pretty ineffective to me. But I decided to be patient, try to have faith it would work, and try it. Sure enough, after a few minutes on the bench and more walking around, we ended up getting several contacts there, mostly in broken Spanish. Faith works!
We had exchanges this week, and I joined Sister Buhler in Woodstock! It was such a blessing to be reunited with my awesome trainer again! Most of our appointments fell through; but because of that we got to spend more time talking together while we knocked doors, which was a blessing. We reflected on the last several months and we've both grown a lot. I'm grateful we got to support each other and be companions again for a day.
I forgot to tell yall, I met Shirley Temple last week!! She's in her eighties, living alone in an adorable little old cottage in Waleska. Okay, maybe she's not the famous one, but she grew up at the same time and it was cute to find she had the same name. :)
We've got another hot and smoldering, but miraculous and fantastic week ahead of us. :)
Have a great week!
Sister Taylor