Sunday, October 13, 2013

Transfer Week


Hello, hello,
 
General Conference....WOW!!! It was amazing!! Uchtdorf...Holland...Eyring...President Monson, etc. etc. It was all so good!! I forgot to bring my notes with me but I'll try to remember next week so I can share some of the things I took from conference. It turned out to be quite a miracle weekend for us, as well. On Friday, this cute girl from Taiwan walked in to our teaching center. She speaks hardly any English so she was introduced to me. We gave her a tour of the chapel and then had a lesson with her and taught her how to pray. I was a little nervous, it's not very often that I have to teach all in Chinese, but It went really well, I surprised myself. Of course it was all Heavenly Father... :) She asked if she could pray to her dad. I thought it was an odd question, that maybe she didn't quite understand what prayer was, but then she told me that her dad is in heaven and if she could pray to him. I asked her if she believed in a life after this, she said, "I hope so." I told her that Sister Campbell and I both have loved ones in heaven and that through prayer to our Heavenly Father, we can feel closer to them. She really wants to learn more. She came to General Conference and we're meeting this week to teach her the Plan of Salvation. We had two other walk-ins that came to General Conference, too. It was so awesome we had General Conference playing in different languages in different rooms (Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Thai...), It was so cool to see everyone enjoying conference in their own language.

I had a bit of an interesting miracle this week, we've been teaching an investigator for awhile now, and we've even started visiting his wife and teaching her as well. He loves the scriptures and loves coming to church, but doesn't quite feel the strong desire to be baptized yet. So we've been patient and been praying and teaching him. This last lesson we had with him he was sharing how he isn't sure if he should be baptized. We asked if he'd prayed about it and he said yes but still didn't know. So I wrote down on a piece of paper in front of him the date "October 26th" and I asked if it would be okay if we all knelt down together right now and have him pray and ask God specifically if this is the date he should be baptized and anything else he needs at this time. He said yes. We knelt down and he said a beautiful prayer, asking if that is when he should be baptized and asking if Heavenly Father would take away any fears or doubts that he has, to give him confidence and strength. We said amen and then waited for him to speak. After a few moments of silence, he said, "It's funny, just as I was kneeling down, I felt this strong feeling I've never felt before, this strength in my heart, as if I had no doubts and I didn't feel empty anymore." He continued to describe this feeling and all of us were feeling the Spirit so then I invited him and asked if he'll prepare to be baptized on the 26th and he said, "hmm....I'm not sure. I'll have to pray and ask Heavenly Father." My heart sunk. Here we had just experienced this great miracle, Heavenly Father answering a sincere prayer through the power of the Holy Ghost and he still faltered. We helped him to recognize that it was the Holy Ghost but he just sunk back into his small doubts. I felt like we had done all that we could. What more could Heavenly Father give him to answer him? By the end of the lesson he agreed to live the commandments and pray and prepare to be baptized on that date. I hope over the next few days he'll be able to reflect on that experience and have more confidence in himself and in Heavenly Father. It was a miracle for me to see Heavenly Father answer a prayer so immediately, but also disappointing we weren't able to help him recognize that fully.

Overall, it has been a great week. We were invited over to some Chinese investigators home to enjoy some REAL Chinese food. Honestly, not a real fan of whatever it was that we had but the company was good. It was a little awkward eating with chopsticks. Normally, it's not a problem. I've been getting pretty good but they had these potato noodles, the most slippery things I've ever seen! Embarrassed myself when I ended up flinging a noodle onto this girl, hahaha  Then they asked me, "um...would you like a fork?" I refused haha. I love my companion, we laugh constantly, it's so much fun, and she's so humble.

I love you all very much, have a great week! The church is true, that's one thing I know for sure. Talk to you next week :)
 
Love,
Sister Raitt

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