How grateful I am for the Lord’s timetable. I think it’s the
most amazing thing that things happen for a reason and you’re put in the path
of people at the specific time so that you can help in changing their lives
because they’re ready. We saw a lot of that this week. One of our district
goals was to get 35 investigators by Wednesday. This goal was made last
Wednesday. I used to have an attitude of not wanting to set goals because then
it’s just a numbers game. It’s not about the numbers it’s about the people that
we’re teaching to come closer to Christ. But I’ve realized I needed to have an
attitude change about it because, in all reality, setting goals helps you to
achieve anything you set your mind to. Honestly, it helps you to become more
motivated. So I have a different attitude about setting goals because we’ve
seen miracles this week from setting goals. Our goal as a companionship is at
least 5 investigators in a week. That is a little tough for this area but we
are seeing so many miracles and it’s unreal. It was a pretty long week but
everything went along with what the Lord needed to happen. We ran into lots of
issues with scheduling over appointments and things falling through, but we saw
the Lord’s hand and everything worked out so we were able to visit those people
we needed to visit. Some appointments canceled and we were really sad about
that but it ended up that we were able to see other people because those
appointments had canceled. The Lord’s schedule is literally the best.
To start out, we were tracting this trailer park really far
east in the boonies. There are lots of trailers, I’ve never seen so many
trailers. It’s awesome and the people out there are so humble. Some of them
don’t want to talk about religion but that’s OK because we do meet amazing
people. One of those amazing people is Jeff. There’s a bit of a backstory about
this . . . we were tracting that area knocking doors and not getting a lot of
good response and we go to one house where 2 little girls were. We asked if
their parents were home and they told us no, so we told them we’d stop back by
later. We started back that direction after we’d knocked a few houses down the
road and saw a car there so decided to stop back by. Their dad comes to the
door and he’s a little bit like, don’t talk to me, and little bit guarded
because they’ve had problems with people coming to the door trying to sell
things and then end up causing harm to the family like kidnapping and stuff
that’s not the greatest. It was a little surprising and he was reluctant to
have us sing a song to his family because of that past experience. But as we
continued to talk to him he opened up a little bit and told us he has recently
split up with his wife and his kids don’t know yet. It was just a perfect time
to talk about the plan of salvation and how he can come closer to Christ and
find comfort and peace from this. He has a son with cerebral palsy and we were
able to talk about the resurrection and the spirit world and how his son won’t
have this limitation in the eternities. As we talked his heart was softened and
he said, “You know what? You’ve convinced me. You can sing a song to my kids.”
So we sing them a song and asked him to read the Book of Mormon and he said
he’d love to. We’ve been texting back and forth to see how he’s doing and he’s
pretty busy with his kids but we’re hoping to get in with him this week. So
that is a solid family that we’re so excited to get to know a little better.
Another miracle we saw this week was when we went tracting.
We got home from an appointment with a lady from our ward that had fallen a
little early, and instead of sitting down to plan our week, we decided to get
on our bikes and go tract a neighborhood. We found a street and began to knock.
This neighborhood has been tracted a bunch of times, so we were hopeful , expecting
the worst, but hoping for the best. The first door knock is literally always
the worst (laughter) you know get that over with and you’re fine. But we had
faith and knocked on this door. A 16-year
old girl answered and she was super sweet. We started talking to her about what
she believed, and what church she went to, building on that common belief. In
the end she was like, “sure, yea, you can come back and teach me.” So we had a
miracle and a return appointment on the first door knocked and also met a lot
of amazing people on that street too. So that was one of the miracles from
tracting that we had.
Saturday, we were in a neighborhood trying to visit some
former investigators and drove by a park on the street where we were going to
go see some investigators and saw a lady in a wheelchair watering her garden. We
wanted to see if she needed any help, so we walked over and said, “Hi.” She
said, “Oh you guys again.” We were like
what??? It seems missionaries had been there before. She has some health
difficulties and is in a wheelchair, but that doesn’t stop her from doing what
she loves, gardening. We asked if we could sing her a song about the
resurrection and she said yes and then talked to her about music. It turns out
she loves to play the piano and sing so we asked if we could hear her play. She
let us into her home and played some awesome jazzy old time music, “When the
Saints Go Marching In” and “Amazing Grace.”
It was just the best and was so cool.
We’re hoping to get to visit with her again sometime. You could tell that she knew her Savior Jesus
Christ and all that He had done for her.
