Sister Funk found a little hitchhiker on her bike. :)
Hey y'all!
Alright, this week has been packed full of miracles - I'm not sure
how Sister Funk and I were able to have the time to witness all of them.
Seriously - we're exhausted because of everything amazing that has been
happening - it's amazing. The Lord works in mysterious ways, but it's
always for the benefit of his children!
1- I finally was able to meet Grisel this week - she's a less active
and her husband Carlos is one of our investigators, but I still haven't been
able to meet him. They've been crazy busy - Grisel has been going to
massage therapy school and was studying for her final exam when we stopped in
to see her on Tuesday. But she still let us in and we were able to talk
with her and share a message. And we found out on Friday that she had
passed! See what happens when you let the missionaries in? Your
whole life is blessed. :) Now she just needs to finish her practice hours
(which are all on the weekends, unfortunately) and then she will be able to
come to church!
2- We met a guy named Joe this week while tracting and got into a
long grace vs works discussion with him. We were able to keep it from
becoming an argument, thankfully. And then Sister Funk pulled it all
together by saying at the end of the conversation, "We actually have a
lesson that we teach as missionaries that goes over everything that we've been
talking about today. Would we be able to come over sometime next week and
teach it to you and your family?" He said yes! So we'll be
going to teach him and his family the Plan of Salvation later this week. :)
3- Remember how we prayed and fasted for Honorio to let go of pride
and be humble? Well... the Lord answered our prayer... he lost his job.
:/ Yeah... we still feel kind of bad about that one... but the Lord knows
what he is doing. I wish Honorio would just CHOOSE to be humble - but I
guess he's more of the compelled to be humble type. We're hoping it
works!
4- We had the most amazing Zone Conference ever this week!
President Mortensen gave a training on becoming master teachers through
asking inspired questions - it's definitely something that he has felt is
important to focus on. And I can see why - asking questions and getting
those we are teaching involved is definitely a better way to teach. The
theory behind it is the same as the theory behind Socratic Discussion -
basically that everyone has the truth within them. So we're focusing on
asking questions that will bring the truth out of our investigator
instead of simply presenting the information. We spent an hour and a half
role-playing the restoration lesson - one companionship teaching for 10
minutes, then 5 minutes of evaluation, then the other companionship teaches for
10, and so on. We ended up teaching the lesson twice so each lesson lasted
30 minutes minus the evaluation. We were able to help each other come up
with questions to ask investigators, questions that we could ask so the
investigators brought the truth out of themselves. It was amazing, and
Sister Funk and I have seen so many miracles come from us using this approach.
For example:
5- We taught a guy named Ryan - Sister Funk had tracted into him
before I got to the area, but then he left to work out of town... anyway, he's
back now. :) And we taught him the first lesson using this master-teacher
approach and as we would ask questions to help him think he would respond with
"oh, that's a good one - y'all are making me think!" He LOVED
our discussion, because we were helping him realize the truth for himself instead
of presenting information that doesn't mean anything to him yet.
Unfortunately he's YSA, so we'll transfer him over to those missionaries.
But he is SO prepared. :)
6- The master-teaching approach even works on 9-year-olds. I
don't know if I've told y'all about Collin, but he's the son of a less active.
We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and obviously we couldn't ask the
same questions that we would an adult, but with the Spirit we were able to come
up with other, more age appropriate questions that helped him get involved, and
I think he understood more than he has in the past. And the "with
the Spirit" part is key - I definitely would not be able to come up with
these questions/things to say on my own!
7- We tracted into a guy named Jim - turns out he's friends with a
member family in the ward. But we didn't know that when he first invited
us in... I must admit that because of situations I've been in before I thought
he was just letting us in to bash with us. But that was so far from true
- he was sincerely asking questions to find out what we believe, and we were
able to share the message of the restoration with him. He was so excited
to get his own copy of the Book of Mormon, especially when we told him that our
message is either true or it isn't, and he can find out for himself if he will
read and pray and ask God. It's amazing how the little associations that
members have with their friends can soften hearts!
8- Probably the biggest miracles of the week involve investigators
coming to church. First of all - Chris came this week - WITHOUT Melody
(she was sick). But he still came and stayed for all 3 hours and
absolutely LOVES church. He is so outgoing and friendly that he fits
right in. :)
9- And then... MAYRA AND JACOB CAME!!!! I can't remember if I told
y'all, but they dropped us right after I got to the area because all this
family and life craziness came up and they said they'd get back with us when
they were ready... And usually when investigators say that it really means that
they aren't planning on seeing us again. But they came to church!!!
And we're meeting with them later this week. :)
Well that's all - a week of miracles here in Fairfield. :) I
love my life, I love being a missionary, I love that I'm serving here in
Farifield with Sister Funk - I love her, and I love y'all! Thanks for
being so great! And I hope y'all have a fantastic week! :)
Sister Ririe
Alma 7:24
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