New Investigator. . . . . Yes!

January 13, 2014

The most exciting news this week...... We have a new investigator!  Well actually she is an old one, but still.  Lisa started investigating the church in 2006, and it’s been a bumpy road for her.  She has a daughter that is 9 named Patricia and she is so excited about learning.  We met her one night as we were visiting a potential investigator.  She was smoking outside her apartment when she saw us.  Assuming that we were coming to visit her, she told us that she we leaving and we could come back later.  The first visit was awesome.  Lisa told us that she would read the intro of the Book of Mormon with her daughter and start to give up coffee.  We just sat there in a bit of shock.  The next appointment we invited them to be baptized and Patricia wanted to be baptized next Monday.  She'll have to wait a bit longer than that, but we are so excited. Lisa felt the spirit so strongly in that lesson.  Her only worry is giving up smoking.  

          Another amazing lesson we had the privilege of teaching was to an inactive member that is from Taiwan.  She has been inactive in the church many years and her testimony is not the strongest.  But we gave her the restoration story and talked about what we can know as we learn that the Book of Mormon is true.  She really wants to know that Jesus Christ is her Savior and she committed to read.  I could feel the spirit so strongly.

           But the real miracle was finally getting in contact with Lilly.  She was a baptized a few months previous to me being in the mission field.  She had an amazing awesome testimony until her family started attacking her.  The persecution was so awful that she stopped coming to church and meeting with anyone from the ward.  It was so heart breaking to watch as my companion’s recent convert fell away, but last Monday Lilly saw us and told us she wants to come back to church.  It was an incredible moment for all of us.

           This week has been crazy.  A lot of ups and many downs, but the most amazing thing is how God often teaches us.  It is in the hard moments of our lives that he guides us to learn, so we can help others around us.  In the words of a Sister Schroder (a member from the ward) "A day is like a room. God puts gifts in that room and 99 percent of the time we go without opening them.  We are lucky if we open one of them."  I am spending my day watching for more of those gifts because people give them to me all day long.  I am so grateful for this opportunity to love people and see a glimpse of how God sees them.

Sister Rogers