Elder Jenks and I have been doing LOTS of contacts this week, really just looking for a new teaching pool. The people we are teaching in this moment are reaching a stagnant point, and so we are in a slow time (when it comes to progressing investigators). We have found a couple new people this week, we´re hoping to actually be able to find them again and not lose contact. That happens pretty often, great contacts that just disappear off the face of the earth. But that´s alright!
Yesterday, we were contacting a street that we both contacted when I first got to the sector, the first time we didn´t find anybody who wanted anything to do with us. The streets in that area are all cut in half by a main road going up the middle of them, and we normally contact the half-streets on one side of the road and then in another moment we contact the other side. Yesterday, we had finished contacted a half street, and both felt like we should go try the same street on the other side. As every story always unfolds in the mission, at the LAST house we contacted on this other street, a woman came out and immediately started talking to us about issues that she was experiencing in her life. We came to learn that her name was Patricia, that she has been without work since February, and that she doesn´t know where else to look for work. She lives with her 15 year old daughter, Liz, and the two of them live right next to Patricia´s parents. After telling us all this without prompting, she invited us to come in and share what we had to share. Sweet! So in Elder Jenks and I went.
sidenote- On my mission I have learned a ton about following the spirit. I've learned that the best questions are the questions I ask that I don´t even know the answer to. It´s kind of fun, really tests to see if The Spirit is going to help me find the answer...haha. I´ve learned here that if The Spirit tells me to do something, it´s for a reason that He told me to do it. Even if I don´t see the result, or if it seems to bring forth a bad fruit, if I follow The Spirit, I feel pretty alright with it going to a train wreck. It feels better to follow the Spirit and crash than it does to "succeed" but ignore a prompting that came. Definitely.
Back to the story.
As we entered the house, Patricia turned off the TV, called Liz to come down, and they both sat down and started asking questions about us. We took advantage of the opportunity to establish our purpose as missionaries and the base of what we teach, Jesus Christ and His Atonement, and asked them what their expectations were of us. Liz wanted to know if God really existed and if their was a purpose to this life; Patricia wanted to know if God existed and what she needed to do to somehow find work and be able to provide for herself and her daughter. We then offered a prayer and taught The Message of The Restoration, like normal, and The Spirit in the room was strong and present. When we reached the point to teach about The First Vision, I felt prompted to have Liz read the account out of JSH, which includes the part about The Adversary and the binding of Joseph´s tongue. Normally we kind of just jump to "I saw a pillar of light", but for some reason we decided to share the full version with these 2. Afterwards, we taught about the role of The Book of Mormon and explained what it was, and then afterwards, we asked again if they were any questions about what we had taught. They both seemed to understand really well, Patricia mentioned that all these things seemed to be true to her, and began to share a sacred spiritual experience she had when she was 15 years old.
In the middle of her story, up drives ex-husband Adam, the loud music coming from his car turned off as he stopped the car to come inside. Elder Jenks and I both noted the Spirit leave the instant he walked in, and he started to talk to us about....well, honestly, about a bunch of nonsense. We just listened to him talk, then closed with a kneeling prayer, and left the house, both pretty bummed that Adam seemingly ruined a perfect lesson, and I felt a little afraid what he was going to say to Patricia and Liz about our religion, nervous that he might convince them to deny The Spirit and truthfulness they had admitted of the message we shared. We prayed for the 2 of them that night, and here we are today! Trusting that the will of The Lord will be done, hoping that they were able to recognize the Spirit that left when Adam came in. I feel grateful that we decided to share the full account of the First Vision, hoping that they recognize the Adversary´s constant attack against truth and light, and can realize that whatever they experienced or heard after we left is just darkness trying to push out light.
That may sound judgemental, but never before has a room been so obviously filled with the Spirit, and in a moment so obvsiouly void of that same Spirit. Elder Jenks felt the same thing. Keep Patricia and Liz in your prayers this week, we´re going to go back and visit them tomorrow! I hope that I, too, can be able to recognize the difference between light and darkness in my life, and that I can choose to trust and stay in the light. Jesus Christ is the light and life of the world, and if I am looking for Him, I will know what is and isn´t light.
Chaoitoooooo!!!
-Elder Hixon
