quite perfectly!
Wednesday, we had our zone conference and the whole theme was on
following the spirit. Something that as missionaries, we should be
pros at, but we're not! Haha. Mostly what stuck out to me was the
portion given by the Stake President. He talked about how we should be
praying for 1. ourselves and 2. Our companions to be guided by the
spirit--- but also, just as important, we should be praying for the
members/church leaders to be guided as they participate in missionary
work. DUH. Not sure why it's taken this much time for me to figure out
this one. Buttttttttt, it's alright. Because I applied this week, and
we've had some sweet miracles!
First. Thursday. The non-member husband of a recent convert who's
slightly less active (they live in the other Hermanas area), invited
all 8 missionaries over for dinner. We were stoked because this man
has only come to church once, which was last week when his daughter
was blessed....and we thought maybe he wanted to start listening to
the missionaries. Soooo, the other Hermanas called President to get
permission for all of us to go over there. Denied. He said no elders,
just us 4 Hermanas. Okayyyy. So we go. The wife made this HUGE dinner
for us...annnnddddddd the husband was asleep and didn't want to get
up. Awkward. We ate without him, had a nice time, get to the desert
portion, when this Hermana, Hermana Delgado, pipes in and says her
boss wants to learn about us. Okay, great. Where does he live? OUR
AREA! And then she pulled out her cell phone, calls him at the dinner
table and tells him there's 4 missionaries waiting to teach him. He's
there within 5minutes. We teach him. Bam bam bam. He's awesome.
Inspired member right there, who was ready to act! Defs didn't go as
planned, seeing we didn't even talk to the husband, but we were
'coincidentally' there and ready to teach our new investigator.
MIRACLE!
Second. We receive referrals up the wahzoo around here. We got this
one my first week here and all it had was an address and the name
'Hermano'. Strange. We had tried to contact him two or three times
with no luck. We stop by Saturday. Knock. A teenage girl comes, looks
thru the window and yells, 'Mom, son los testigos de Jehová!", and she
yells back, "Noo, it's probably the Mormons!". Haha. She opens up, we
ask if there's an 'Hermano' that lives there. Random. She runs and
gets her dad, and very surprisingly, he was happy to see is and let us
in. Turns out he and his wife were baptized in Ecuador a LONG time
ago, came here, assisted for a while in the now neighboring ward, had
problems with the Puerto Rican bishop, and never went back....and it's
been like 20+ years. After feeling inspired to ask him what he liked
about the church and what brought him in in the first place, he opened
up and told is simply that it was the doctrine and what it can do for
people, specifically families. He then called these two boys
in....we're still not sure if they're sons or grandsons, and we're too
embarrassed to ask....Benji(?), 11, and Melvin,9. Cutest boys
EVER!!!!! They told us how much they love learning about God and
Jesus, and then proceeded to turn off their video games because they
wanted to give us their full attention. WHO DOES THAT!? Only downside,
we asked if they wanted to pray and they started reciting The Lords
Prayer....the one their less active mom taught them. Whoops. But it's
alright! Haha. Point is, towards the end, when asking if we could come
back, Hermano (whose actual name is Milton) told us that OF COURSE we
can come and that he wants all of his kids ( or grandkids...whatever
they are to him) baptized and active in the church. Seriously so
pumped for this family! Well, I get pumped for everyone....but
especially these people! Mis corderos perdidos, ahora se encuentran
hallados. Oh wait. The cool part about this story ^...the Hermano
was at a yard sale a few weeks ago, when he found something from the
church, asked the person about it, started talking about the church,
and then the other person, who is supposedly a member, got his info
and sent it in! Solid. #memberarethebest!
Yesterday....WE PUT MILTON ON DATE FOR JUNE 5th. He seems pretty
solid...so we'll see :)
I would say that that was my week in a nutshell, but then I'd be lying!
Here are the honorable mentions.
Doing unplanned service for a less active. We cleaned the turtle tank
that should have been cleaned a month or so ago. Haha and thennnnn I
tried picking him up. He almost bit me!
Stood where I stood just about a year ago....who would have thought
then, that's id be here now?! We were on our way to a lesson and
thought we'd stop for a picture at Wrigley Field...talk about walking
down memory lane! Weird.
Finding this gem of a view walking home on Saturday night.
#soclosetothecityyetsofar
Y'all are the best! Shout out to Papa Mortensen! Happy late
Father's Day! Hands down best father I've had... Haha,
#gotthesenseofhumorfromhim. Also to the other men of my life! Y'all
are amazing! :)
Have a wonderful week!
Hermana Mortensen
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