Kjære alle sammen,
The time we live in is exciting and blessed! And I feel extremely
blessed to be serving the Lord as one of his full-time missionaries! This week
was nothing out of the ordinary. Well actually, kanskje it was a little bit of
a strange week.
We got invited to have dinner with one of our investigators who
is from Syria. Arabic food. It was so good! Also enough to feed all of the
extended family on my mom's side. He dished each of us a HUGE plate of Arabic
food that we had to eat in 10 minutes in order to make interviews with
president. It was for sure a miracle that we were able to eat all of that food!
And then make it back to the church on time! All of our clothes and hair
smelled like foreign food for a few days, but such is the mission life. Also a part
of the mission life is failing hard, which I did a lot of while we were in our
green trio. We got on a couple of wrong buses, Tried looking for a house that
didn't exist, accidentally trespassed, fell hard on the ice a few times, and
the likes. But I keep reminding myself that my track record for surviving rough
days is 100 percent. :) Something that is cool in the mission is that we are
changing our contacting approaches. We go contacting a lot here... a lot. And
well, this new method is a lot more personal and we get a lot less Nei Takk's
(no thanks) with it. The thing that we have done away with is greeting people
with "Hi, we are two missionaries from the church...." and started to
ask people inspired questions instead. It is more direct, and we allow people
to feel the spirit quicker. We had a workshop on Friday by the
Assistants to go through this new contacting approach.
Miracle story! We met this guy on the bus one day, and he was
nice and stuff, but he got off too quick for us to ask if he would like to meet
with us. Ben Weggerson (our mission leader) invited us to his house for dinner
yesterday, and because sister Vega's buss card was out, we had to walk home
instead of taking the bus. On our way home, we ran into this guy again! I was
like "Hey, we know you!" and we started talking to him and we started
talking about God we asked him to pray and if he would like to meet with us. If
all goes well, we will be meeting with Lars on Thursday! It took over an
hour for us to walk home, but if we had been able to take the bus, we probably
would not have met Lars again. The Lord truly works in mysterious ways.
I would just love to share with all you my testimony of the
scriptures. I have been spending time in the Bible recently, and it is becoming
so dear to me. I finished reading the book of John today, and the last verse
says And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which,
if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world
itself could not contain the books that should be written.
I am so grateful for the recorded information about the Savior's
life and teachings that we do have! I am forever grateful for the Book of
Mormon and it's role in my testimony of Christ and what the bible teaches me of
him. In 1 Nephi 13, Nephi sees a vision and the great importance of the book of
Mormon. verse 39.I beheld other books, which came forth by the power of
the Lamb, from the Gentiles unto them, unto the convincing of the
Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of my brethren, and also the Jews who were
scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and
of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true.
So he saw other books come forth by the power of God unto all
people, and that for the purpose of helping people see that Jesus is the
Christ, and that the records we have from the prophets and apostles are true.
I love the scriptures because they teach me of Christ and what I
can do to be more like him. I know the Bible and the Book of Mormon are true,
and I also know that if anyone else in the whole world would like to know this
too, they can, if they read, ponder and pray about it. You know why? Because
the Lord loves us. He knows us. He waits for us to come to him. And he has
provided through his prophets, a way for us to know his plan and exactly what
we need to do to make it back. It is so simple and wonderful. The way is
Christ.
Remember Him this week and do something that will bring you
closer to him. You will be blessed!
Med mye Kjærlighet,
Søster Stephanie Joy Williams
