Just Stop and Pray

Hello there!


This week we were able to apply what we learned at mission conference (with the Gongs---I love them!!!) almost immediately! It was great! One of our progressing investigators set her own baptismal goal after we extended a bold memorized baptismal invite. It was great! Her problem is that she goes to school and lives here Monday through Friday, but on the weekends goes home to another town which is outside of our mission. We talked to the assistants about this situation before, and so we are not allowed to call the missionaries there, who she has met with a few times. She has a great member friend there we have permission to call. Also, she came once to our ward two weeks ago! It was a huge miracle. Her family has a lot of tensions around things religious, so she is very afraid to let them know about her meeting with us. She is ready for a baptismal interview, but since she attends the other ward most often, we don't want to put her in a baptismal interview here if she needs to get one from the other mission, etc. She says next semester she will be able to stay here more--like two out of four Sundays a month. And she really really wants baptism! But she still needs parental permission since she is only 18. One really cool thing is her mom saw a picture she had taken with me and Sister Sorensen (before Sister Sorensen went home) and she decided to be honest and say she was meeting with us. Her mom just didn't react at all, so she feels like that was a blessing from God. So we hope that as we keep working with her (and she has soo many friends in our singles ward) that the Lord will provide a way for her to baptized this month.

As for recent convert/less actives, our huge success story from this week was that the Relief Society president and another sister went over to visit our lovely sister who is ill and got her to commit to church!!! And come Sunday morning she came for sacrament!! With her health condition she shouldn't be in large groups of people, so she only stayed for the one hour, but all the members were so great at guanxing her. It was awesome!! We have been working with her for over a month now and this came only because the Relief Society responded to our call for aid. It made us sooo happy.


For my study time, I have decided to re-read the Book of Mormon, but this time from a complete missionary perspective (an idea from Sister Lethco). I looked through Preach My Gospel for principles or ideas I could highlight during my Book of Mormon reading. I came up with highlighting what can be accomplished by the power of the Holy Ghost, my purpose, how to measure success, teaching skills I want to emulate, attributes of a great missionary, and things pertaining to power and authority. It has really opened up the Book of Mormon even more to me. I love it!

Something else is I had a few rough spots this week, mainly my own bad attitude, and it wasn't fun!!! So I've been learning (and Sister Gong spoke on this at the mission meeting) that when I feel grumpy to go pray it out. Just stop and pray. The Lord will bless us with peace, but only when we ask for it! So don't feel afraid to do the same. I have seen it help my companionship and our relationship with the ward so much!!! Oh, also we are sending two Elders to the Taibei mission from our Nantun ward! It is awesome--they are soo excited.

Thanks for all your prayers!

Love,

Sister Brooke Smith