Called to Serve: hold up something crazy just happened....

As a missionary, we are blessed for our efforts. Some days it's much harder to see the blessings. But other days, they are as obvious as the sun in the sky! So this past week, me and my companion were definitely in the right times and the right places. We were trying to visit some less actives and none of them were home. So, we were walking down the street when this lady drives by, we'll call her T, who we visited when I first got to Colorado. Her records are in the singles ward....hold up something crazy just happened....this guy just walked up to us in the library and gave us money for lunch! Sweet! Okay back to the story. So her records are in the singles ward so we didn't go back to visit her. Until this past week. So we were walking and she drove by. We usually wave at everyone that passes so we waved and she turns around and came back to talk to us. She rolled down her window and yells "sisters! Are you looking for me!? Did you get my message on the internet last night!? Get in my car, we'll go to our house and talk!" We ended up getting in the car and realized it was T. We hadn't seen her for 2 months! So we had a very nice talk at her house. She told us she's getting too old for the singles ward but she wants to come back to church and get her records in our ward as soon as possible! She explained how she realized she needs the church back in her life and we even set a goal for her to go to the temple. The next day, she called us and said she felt so happy to see us yesterday that she wanted us to come and reteach her the missionary lessons! WHAT!? It was awesome! So we went back and taught her and she promised she would come to church the next day. Well, Sunday comes around and she showed up to church! Unfortunately this story doesn't have the best ending. I sat by her during sacrament meeting and I could tell she felt very uncomfortable. So she kinda ran away as soon as we said, "Amen". But, we'll see her again.

Another time this week, we were in a different neighborhood doing the same thing...trying to visit less actives who were not home. But, we talked to a bunch of people outside doing their yard work. One guy we talked to was like, "Hey, you're missionaries!". We got talking to him and apparently he is a member! He is super less active and hasn't been to church in many years...so many years that we didn't even have his records in our ward! We got his information and gave it to our ward clerk to get his records. He was very friendly. We set a time to come back and visit with him but he wasn't home when we went by...bummer. But, we are persistent!

So this week was a good one. We did a lot of service. We were able to go back to the nonmember woman's house and do service with her! It was great. I can tell she really loves the spirit she feels when she is around the missionaries. We went and visited a lot of less actives and potential investigators. There is one family who has been at church the past 2 weeks! And, another youth in the ward has returned to activity within the past month. We are working with this youth to get ready for a mission. It's great to see the light in these people as they return to church.

Our ward has been a huge support lately. The members are so awesome. We've been going around to set up a family mission plan with all the families in the ward. I love to see them set goals and get excited about missionary work! The members help us out a ton. They are willing to come out with us and visit quite often.

With the work we've been doing lately, I've realized that the work we are doing in this area is not so much about baptism...we are also here to help people grow deeper roots in the gospel and build their foundation on Christ so they cannot fall- as it says in Helaman 5:12. We work with a lot of the less active people to help them make goals of going to the temple, or simply finding their true testimony of Christ. This used to be very discouraging to me because this is work that we cannot put numbers to or see the immediate results. But, since I've been here a couple months now, I have seen changes in some of the people we work with and I've realized the numbers don't mean a thing. We are here to help people come closer to Christ and find the desire to do all they can to gain eternal salvation.

Being a missionary is so great. I can't wait to see what our ward will do with their family mission plans! It's exciting.

xoxoxoxox

Sister Hoer