Hello :)
Last Monday we had an appointment at 6. When we got there
she asked if we could come back in an hour. So we went tracting for an hour and
ended up meeting a teenage kid who was interested. His name is CJ. He was the
only one home so we were teaching him outside. Then his parents pulled up and i was
really nervous of what they would say. I wanted to make sure they knew what we
were doing and so i just let them know that we had left him with a copy of the
Book of Mormon and just asked if it was okay if we came back. The mom made it
very clear that she was not interested but that her son was confused and so she
would let him do what he wanted. I thought that was interesting! But we will
hopefully teach him later this week.
When we went back for our appointment the lady had said that
it wasn't a good time and her plans had just changed. So we rescheduled. As we
were leaving two 13 year old girls came out and just asked what we were doing.
We told them we share a message about Christ and told them we could teach them
if it was okay with their mom. We were able to teach them the full Restoration
and they had really good questions. They wanted to know what happened after
this life and why bad things happen. One of the girls took a copy of the Book
of Mormon and we will meet with her again this week! It was a great Monday
night.
Tuesday afternoon we went and visited a less active that our
ward mission leader had asked us to go find. She is 21 and was very hesitant
when we first started talking. She actually said that she was in the process of
becoming a catholic. Through conversation we found out that she was baptized
when she was 8 and then her parents got divorced and they didn't really stay
active. She went a little bit but just felt like the gospel was really restricting.
Sister missionaries had come to see her before and she felt like they were
really pushy and didn't really listen to her. Well after talking for about 30
minutes she had mentioned that she wouldn't mind us coming by and teaching her
the lessons again. She doesn't have a strong understanding of the church but
feels like she keeps getting pulled back and she doesn't understand why. She is a
teacher and so the end of the school year is busy but we are going to start
teaching her at the beginning of June.
Later that day we went out tracting. We hadn't been able to
teach a lesson and decided to go do something else. Then we decided "just
one more door". Well that was when we met Bobby. She is in her mid 50's
and had had friends that were members. She said she didn't know really anything
about our church except that we kept food storage. So we explained that as
missionaries we come around and teach people about the gospel so then they have
the opportunity to choose if that is what they want. She let us in and we had a
really good lesson on the Restoration. The spirit was really strong and then at
the end we asked her if she had any question she felt like had never been
answered. She said that she couldn't understand why some people just don't feel
like they have repented all the way, implying that she had never felt like she
had been forgiven. I had no idea what to say and was so grateful for my
companion. She explained that it was because she had never asked for
forgiveness from the proper authority. We talked about baptism and then
asked her to work toward being baptized on the 27th of June! We are going back
tomorrow.
Wednesday we met a really cool guy. His last name is Davis
so we just called him Brother Davis. But we knocked on the door and he answered
and immediately said, no thanks im not interested. I asked him "Why
not?" And sister Garry said, "Do you know the message that we
share?" and his response was the best! He said, "Yes, Jehovah's
Witnesses." NOPE! We told him we were Mormon and he had a friend that was
Mormon. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and before we could even ask him
if he would read a chapter he asked us for the book. We are going back
tonight to teach him again!
Saturday we were on exchanges with the sisters in Long
Beach. I was with Sister Durtchi. She is a brand new missionary. It was a lot
of fun to be with her. We didn't have a lot of set plans and so i was trying to
decide what to do. Sister Hartley had met a potential that lived down the
street from a less active, Sister Johnson. I decided we could go visit her. We
parked the car and then were walking down the street to find where her house
was. While we were walking a car drove by and i recognized the driver. His name
is Randy and is the son-in-law of sister Johnson. We had tried teaching him
before and he was just really busy with work. Well he recognized us as well and
backed up his car to talk to us. He was on his way to visit his mother-in-law
and i just asked if we could stop by and teach him a lesson. He said we could and
it went really well. I started out the lesson by asking them what they thought
our job was as missionaries. They came up with what most people think. "To
save a soul and better inform people about Christ." And both things are
right but there are lots of people who can do that. I told them that our
calling was to help people to return to live with God again. We talked about Matthew
7:22-23 where it talks about many prophesying in Christ name but he doesn't
know them. I explained that without the knowledge we have from the Restoration
of the gospel we can't know what Christ would have us to do. and in result He
will not know us at the last day. It was a really good lesson and i know that
the questions i asked were from the Holy Ghost and not me. We are going back next
week to teach them again!
On Sunday we visited with a less active. We invited her back
to church and she said no. Then we invited her to receive the missionary
lessons again and she said she already knew it all. I didn't know what to say.
Afterwards i was talking to sister Garry about it and we both just thought it
was ironic. If she really knew everything then she would be willing to
sacrifice and come to church. We are all human, we will constantly be learning
and trying to understand. We will never know everything in this life. But as we
stand by what we do know then we can trust that God knows everything. And as
long as He knows everything and I trust in Him. Everything will work out.
I love you all so much! Thank you for the thoughts and
prayers. This gospel is true. It changes lives everyday. And i know that the
more we study the closer we come to our Heavenly Father. Hope y'all have a great
week!
Love you, Sister Erika Kelly
