Howdyz. We had a pretty good week! We have a lot of things but they are all moving a liiiitle slowly. But we were blessed to see that the Lords hand was definitely in our work this week.
On Wednesday we went and helped Sister Parker rake her leaves, she has a big yard and big trees! We raked for about an hour and then we heard a car going really fast out of the driveway so we looked up just in time to see it smash into our car... Not fun, and then he got out looked at both cars, told his Grandma(Sister Parker) that he had to go get his fiance and he would be right back, and guess what.. He didn't come back! But he did call his insurance and we after a couple hours got all the information we needed. It was a little ridiculous, there are so many formalities for church cars, I understand why but it was just sad to see a day of good work go down the drain cause we had to deal with that.
We ended up having a really amazing experience that night. We went to a normal lesson with an excommunicated member- now investigator and before going in, changed our lesson plans and decided we were going to read 3 Nephi 11 with her. Right when we were starting one of the woman's friends came in and just sat on the couch, we obviously pounced and gave her a BOM and told her a little about it and had her read with us. She was pretty blank and quiet and just listened as we discussed the passages and story, but when we got to verse 15 and by the time it was over she was sobbing and couldn't even read. I felt like I had never felt the spirit so strong, it was strong it hurt! We finished the last two verses and bore testimony of the Book or Mormon and Christ's love. It was so cool, we didn't know why we were changing our plans, or why we were just reading when we knew she needed the lessons, but Heavenly Father showed us that it's not about us and our plans, or even the person the lesson is intended for, whoever it's for will be the person who needs it the most.
Some other highlights of the week...
On Thursday we got to go and see Christopher and Rebecca at the hospital and we actually got to go back in the NICU and see baby Devlin! He was so cute!
Friday we went all the way to Brandon Mississippi to hear Elder Zwick of the Seventy speak. It was just as incredible as when Elder Kopishke came. He didn't plan anything just went for it and taught us so much!
We have been implementing his technique for the past couple days and it is beautiful! Teaching simply is harder than it sounds, so he gave us actual steps to go by. We condense information and it is so powerful, even if they don't understand every aspect they understand that it is important and applies to them, it allows the spirit to teach them as well. The first thing he told us was that if we are not willing to change, we wouldn't get anything our of the meeting. He said that we have to trust that if we are willing to change, the spirit will be with us. I don't want to go on about it but one of my favorite things was his blessing for us at the end. He promised that if we offer pure service, we will be accepted. I loved it because it had two parts. The Lord will accept our work, and members, nonmembers, strangers, everyone will accept us because you can't hide pure discipleship.
I really loved the Christmas devotional, we are excited to really take advantage of all the open hearts this season and reach out to as many people as we can. Sister White gave a talk on Sunday about reaching out in words and actions. Baring testimony and serving others like he did.
Have fun in Hawaii Dad, Mom, Kelly and Nat.
Sister Stevens
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