Hey y'all!
I must say, this week has been pretty rough. Even though we've
had a surprisingly cool week for July in Houston, (not that that's a bad thing
;) ) we have had a slow week. Our only progressing investigator (Marilyn)
dropped us out of the blue this week - she called and said she'd have to cancel
our appointments for now. We think she might have somehow encountered
some anti- material. :( Hopefully she will remember the spirit she has felt and
let some future missionaries in. We've spent a lot of time tracting and
trying to find new investigators. We met with our Ward Mission Leader,
Brother Hepworth, on Saturday to catch him up on what had happened while he was
out of town for a few weeks and we told him that we'd been tracting, a LOT, and
not finding much success. Because, let's be honest, hardly anyone wants
to talk to two strangers in skirts dripping in sweat because they've already
said no to the pest control guy, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the vacuum
cleaner salesman already today. And I've been here for long enough that
I've almost knocked on every single door in the area. Anyway, we were
telling Brother Hepworth about it, and apparently he put a major plug in for member
missionary work in Priesthood yesterday, telling everyone to step up and do the
contacting so we can do the teaching. Hopefully things will start to get
better and we'll find more people to teach soon.
But, of course, there is plenty of good that comes along with the
bad. Sister Tann has been reactivated! And she's currently working
with the Bishop to get a current temple recommend. :) I got to play the
piano for the first time in a long time when the primary pianist woke up sick
yesterday and wasn't able to find a substitute. I'm pretty out of
practice... but it was fun to spend a couple of hours with the primary kids.
When the primary president introduced us as the substitute pianists we
heard a lot of them tell each other and their teachers "the missionary
girls are my friends!" Oh how I love little children. :)
Unfortunately Robert wasn't able to make it to church because of his work
schedule, but Melanie and her kids were there.
We had an awesome sacrament meeting - President and Sister Hinson
from the Houston Temple presidency came and spoke about the importance of
temples. I learned a LOT. They talked about hastening the work for
the dead, and how doing so will bless us more than we can imagine. One of
the things Sister Hinson said really struck me: "You can't keep covenants
that you don't remember." We are reminded of our baptismal covenants
each week as we take the sacrament, but in order to be reminded of the
covenants we make in the temple, we need to go to the temple! President
Hinson said that there are 15,000 endowed members of the church living in the
Houston temple district, and if every one of them were to go to the temple once
a month there would need to be 2 temples in Houston, both running at full
capacity. Crazy, right? It makes you really think about how much
we, especially those of us that live in Utah where there is a temple around
every corner, take them for granted and we don't go as much as we should.
Sister Hinson shared this quote from Elder Scott: "I have seen that
many times individuals have made great sacrifices to go to a distant temple.
But when a temple is built close by, within a short time, many do not
visit it regularly. I have a suggestion: When a temple is conveniently
nearby, small things may interrupt your plans to go to the temple. Set
specific goals, considering your circumstances, of when you can and will
participate in temple ordinances. Then do not allow anything to interfere
with that plan. This pattern will guarantee that those who live in the
shadow of a temple will be as blessed as are those who plan far ahead and make
a long trip to the temple." I hope y'all are taking advantage of the
temples that dot the earth and are going as much as you possibly can.
We had a few good lessons this week - one on Sunday evening with the
Madrid family (a less active/part member family) where we stressed the
importance of reading the Book of Mormon. Brother Madrid ended up sharing
his testimony with his daughter-in-law who is not a member. It was really
powerful, and the spirit was so strong. We also told them WHY we ask them
to do things - when we invite them to make commitments, we are inviting them to
come closer to Christ. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon every day,
and they agreed to do so. When we invited them to church this Sunday they
were a little more hesitant... none of them have been to church since Easter.
But we'll get them there eventually. :)
Another lesson was... interesting to say the least... I don't
remember if I told y'all about Cinnamon - she's a potential investigator that
we found a few weeks ago. We stopped by her house to follow up, and she
invited us in and then proceeded to explain that she had just come back from
visiting a counselor with her teenage boys - apparently the younger one is
suffering from low self esteem, partially because the older one picks on his
younger brother. So she explains all of this to us, in front of her sons,
and then asks if we have any suggestions from a religious standpoint. So
our plan for teaching the Restoration went out the window, and we taught about
how the worth of souls is great and how the home should be a safe place for
everyone and how our Savior knows each of us and what we're going through
personally. It was probably a bit scattered, but we had a good discussion
with them. So... impromptu counseling session with two teenage boys -
check. ;)
We also taught a guy in a gas station this week - that was fun.
He works there, and we stop in every once in a while to get a cold bottle
of water or use the restroom, so we see him all the time and he's always super
friendly. We happened to stop in at a good time this week where there
wasn't a whole lot of people coming and going so we decided to invite him to
learn more. We talked to him, and he told us how he's trying to get his
life turned around because he doesn't like what he has become. We were
able to testify of the power of the Atonement and teach him about the Book of
Mormon, using the pictures in the front. We told him about Christ coming
to the Americas and turned to that picture to show him how Christ had His hands
outstretched, inviting all to come to Him, and we told him that that's the
message of the Book of Mormon - it invites us all to come to Christ. The
Spirit was SO strong, and we could tell he felt it. We left a copy with
him and invited him to read, and invited him to church as well. Hopefully
he'll come. :) Oh, and when we asked for his name he told us "they
call me Ghost." So pray for Ghost this week. :)
That's all for the week - Memorial Springs is still great, and we're
looking forward to a week full of miracles after all our hard work from the
past week. :) I love y'all so much and hope you have a great week!
Sister Ririe
Isaiah 53
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