We have been meeting some amazing people, it's just incredible the people who meet here that are so ready to receive the restored gospel.
This week we [Zone and District Leaders] had a training from the Missionary Department, I love them all so much! I wish I could be one of them some day, they seriously have the coolest job ever. We get these training's a few times a year and this time round we were really focusing on how to can increase in our effectiveness as Visitor Center Sisters. Really focusing on how we can help our investigators progress beyond the Visitor Center and doing something so simple which is to invite them to meet with Local Missionaries before inviting them to learn more with us (online). It's so simple and yet a lot of Sisters are scared to do it because of fear that we will damage the relationship we have with them or whatever it may be, but we have really learned that there is so damage done, and by not inviting we are taking away their agency which is the last thing we want to do.
Invitations are not just "Will you...?" it goes far beyond that, invitations are empty unless we help them. That is our purpose, to "Invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the Restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end".
I have mentioned before that on my mission I have learned that our purpose continues forever, it never ends, everything we do in the church, everything we do along our path of discipleship, is centered on the missionary purpose and there is so much more to missionary work than teaching the lessons, getting/contacting referrals, going out with the missionaries, etc.Missionary work is anything that helps anyone come closer to Christ.
Which goes into the next days training when we learned how to work with members, and really helping members do their own missionary work, teaching them how they can do it and opening their eyes to see the greater picture of the work of salvation. I think as missionaries we are too quick to just get the name of the person and do it on our own, but we need the members, it is always so much more successful when the members are involved in the work, especially when they are "not ready to meet with the missionaries". It is our job then to say, "Okay, what is the next step for that person, how can we help you, help the person you love and hold dear to your heart? What are they searching for and how can we help you, help them?"
I don't know if any of this make sense... But for me it all means that Missionary work never ends. My time as a full-time missionary is the MTC for the rest of my life and when I heard that I always thought about going into the real world, school, family, career, being a disciple but it hit me this week that it prepared me to be a missionary for the rest of my life. THAT'S EXCITING!
I am so grateful for the training's, I was sad because I felt like "I wish I had this training early in my mission, that would have been so amazing, I won't be able to apply these things for long" until I realized that was the biggest lie to ever tell myself because I get to apply these things forever.
Now that we received 5 hours of training over three days about all of this, it's time to hit the square and apply it all! Yesterday we got called to take 3 English at EF desk, so we got there as fast as we could to take them, it was a Chinese couple and a girl that is staying with them and at first I was really confused because we had met them earlier and they had definite Chinese accents, I for sure thought they were from Mainland China, but they started speaking almost perfect English (with an accent) and wanted to learn everything about what we believed in. We prefaced and introduced the local missionaries in their area and they agreed right there and then to meet with them before we even really got the tour started! We went to the Temple Model, Assembly Hall and ended at the Statue of Christ, we hardly shared any history at all, it was purely doctrine, because that is what they wanted to know! We talked about the temple, church, fasting, Christ, the Book of Mormon and they just loved everything. When we talked about fasting, Simon was very intrigued, we talked about how we sacrifice 2 meals and God gives us blessings for our sacrifice, that we are able to feel the spirit in greater abundance as we show control over our physical bodies and he just loved the concept so much! We then both shared stories and testimonies of it and he just admired the practice of it so much. The spirit was so strong throughout the whole tour, they were just so ready to receive the gospel and I know that the Lord has been preparing them for a long time, they had so many questions and are so excited to read the Book of Mormon, to check out church and to meet with the missionaries when they get home. It was a complete miracle and I know its because we began applying the things we have learned and the Lord was testifying to us that it works!
I know that the Lord helps us be at the right place at the right time, that as we sacrifice everything we have and give it to the Lord that's when amazing things happen, we had cut our lunch early to go and take a tour that had been waiting for 15 minutes and no one was responding, everyone was just ignoring the fact that it was there not even saying they were unavailable to take it which really saddened our hearts so we packed our things away and ran up. It wasn't a great tour, they weren't very interested in what we had to say, we planned on taking them to see Gods Plan for His Family but we had the prompting to cut the tour short and so we did, after the tour we were asked to cover Assembly Hall quickly and then I got a call saying there was someone from my ward looking for me and so I asked them to send them to the Assembly Hall, I had been expecting a visit and was so sad that I might not meet them but they came and it was so amazing, we then got to take them on a tour and it was just marvelous. They are a recent convert family from my ward that was baptized while I have been on my mission and I got to meet them! Apparently when they were asking for me the Sister before calling me talked to someone for about 10 minutes and then called, if she hadn't of talked to that person we would have missed the call and I might not have met them! The Lord truly has his hand in all the little details we don't even think about and I am so grateful for it!
I love this gospel, I love my mission and my Savior, Jesus Christ! Have a lovely week!
No comments:
Post a Comment