Even though she has these difficulties, she is blessed with these
amazing gifts and talents that she is using and we thought that to be the
greatest thing.
On that same street we went to find a former person the
missionaries had found three or more years ago. We went up to this house and
asked the guy if he was Jared and he said no. We started talking to him and he
shared with us some crazy stories. We were trying to put a more positive spin
to the conversation, because it got a little negative, by asking him how Christ
had blessed him. He got a little teary eyed and said how God was the only one
who has cared for him in his life. We felt sad that he felt that no one cared
about him but we were glad that he does know Christ, he knows God and we were
happy to hear that. This is the humorous
part . . . he starts telling us about this surgery that he had to get done and he
was telling us about this gnarly scar that he’s got. All of a sudden he starts
taking off his coat, then lifts up his shirt, and the next thing we know he’s
turned around and pulled his pants down a little bit to show us this scar on
his backside. We were like ‘what the heck just happened?’ So we got flashed by
an old guy the other day. The things you run into being a missionary. Sometimes you even get to see scars in weird
places. Sister Jenkins and I have been laughing for the last 24 hours.
I will just say that Sundays are always the greatest. First
of all, Sabbath day, second of all, Sister Jenkins and I fasted for our
investigators this week and we had some awesome lessons with people, nothing
like we expected. We were really struggling to use our miles effectively (we
have a limit on how many miles we can use a month), and running out of miles
since the area is really big. We were trying to figure out members to come with
us to this lesson and had a feeling we just needed to go; to have the faith and
drive to this lesson. She is a former investigator whose husband use to be a
member of the church. Their whole family lives on Hartzog hill. (Her name is
Charlene Hartzog, hence Hartzog Hill). A lot of this family are members but
she’s not and missionaries have found them before and tried to teach the
lessons to them. We found this out because previously we met her at a wrong
address and had played some music for her and she said we could come back some
time. We were able to go and talk to her today and it was the coolest
experience because she believes everything that has been taught and she just
needs to gain a testimony about it. So she agreed to have us come over and
review the lessons, not necessarily teach them again, but we could review them,
and read the Book of Mormon with her. We texted her about 30 minutes ago and
she said she’s read the Book of Mormon which she didn’t really do before and
we’re going to challenge her to know if it’s true. We love sharing the
Introduction to the Book of Mormon. If you get a chance read that because it is
so powerful. It invites you to read and pray about the Book of Mormon because,
honestly, you can’t convince anyone to believe the Book of Mormon is true, that
the gospel is true. It takes you praying about it and studying the scriptures
to know if it’s true or not. So that is what we invited her to do and we’re
really excited. We think this family has a lot of potential and it helps
because they’ve got like a whole “hill” of members that they can turn to. So it
was a pretty awesome miracle today.
We didn’t have a dinner appointment and had a feeling to
call this family we didn’t know very well, and ask if we could have dinner with
them. They said yes and that they could pick us up – that was the second
miracle (We got to save our miles). We met half way and learned that her daughter
who is less active, her daughter’s husband who is a non-member, with his
parents who are 2 more non-members, and then her son who is sort of less active
would all be at dinner too. We get to their house and find out that their
daughter loves music, so we pull out the guitar and played and sang hymns that
she remembered from when she was younger. It was a real cool night of sharing
the gospel, laughter and having a good time all being children of God. Everyone
in that room is a child of God. Some may have a stronger testimonies than
others but it was real cool to just share beliefs about Christ with each other.
It ended up being a real good night and at the very end the less active daughter
said, “You know what? I just really need to come back to church.” Her mom
expressed to us in the car later that her daughter had been talking about the
need to come back to church and that she thought we had really helped her see this.
We were smiling ear to ear as we drove back home. Miracles happen on the Lord’s
timetable. It is so important to listen to the promptings and act upon them,
“No random thoughts.” We are going over for General Conference, and every
single person that was there tonight, will be there to watch together. It will
be awesome! We’re so excited.
My CHALLENGE for
you this week is to set some goals for
yourself. They can be any goals that
you want to set. Sister Jenkins and I
have a goal of 5 investigators this week and it’s totally doable with the Lord.
Know that your goals are totally accomplish-able with the help of the Lord.
Always make sure you’re praying and counseling with your Father in Heaven to
know what goals you need to set and how you can accomplish them, then make a plan.
Let me know how it goes, I’d love to hear what you do for all these
challenges. I love your stories and
experiences. Have a wonderful week. I love you all, your prayers, and your
thoughts. Ya’ll are the best.
Love, Sister Walker
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