I’ve come to a point where the weeks feel like months and the months feel like moments. This week felt forever long. Last Monday night Sister Melton & I were super brave and had dinner at this person’s house that we had tracted into the night before. I know that sounds really sketch but it turned out really good. They had pulled into the parking lot as we were finishing up tracting their apartment complex Sunday night and I was just mentally preparing for them to just sit in their car awkwardly until we walked away or something (but this was also right after a dude had just answered the door in a towel with shampoo bubble still in his hair so at this point, nothing really phased me). But they didn’t. They got out and recognized our little black name tags then started talking to us. It was a single mom and her two daughters and they have a friend living over in Palmer who is a Mormon and they had been to dinner at her house when the elders were over there once. Then they invited us in to their apartment and gave us a bunch of leftover Halloween candy and said that we could come over and have dinner with them whenever. No one had signed up on our dinner calendar for Monday night-another PSA to #feedyourlocalmissionaries2k17-and so we had to put our big girl pants on and eat dinner at a stranger’s house. It was amazing though, way worth it. The Palmer member came to dinner too and we all just got to chat about the gospel and Jesus Christ. They invited us over to their house again for dinner on Wednesday night so that should be exciting.
I’ve just got to say that God prepares people’s hearts for the gospel; I have such a testimony of that. And it’s been such a huge blessing to be an instrument in a little piece of it. Last week, the YSA branch president called us and asked for us to go and visit a lady named Erin, who wasn’t a member of the Church [yet] but was going through some rough patches in her life and had asked that the sister missionaries come and see her. Sister Melton and I are the only sisters in the Wasilla area so we get to go on all these “Sisters Only” adventures and experiences all of the time, sorry elders. We contacted Erin and set up an appointment to meet her on Wednesday afternoon. Sister Melton and I had picked some of our favorite scriptures that talk about God’s love (because you can never get too much of that) to share with her and then by the end of it, we found ourselves setting a baptismal date with Erin. Her heart was so ready and all we had to do was walk in there and invite her to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the Priesthood authority. It was amazing as the Spirit buzzed in the room. God is so real. Plot twist: Erin is moving down to Kansas City at the end of November to live with her sister (who is a member of the Church) and so she will probably be baptized down there so some of her family can be there. We are going to teach her all the lessons and then get in contact with the Kansas City missionaries to pass her off to them. Church is true.
Last Sunday night, we went and met a potential investigator in our Area Book named Bobbe. She’s this cute little old lady who the elders had met years ago and we felt like we needed to try and stop by and meet her. We showed up and the apartment complex was locked but luckily by sheer miracle (but really God), someone had seen us try and get in and came and let us in the apartment #majorblessed. We knocked on Bobbe’s door and she let us right in and we talked to her about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. She ate it all right up. This lady loves God and dogs more than anyone in the whole world and just wants to do whatever God wants her to do. She said we could come back and teach her more later in the week and so we come back and the apartment is locked again but luckily someone ordered a pizza and the pizza man snuck us in #againmajorlyblessed. Bobbe was being all weird and so we asked her what was going on and she told us that she had told her lady friends that she was meeting with us and they freaked out and started showing her a bunch of Anti-Mormon YouTube videos that scared Bobbe and left her with a lot of questions that we tried to resolve for her. Bobbe sat on the couch while we sat at her feet testifying and flipping from scripture to scripture showing her proof of what we taught. It felt like we were fighting for Bobbe’s soul, and we were. At one point Bobbe burst out, “why do you girls even do what you do?!”. And then the feels. I’m sitting on a dog hair covered carpet at the feet of this sweetheart old lady and in my attempts to convey just a sliver of what being a missionary has meant to me and done for me and why I knock doors in the Arctic cold and why I labor to love and labor to learn and every little aspect of missionary work, I totally start crying. Full on tears. It’s because of Christ’s peace. Eternal joy. God’s love. We all need it and so I’m out here to share it. Then Sister Melton drops her fire testimony and we are fighting for Bobbe because she needs the light of the gospel so bad in her life and we want nothing more than for her to receive it. She says the prayer at the end thanking God for her Mormon sisters and then tells us to save her a seat at church tomorrow. But she doesn’t show. I thought she was in it to win it with us. *only keep reading this paragraph if you want your heart to break too...Bobbe sent us a big long text this afternoon about how much she loves us but that she doesn’t want to disappoint her friends by letting us visit her. I know. It’s such a bummer. We’re so sad. Her heart is just not ready yet, it will be though. Eventually. Sister Melton after experiencing her first drop: “this feels like a breakup text!”.
A few more things: a lady just moved into Wasilla and she is a recent convert from Palmer and it turns out that Sister Christian, Sister Mataele, and I taught her when we were in Lazy Mountain together a year ago #smallworld. We have Wasilla Zone Conference on Tuesday and let’s just say that some big things are happening in AAM. Stay tuned. Super excited. Other than that, I have no idea what’s going to go down in Wasilla this week. Every day is an adventure, that’s for sure #alaskansaretheirownbreed.
Here’s some pep talk scriptures that have been keeping me alive these last few weeks:
Mosiah 24:14-16 “I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions. And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up there burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord. And it came to pass that so great was their faith and patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: be of good comfort.”
Moroni 10:32 “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”
Isaiah 41:10 “fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”
Doctrine & Covenants 121:7-8 “peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment. And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.”
Stay warm down there kiddos.
You can do hard things.
Lots of love,
XOXO Sister Dunlop
No comments:
Post a Comment