Monday, January 20, 2014

It all started with a pass-along card...

Hey y'all!

We've had some pretty awesome miracles this week!  First of all, I don't know if ya'll remember me telling you about Brother Rackleff randomly stopping at the gas station to give out a pass along card while they were dropping us off for the evening... well, if you don't remember, that happened. So, fast forward a few days... Wednesday we get a text referral from Church headquarters, with a name, phone number, address, and the offer was a Book of Mormon, via pass-along card.  When we look up the address, it turns out that it's that same gas station!  What are the chances of that?!  Througout the rest of the week we tried to contact him by going to the gas station and by calling the number.  No one ever answered the phone, and we found someone at the gas station that told us that the guy we were looking for didn't work there.  So we thought it was a dead end.  Still a cool story, but a dead end.  Fast forward another couple of days... we shared the story (leaving out the dead end part) in relief society, and Sister Rackleff told us that we should come over that evening to share the story with her husband.  So we did, and finished the story, telling him that it was unfortunately a dead end.  Well, evidently Brother Rackleff had a bit more faith than us.  He'd just gotten home from a trip to Utah for work where he'd had some awesome missionary opportunities, and he was still on a spiritual high, so on the way home, he decided to stop at the gas station again.  This time, we all went in, and - the same guy that Brother Rackleff had given the pass-along card to was working!  We were able to give him the book of mormon that he requested.  He's not interested in taking the missionary lessons, but he said he would read the book and give us a call if he had any questions.  When we got back in the car, both Sister Goodrich and I were trying to contain our excitement.  It's so amazing how everything worked out!  The Lord had His hand in it all - it wouldn't have worked any other way.  So, there's the story.  Pass-along cards do work. :)

Another miracle: we were able to teach Robert this week!  He's our investigator who's been coming to church but didn't want to take the lessons just yet, but last week he decided that he was ready.  So Thursday morning, while we were at a relief society activity helping prepare quilts for the interfaith quilting bee that's coming up, we got a text from Brother McLane, Robert's fellowshipper, asking if we could teach Robert that night.  We already had some plans with a part member family, but we rescheduled some things and ended up canceling our dinner appointment so we could be there. (don't worry, we still ate dinner.)  After our lesson with the Andersons that evening, we went over to the McLanes and taught Robert and his less-active girlfriend the restoration.  Turns out - he already knows it due to all the study that he's done on his own, and he already had a testimony of Joseph Smith.  And when we invited him to be baptized he said yes!  We haven't set a date yet - when we asked him, he said no later than a year from now... We told him he could be ready by February.  I think he thinks he has to know it all before he commits, but he said he'd pray about it and let us know.  We'll hopefully get to teach him sometime this week and follow up.  He is SO prepared - I'm excited to teach him more.

Rewind a bit to our lesson with the Andersons - they are a part memeber family - Brother Anderson was excomunicated a while back, but no one in the ward knows because he comes to church every week with his family and still has a strong testimony.  He asked us to visit and teach a spiritual lesson each week, to help him keep the spirit in their home and hopefullh help him get on the track to being re-baptized.  When we were trying to prepare the lesson, we were at a loss for what to teach.  We prayed, seeking inspiration, and eventually we decided that we needed to teach about the Atonement, specifically focusing on its healing power.  So we prepared the lesson, and Sister Goodrich said something like "we should find a good song to share."  I'm sure that comment was inspired, becasue as soon as she said it, a song from my iPod, not one of my favorites or anything, just somethign I'd heard a few times before when my iPod was on shuffle, came to my mind.  We listened to it, and both of us ended up in tears.  The song is called "Let Him Heal Your Heart" and I would strongly encourage all of you who are able to listen to it.  It is amazing.  We shared the song at the end of our lesson, and ended up having an awesome discussion about the Atonement afterward, where everyone in the family participated.  It was awesome, and the spirit there was SO strong.  I am so grateful for the Atonement and how it helps me every day!

Well, there are my awesome stories for this week.  I hope this week continues on the same track!  I love y'all so much!  Thanks for everything!  Have a great week!

Sister Ririe


Alma 32:27

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