Dear Reader
Another wonderful Week here in the Joliet South area. Elder Hermansen and I have been truly seeking the Elect of God in hopes to Baptize this Transfer and to continue baptizing in the area for the future to find. In seeking to try to implement part of our Zone focus (Balanced finding) Personally we tried to really focus our efforts this week of having the "Faith to Find" we have been really trying to work hard by talking to everyone, which we saw a few miracles, which I'll mention later & doing the hard thing and having the faith to drop, even those we like teaching but are not progressing. The next thing we tried implementing in our zone for the week was to get as many return appointments with Potential investigators as possible. With the help of the district leaders we tracked the number of those return appointment that happened and it was amazing to see there was a good amount of return appointments kept. The Second part of our zone focus was "exacting in records". I must admit that since we have received iPads I have not been as good in "exacting in records" mainly because I didn't know how to. Since I have been in this area though it has increased dramatically. I even JOY "exacting in records". It makes record keeping more enjoyable and reliable. We are a record keeping people and I know that this is helping me do so. Now onto the week.
We have had this floater investigator, Martin, who has been in and out of the scene since Elder Blackner was here. On Monday though we committed him to go to the Book of Mormon Class that we hold on Tuesday and he came! Afterward our ward mission leader grabbed him and us into a class room so that we could have a lesson and it was pretty successful. We read with him Alma 34 and that the reason why he needs to meet with us is so that he can better prepare to meet God. Something must have clicked with him because the next morning he wanted to meet with us before district meeting. The next morning we had a Wonderful lesson with Martin on keeping the Sabbath day. He understood it very well and said that he want to makes this a more serious commitment in his life. We invited him to be baptized but he didn't know if he could make that commitment yet. He then told us though that he was really thinking a lot the night before after our meeting, In fact it kept him up all night and He had been praying to know what he needed to do to get his life in order. We told him that baptism would be that way. We continued on from there and finished up that great lesson with a prayer and headed to district meeting. Martin came to church this week and loved it. I over heard him talking with a member on Sunday that he loves this church because I reminded him the way church should be from when he was a kid.
The next day was one of the best lessons I have had in a while. It was with a man named Quentin. Now Quentin is amongst the most prepared elect individuals I have ever taught. We had a member pick him up to take him to the church so we could do a Gospel of Jesus Christ, Church tour Lesson. On the ride there our member did a great Job fellowshipping Quentin and we later found that he was a perfect Amulek for our investigator. The lesson went fantastic! We were able to teach him a little about missionary work, Temples, and Family History which he just LOVED! After we taught him about faith we brought up the doctrine of repentance and he mentioned to us about a concern that he had. He expressed to us that in his time in the military he had killed people in active duty and wanted to know if what he did was right and if he could be forgiven for it. So we turned to the Book of Mormon and read with him Alma 43:47 and after reading that he said well that answers my question, we can move on now. It was great to see how the Book of Mormon answers concerns of our day so well. One of the Coolest parts of that Lesson was when we were teaching about baptism we went to the baptismal font and showed him it, he was just in awe. Our member, His Amulek, started to bare powerful testimony about his baptism after serving in the military and how it was this very font that he got baptized in. We continued to teach him about baptism and right before we asked him to be baptized he, Quentin, turned to us and said, I want to be baptized. It was so great to see how in tune to the spirit he was. We told him that was the question the we were just going to ask. Quentin expressed that he wanted to be baptized ASAP! We then went through with him the steps that he needed to take in order for him to be baptized. It was so powerful we went through the rest of the lesson and finished in the chapel. It was so powerful to see how much he wanted this in his life. Sadly later that week we found out his mom was in the hospital in a coma and was not expected to live through it. We expressed our love for him a followed with how everything was going and how he was doing. We really love this guy. Because of this unexpected situation he wasn't able to come to church because he had too be with family and lawyers. We are hoping to see him Tuesday though for our Book of Mormon Class and maybe a lesson after ward. I have great hope for this man!
The rest of the Week went very well and we had 2 very spectacular finding situations. The first was such a miracle from God and beyond all probability of happening. I was Driving down a pretty busy road on our way to a stop by when out of the corner of my eye though several lanes of traffic, I see a young man walking down the opposite side of the street. He looked tired and beat and in general looked like he had a story to tell. Seeing this individual made me really think, and it opened my eyes a little. I was thinking every person has a story to tell and I want to know their stories and know how I could help them come closer to God in their story of life. So here is the miracle started. Our wifi at the church was down due to an extremely bad storm. So we chose to Go to McDonalds to grab their wifi and to grab a snack. As we walked in and got a cup to get some water, I looked over and saw that very young man I saw earlier, at a table alone and still looking beat. I said to my self, if I don't talk to him now I may never seem him again. I quickly went over to him and introduced who I was and told him how I already saw him that day and want to talk with him. He welcomed me to sit with him and thought it was the coolest thing that I noticed him and he though that God had something's to do with it. We started teaching him and he told us that he was really struggling with life and he became homeless a few Days earlier and a lot other stuff. We had to leave thought because it was close to curfew. but we exchanged information and we hope well be able to teach him soon.
One other cool experience we had was when we were driving down to that same street that I noticed the last guy at and Elder Hermansen said, HEY! flip around and go to the Walgreens. I had no Idea what he was talking about, so I just went along with it and when we pulled up he pointed to the car and he said that is who we want to talk to. It ended up being former investigators, who were homeless and live in their car. They told us that their phone had been shut off and that's why they couldn't call. We taught them about how God blesses us in our trials using 2 nephi 2:1-2 and alma 32. They were really happy to see us and after we had a lesson we got on our way and had a great rest of the week.
All in all life is just grand here in Joliet!
Elder Herdt
Last meal in Schaumburg!
