Some of the miracles that we have seen this week...
We
went to have a lesson with Madeline and Gonzalo and we were a little
nervous because Gonzalo has been acting differently so we know that
there is something wrong so we were praying that we would know what to
say and how we could help him. We decided to watch a video about the
Atonement of Jesus Christ and the love and forgiveness that we can feel
through his sacrifice. When we put Hermana Snyder's pen-drive in the
computer, it started playing some random so we said oh, "no, no, that's
not the one." But Gonzalo said, that's okay. This one's good too so we
can watch both (he obviously had never seen it before and was just
assuming it would be good). So before we even started, we watched this
random video that started playing by itself and it was PERFECT. It
talked about the guilt that we feel many times from our sins and the
addictions that we may have and that we may feel as though there is no
way out but through the atonement of Jesus Christ and through his love,
we can all be cleansed. It was beautiful!! God knew a lot better than
us which video they needed to watch.
We
passed by the house of a woman named Roxana who the missionaries have
passed by before and she said, "Oh.. I don't have much time right now
but.... yeah. Come in." I was surprised at this moment (we never really
know what to do at first when people say that we can come in after
knocking on their door because it doesn't happen all that often) so we
just started talking to her about what our purpose is as missionaries
and asking her some questions to get to know her religious background.
She told us that she is from the Evangelic Church (about half of the
population of Chile is part of this religion) and that she had come to
know that this church is not true and that it is better just to love God
and pray and live according to his teachings in your own way. She
explained to us that she had a dream in which Roxana was sitting next to
all of the other members of her church and they all had dried up leaves
in their hands. Their pastor then told them to go up one-by-one and
put their dried up leaves on an old dried up tree. She said that each
and every one followed his instructions and each leaf fell to the
ground. When it came to her turn, she said that she would not put her
leave on the tree because the tree was dead. The pastor said that she
had to put her leaf on the tree because it was his tree and she refused
and as she refused, we looked down at her own leaf and it was half-dead
and half-living. She said that she knew in this moment that her church
was just another dead tree that she should not participate in. I felt
the spirit very strongly as she was sharing this dream with us and I
know that it was real! And I Understood her dream!! This was the first
time in my life that I have been blessed with the ability to interpret a
dream! (exciting right??) The leaf that was in her hand came from two
different sources... one was the dead tree of her pastor and the other
was the tree of life! The true church of God. We shared with her a few
scriptures from 1 Nephi 8 to try to help her to understand her dream
better and let her know that there IS a true church. Roxana is living
her life up to this point as if we are still in the great apostasy but
we bring the good news that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored
to the earth!! All there is to do now is to pray to God to know if it
is true and take God's invitation to "prove me now herewith to know if
these things are not true." I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is the church of God and that as we pray to God, we
can come to know for ourselves if this is true! And I know how much joy
that this truth can bring to the lives of others as they come to know! I
also know that Roxana will be able to know for herself if she prays,
asks God, and does the things that he asks of us to test it for
herself.
Alma 27:
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties,even to an experiment upon my words,
and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.
We
have also been focusing a lot on inviting people to be baptized! We
have invited 4 people this week to be baptized! And not one said no! No
one really said yes either.. but they didn't say no! Haha They told us
that they need to study more, understand more, and pray more before they
can say yes. And that is EXACTLY what we want for them! It's even
better than them just saying yes to make us happy because they really
want to know for themselves! We don't want anyone to be baptized without
knowing for themselves that what we are teaching is true. And when
they do know that our message is true, we want them to be baptized
because it is the only way they will be able to live with their families
and with God after this life! We invite people to act because we love
them and we want them to be happy for ETERNITY!
I love you guys!!
Hermana Harvey
No comments:
Post a Comment