This week has been insane!! To start off, Soy came to church yesterday!!! :) We were elated!! The members were so kind to him and I really think he felt the Spirit there. We are continuing to teach him, and he is starting to remember the terminology! He also committed to stop smoking and drinking coffee. Soy told us some things he had done in the past and how ashamed of them he was, and it made me infinitely more grateful for the Savior's Atonement. For Soy to know that he can be completely forgiven of all the bad things he has done is such an incredible blessing and strengthens my testimony of the Atonement even more.
We taught Brian a lesson this morning and what a great experience it was. We have a goal for Brian to come to church because we believe this is where his next steps of progression will come from. All we did is review the scripture reading we gave him, and it turned into a wonderful discussion. We talked about how learning the things of God is a slow, gradual process, that happens over time. We had him watch the Patterns of Light videos by Elder Bednar, and I feel that enhanced his understanding of this journey he is on. We were able to bear testimony of the knowledge we gain from church and how it is at church that we learn even more because we have the opportunity to learn from our brothers and sisters. I believe his heart is opening to the idea, and that his is over-ridding the negative experiences he has had in the past with the experiences we share with him of what church could be for him. Please pray for him!
We had the exciting (and slightly terrifying) opportunity to teach a Minister of a non-denominational church and the Pastor of a Presbyterian church who had a Master's degree in Divinity...whoah. The Minister is trying to understand all this deep doctrine about God and is, in a sense, demanding the answers to things we honestly do not know. I honestly feel like I am walking on egg shells the entire time we teach him. The Pastor had beliefs that were surprisingly similar to our own. She said she believed in the trinity...but the way she described it totally made it sound like the Godhead. haha the day we taught the pastor was the day EVERY SINGLE APPOINTMENT WE HAD FELL THROUGH. Which as you can tell was slightly frustrating :) but obviously, that was the day we needed to talk to her :)
God knows best.
We also had a fun experience (I guess you could call it that) where a less-active told us the Lord had given her a revelation that he daughter was going to be taken from the earth, and not only her, but us.....uh....what? We assured her everything would be okay. We were supposedly supposed to die on Thursday, and we told her we would come and see her Friday to help her through the hard time (that is, if we were not dead) haha well Friday came and no one died and when we visited her we talked about fear and how it is not from God. Jesus himself said, "Be not afraid, only believe." (Mark 5) God doesn't want us to live our lives in fear, all we need to do is trust him. (I know...easier said than done) :)
Last but not least, last night we were in the computer lab to do 12 weeks (the study program for new missionaries) and instead we were able to talk with a man named Brad who is a Messianic Jew (a Jew who believes Christ has come, but still practices the Jewish customs and things like the law of Moses) and were able to talk with him for an hour about the beliefs we have! This was also the last lesson we needed to reach our goal of the week!
We also had what I will call a "soul-stretching experience" yesterday. It was probably the most emotionally taxing day of my life honestly, and I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that every single trial or hardship we go through is for our benefit. I may have learned more yesterday than I learned my entire mission as I completely had to rely on my Savior to give me the strength I did not have at the moment. I caught a glimpse of what Christ went through when he suffered for us, and there are really just no words to describe all the things it taught me. Sorry that was super vague, but I know that whatever trials or hardships you go through will increase the depth of your character and let you grow in ways you could have never done before, if you let them.
I love you all!
Serving with a smile,
Sister Bradley
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