Monday, July 22, 2013

Buying Toilet Paper----A Spiritual Experience?

Elder Engler and I getting some studying in.

What a week! I finally felt like a week has flown by! It felt like forever ago when I left! Well this was a very hard and awesome week for me. For starters we have an investigator name J and she is awesome.  The first for a investigator to come to church the first week and to have her continue to come to church she is so solid! Yesterday she went two sacrament meetings! hahha We expect here to be baptized in August! 

             Well another solid investigate is a guy named D*** who is Mike Tyson's cousin! We met him because we needed to get toilet paper, and went to a gas station where he stopped us asking who we were because we looked like we were from some big company but so we told him we were missionaries, he was like "missionaries?... NO WAY, I'VE NEVER MET MISSIONARIES BEFORE!!!!!!!" he was super excited to talk to us then, we asked if he wanted a book of Mormon and if he wanted to meet with us and he said yes because he just got out of jail and wanted to turn his life around, then his mom came up and was asking about us and then she was like well I want a book of Mormon too because D*** will hog it all up for himself!! We laughed and said our goodbyes. Later when we came by D***'s mom wasn't home but his girlfriend was but they all wanted to take the lessons then and it went perfect and she want to know more, and in the lesson we found out that he was the nephew of a lady in our ward because when we invited D*** to church he said he went there when he was a kid with his Aunti so it was just awesome to see the path he has taken in life. He also told us his sister was getting out of jail soon and she wanted the lesson when she gets out, so all because of toilet paper we were guided by the Lord to 4 possible investigators!
             Last Sunday we went to dinner to a kinda less active sister's home, and that was where we met her boyfriend T*****, a British/Indian man who was very spiritual, over his life time he has experienced many things with many religions, like Buddhist, Hindus, Sheikh, Christianity and just about everything but he had been rubbed the wrong way by many religions but he had meet with missionaries once before but wanted to learn more but didn't have the opportunity to meet with them again, well as we ate dinner T***** didn't just get feed physically but spiritually, And he was excepting so much and agreed with so many things, he was intrigued with the atonement because he had experience so much and had also felt hate for people for the things he had seen people do but was amazed that through the atonement all of that could be solved and he wanted more. 2 later of discussion he had to leave not wanting to but having to because of time. We made an appointment with him for the following Saturday and left. Well, a sad thing happened T***** and the his girl friend broke up.  It would have been fine if he didn't live 40 minutes away out of our mission. So at this point all Elder Engler and I do is pray that the Lord will provide a way for him. 
              One more awesome Investigator with an awesome story! After a failed appointment Elder Engler and I felt an impression to go Track, well we drove as the spirit directed us, speak of "letting Jesus take the wheel" we drove by a couple of homes and he felt an impression to go there, but we drove on but we felt very prompted to go back to those houses we turned around and parked and went to the house. The first house we knocked on a Man opened the door and we saw he had recently lost a leg and as we talked he invited us to come back, he said he and his wife were just recently talking and praying about a church to go to and a place to get the kids baptized, so we came back and taught his family, they just loved it and were going back today to teach them the plan of salvation!
              Last little thing, I went on exchanges with my grandpa(the missionary who trained my trainer) Elder Gagakuma, He is one of the smartest and most spiritual men I have ever meet. I had an awesome experience with him that I cant not share due to lack of time. He answered all my Questions I've had on my mission. He taught me about faith, he taught me about humility and meekness-- that meekness is your willingness to learn and Humility is your willingness to apply what you've learned. But the most important thing he taught me was how to learn, that having an eye single to the glory of God is the key to obtaining all spiritual knowledge, that if I want to become the best missionary I can be I need to become a consecrated missionary and that peach my gospel is more of a fountain of wealth than you can imagine if you know where to dig. 
              I love you all and I want you to know How much the work out here means to mean. That how much building the Kingdom of God means. I invited all members to get into missionary work NOW!!! Help the missionaries, help your self and help God in his work! All I ask is to invite others to come unto Christ. You don't need to feel like you have to know how to teach them or know everything about missionaries. Invite them to take lessons and the missionaries will take it from there. One thing I've learned is there is power in the stranger. Don't be afraid share this message with someone in the grocery store or at work or at the park. The worst thing they can say is no, and if that you might have planted a seed in them. BUT REMEMBER the field is white already to harvest. Its time to reap and the lord has already prepared people for his word. Its time for you to ask him for help to guide you to those people. He will provide!
Obedience, Faith, Seeking the Spirt, work/love, and Scripture study combined with Pray will guide us to the people for baptism. 
keep the faith,

Elder Herdt
PS:Yes, I bought a  GPS and its awesome! It's a huge help for the work! Thanks