WOW What a week.
Hi:):)
Things with Bobby are looking up! He has read half of the Book of Mormon. WOW. so cool. His only concern is Joseph Smith. He is a sign seeker, "how are you gonna prove to me that Joseph Smith is a prophet." The spirit has already told him. God will tell him again, he just needs to put in the work.
ThaT'S pretty cool about missionaries in their homeland and stuff I like that.
In answer to your question Dad, yeah, we do. The baptismal invite, as scary and as much as it seems to want to scare people away, is our best way of inviting people to REALLY commit. It gives them that vision, "Where there is no vision, the people perish" they understand by the end of the lesson that we are messengers from God and that we aren't here just to be friends. We are here on account of their salvation and we will do all we can to get them closer to Christ. We set a date for people here in Newport News in the first lesson because if they don't have a goal to work towards, they perish, every single time. The people we meet with and we don't really commit them to do anything, they are the ones who we never get back in touch with. I love it now, because we have learned if we will teach with the spirit, with great faith and understanding, they have a hard time disbelieving on our words. It's a blessing to be able to give them the Baptismal invite in the first lesson.
I have truly felt like an instrument in the hands of The LORD this week. The one thing that we have worked on this past transfer is being exactly obedient and we have applied the promise in Alma 26:22. This promise has always intrigued me. Thousands?! Really?! And it states it plainly in the verse what you need to do. Repent, exercise faith, bring forth good works with that faith, and pray continually without ceasing and unto such it is given to bring THOUSANDS unto repentance. That sounds nice to me! As Elder Wheelock so perfectly states, Jesus Christ is the point guard of this work. His job is to get the ball to the hoop by passing it to whoever is ready. If you aren't personally ready and prepared, he won't pass you the ball. As Elder Case, Elder Richardson and I have prepared ourselves and asked for prepared investigators who would cherish the gospel, he has ruly passed into our care people whom he himself has prepared. One example: Teresa Sneed. (name changed) Tuesday night we prayed as a companionship after planning, and in this prayer we told The LORD "Wr know you direct this work. Without your hand we are un-profitable servants. Please place us in the path of one of your children who has been prepared by thee. We are prepared to do what you would have us do." He had already blessed us with an amazing weekend, we found Bobby and A.J. and we had another lesson with Stacy, who now wants to be baptised. His hand has truly blessed this area beyond measure. We have been struggling to get members to lessons and tuesday we had 3 lessons with members. So we went to bed. Wednesday morning we woke up with a media referal text message. Someone (Teresa) had called and asked for a Book of Mormon, a Bible, and a visit. We didn't really think too much of it but as we were on the phone with her the phone kept beeping. We set up a lesson for later that day, hung up, and the referal system had sent us the same name ten more times. Ok..... Didn't really mean much we thought it was just an annoying glitch. So we go to meet Teresa. She canceled. OK SWEET. Haha No biggie, we just rescheduled and went on with our day. We had a great day wednesday with our Branch President, President Pettaway. We took him with us and even though some things canceled we had some good expiriences. Thursday yeilded a very good District meeting and an exchange with Elder Clawson from Hampton.
We got to Teresa's house and it was a beautiful lesson. The spirit was so strong. She cried and thanked the LORD that he had restored his church. The spirit had already told her it was true. God and prepared this woman her whole life for this message. I have met no one like her, but there was something wrong. We could sense that she felt sad and a little reserved. We asked her what was wrong and through her tears she asked a scary question. "could I have had a vision in a dream?" I was slow to reply "Yes...." She proceeded to tell us that she is the last remaining sibling of thirteen. All of her family has passed away. That alone is heart breaking, but listen to this; one of her brothers came back to her in a vision one night and told her she needed to repent of all of her family's sins.... can you imagine the weight that she felt? She looked at me with the eyes of a child, a submissive meek child, that wanted so badly to do the will of the Father but was so overwhelmed and scared. She asked me with all of her soul pouring out, "Can I even do that?" I was taken aback. I told her that there was only one person that could do that and that he had already suffered for their sins. This didn't help. She had hinted at some point to the fact that there were two visions, so I asked her what her other vision was. She described to us The LORD standing over the tabernacle saying "Come unto me" with his arms outstretched. Her description of the "tabernacle" was no doubt the temple. I'm telling you, this woman is amazing. I realized at that moment that The LORD had something to tell her, so I let go of what I wanted to do, interperate the dreams or tell her whatever she needed, and I opened my mouth. I heard the LORD telling her through me that her family was in heaven shouting for joy that she had found and was accepting the gospel. What they wanted her to do was not to repent of their sins, but to come unto The LORD in his holy temple and to be baptised for them that they could be washed clean and also choose to accept the gospel. We told her that she was alive for a reason, that God needed her. I then pulled out the phone and said "Teresa, do you know how many times The LORD told us to come see you?" I opened up our text messages and read, one after the other, the messages that we had recieved to go see her "Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed, Teresa Sneed....." By the time I was done, not only was she crying(she was crying the whole time) but Brother Willis, the member with us, was crying and Elder Eager and Elder Richardson were crying. kneeling beside her chair that day, I wept. I realized a part of what Moses had seen on the mount. I realized that as missionaries, as members of the church, and as individuals, we are nothing. My time, my talents, my resources, my people skills, they are nothing if I'm not using them in harmony with what God wants for others. What my companions and I realized in that moment is that this is God's work. Like Ammon in Alma 26:2+3, I saw that my blessings on a mission and as a disciple of Christ come not from using my time and talents for myself, but I'll let Ammon tell you the real answer. "I ask, what great blessings has he bestowed uppon us? Can ye tell? I answer for you, for our brethren, the lamanites, were in darkness. Yeah, even in the darkest abyss. But behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And THIS IS THE BLESSING WHICH HAS BEEN BESTOWED UPPON US, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work"
I had to just sit back and thank God for this realization through my tears. She is working towards baptism on the fourth of February.
Now here is the real reason why I feel like we have fulfilled the promise of Ammon in 26:22. We didn't get in the James river and baptise a thousand people, but Teresa was just one of NINE investigators that were truly prepared this week. The Lord is truly blessing this area with 4 people who are set with a date and 5 more who want to be baptised but who have yet to set a date. We had four people at church this week. AMAZING. I am so excited and thankful that I could be a part of The LORD's army and to work in this area. I have never ever in my whole entire life felt so blessed. And all for the salvation of others.... it blows my mind.
The priesthood of God is simply the channel and authority by which God does his work on earth, and letting Virtue garnish my thoughts unceasingly is the way to cleanse that channel. I have never been so tired and so invigorated.
I love you and I choose CHRIST!
Elder Skyler Andreasen
WAZOO!!!!!!!!! (you know I dint ferget)
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