Dear Family,
I have a testimony of how amazing it feels to have less actives you are working with come to CHURCH! We are now consistently visiting two less actives (so far) every week. We have had the MOST amazing lessons with them, and one even completely got someone else to take her shift at work so she could come to ALL THREE hours of church! I have heard someone say that is like the Celestial Kingdom of church is making it all 3 hours. It's true, she stood up after Relief Society and commented how much she loved Relief Society! She even commented how our lesson had totally helped her feel the Spirit which helped her to dump her mentally abusive boyfriend and decide she needs to prepare to go back to the temple! I was in a missionary meeting once where we talked about having "astonishing" teaching, just like in the Book of Mormon (you know, after they would preach and hundreds would be baptized). Well we had a lesson where we talked about the Plan of Salvation with her, and she stopped me in my sentence and said "woah, stop! you just blew my mind!" Even though that lesson didn't bring about hundreds of baptisms, we are really striving to have the Spirit be more powerful in our lessons. If it brings that one soul back, then it was astonishing to me!
Also, we had a great day where we fasted to find an investigator. We went contacting in downtown Pleasant Hill. The first person we talked to was a super prepared 17 year old kid. He has been through a lot of hard things in his life, and when he talked to us about how he reads a Bible verse everyday on his phone, we talked about the Book of Mormon, and got a return appointment. When we went to his apartment with our member, he let us in. His mom knew we were coming, but had run out for something real quick. In the meantime, her boyfriend was there and guess what? He was a member! He had been baptized 4 years ago in Florida, and is now less active. He had JUST moved in the day before AND he is also a mid single! (since they are not married). THEN his mom came home and sat in on our lesson. We had just done an introduction about how our message was about Jesus Christ and how the gospel helps us, etc. but when we said we wanted to start with a prayer, she said they were going to eat dinner and didn't have time...but to come back later that week. Ugh, so close! But we passed them off to the family ward (actually the Walnut Creek sisters) since they were interested. This kid even brought up baptism before we ever did! It was pretty cool. Even though we did not get a new investigator that day, we actually met our goals for the week of lessons taught. We had more people in church, including our less actives. So there were some good blessings brought from fasting, even if it wasn't what we thought we wanted.
Speaking of what we want, I have a thought from one of the poems handed out on the last Sunday of the old East Bay Ward. It says a little something like "I prayed for answers, and God gave me problems to solve. I prayed for love, and I got troubled people to help....I received nothing I wanted and everything I needed. My prayers have been answered." It's a lot longer, but you get the idea.
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