Subject: Just sharing some thoughts,
Hello dear Senior Missionary Friends,
Today I was thinking about how 'life" sometimes distracts us from our goals and we forget our focus for a bit. (I've always said thatdistraction is one of the adversary's best tools.) But interestingly, I've realized that Faith is a great antidote to those distractions and that Heavenly Father doesn't forget our prayers or goals even if we sometimes do!
Back at the end of May, we met with the Ward Mission Leader and I was feeling particularly full of faith that day. I told him that I really believed we could see 10 baptisms from that day until our new chapel was dedicated in early October. He was skeptical to say the least! (You should have seen the look on his face.)
And after I had said it my head told me this was improbable (!!), but my heart and my faith said that it really was possible if, as President Young always reminds us, we are obedient and faithful. I reread the account of Alma baptizing thousands, and our goal didn't look so outrageous after all.
However, since we aren't dealing in "numbers" but in precious souls, we then kind of forgot that goal, and just kept praying for our investigators and working hard, having some successes and lots of discouragement. Somehow those discouragements are one of the distractions I mentioned. They keep us from really seeing the big picture.
A few days ago I came across a little prayer I had written in our planner in June, explaining to Heavenly Father the goal I felt impressed to set, and pleading for His help to reach it. Out of curiosity, I then went to look at our Area Book and guess what I finally realized? Since setting that "impossible goal" we have seen 4 baptisms, (Leroy, Tyress, Tracy and Dylan); then, coming up later this month, a rebaptism of David, excommunicated 50 years ago, and an eight year old Nawaz, who we are preparing for baptism and helping his mom come back to activity.
A few days ago we met Erin, a lovely young woman in Taco Bell and within 10 minutes she asked us what she needed to do to be baptized!!!
Last week we also met a precious woman, Sunny, with 3 sons (2 of baptism age) all of whom dearly want to be taught the gospel. They are in an abusive situation so we aren't yet sure what we must do to help her, so we put their names on the temple prayer roll and hopefully the Lord will help her out of this awful existence so she can be taught and baptized.
We are humbled beyond words...
The field truly is white, already to harvest. And all we have to do is BELIEVE.
Believe the promises of Elder Eyring that the Lord has already prepared the hearts of countless people around us. Then pray for the Lord to lead us to them or lead them to us.
The scriptures are FULL of promises from our Lord and all we need to do is simply BELIEVE. Too often we seem to let the world get in the way and we rationalize that the Lord didn't really say what He is saying.
This is our testimony in the sacred name of Jesus Christ.
Love you forever,
Sister and Elder Wyman
La Pine, Ward, Cascade Zone
Follow our Mission Adventures on our blog:
Today I was thinking about how 'life" sometimes distracts us from our goals and we forget our focus for a bit. (I've always said thatdistraction is one of the adversary's best tools.) But interestingly, I've realized that Faith is a great antidote to those distractions and that Heavenly Father doesn't forget our prayers or goals even if we sometimes do!
Back at the end of May, we met with the Ward Mission Leader and I was feeling particularly full of faith that day. I told him that I really believed we could see 10 baptisms from that day until our new chapel was dedicated in early October. He was skeptical to say the least! (You should have seen the look on his face.)
And after I had said it my head told me this was improbable (!!), but my heart and my faith said that it really was possible if, as President Young always reminds us, we are obedient and faithful. I reread the account of Alma baptizing thousands, and our goal didn't look so outrageous after all.
However, since we aren't dealing in "numbers" but in precious souls, we then kind of forgot that goal, and just kept praying for our investigators and working hard, having some successes and lots of discouragement. Somehow those discouragements are one of the distractions I mentioned. They keep us from really seeing the big picture.
A few days ago I came across a little prayer I had written in our planner in June, explaining to Heavenly Father the goal I felt impressed to set, and pleading for His help to reach it. Out of curiosity, I then went to look at our Area Book and guess what I finally realized? Since setting that "impossible goal" we have seen 4 baptisms, (Leroy, Tyress, Tracy and Dylan); then, coming up later this month, a rebaptism of David, excommunicated 50 years ago, and an eight year old Nawaz, who we are preparing for baptism and helping his mom come back to activity.
A few days ago we met Erin, a lovely young woman in Taco Bell and within 10 minutes she asked us what she needed to do to be baptized!!!
Last week we also met a precious woman, Sunny, with 3 sons (2 of baptism age) all of whom dearly want to be taught the gospel. They are in an abusive situation so we aren't yet sure what we must do to help her, so we put their names on the temple prayer roll and hopefully the Lord will help her out of this awful existence so she can be taught and baptized.
We are humbled beyond words...
The field truly is white, already to harvest. And all we have to do is BELIEVE.
Believe the promises of Elder Eyring that the Lord has already prepared the hearts of countless people around us. Then pray for the Lord to lead us to them or lead them to us.
The scriptures are FULL of promises from our Lord and all we need to do is simply BELIEVE. Too often we seem to let the world get in the way and we rationalize that the Lord didn't really say what He is saying.
This is our testimony in the sacred name of Jesus Christ.
Love you forever,
Sister and Elder Wyman
La Pine, Ward, Cascade Zone
Follow our Mission Adventures on our blog:
"Preach Christ all the time, and only as a last resort, use words."
St. Francis of Assisi
POSTSCRIPT: (P.S.)
St. Francis of Assisi
POSTSCRIPT: (P.S.)
Dad came home with a story as well: He went with President Watts today to meet with missionaries at two district meetings to inspect their cars. In the past it has been done at zone meetings and President Watts has done the inspections on a huge number of cars with the help of one or two others from the office. Now they have changed to doing it at the zone meetings and have the Elders doing the inspections - and learning how to do the different things on the cars & engines. It turns out that a great many of our missionaries have no idea of how to check the oil and do the other assorted checks/changes needed so now it has become a teaching opportunity - plus now they get to vote on the cleanest car themselves, instead of President Watts doing it. Only rule is they cannot vote for their own car. Apparently, the last two times, the Sisters have won the clean car award...the guys need to improve a bit.
Next part of the story: in the meeting, the new district leader, Elder Tandy-Trammel, was relating how one of the APs (Elder Clark & Elder Howard) had met with them yesterday to go tracting on splits (or maybe they call it exchanges, I can’t remember). Anyway, in two hours they had found and made appointments with four promising investigators. Elder Tandy Trammel was blown away - and said, all we need to do is have more FAITH! Which - kind of goes along with the previous story from Sister Wyman!. AND - kind of tells us what we all need to do to solve our problems in life I think!
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