Friday, July 18, 2014

Wonderful Week!

This week had a lot of ups and downs, but overall it was good. 

On Tuesday we had a lesson with Bonnie, our second to last one before her baptism, and it went really well.

On Wednesday we met with a lot of people and some less actives and thta was good. Then we went to Helen, which was totally on a whim. We were driving to this neighborhood that's on the Highway to Helen and we just decided to go to Helen instead and check it out and contact. It went really well. Needless to say, we did meet a lot of tourists, so we won't be going there too often; however, we met a lady that owns a horse and carriage ride thing and she lives there locally and she's totally elect. She isn't available to meet with us until this week, but she kept saying, "God's timing is perfect. You ladies might now know why, and you will in a week, but you came into my life at the perfect time." She was SO excited to read the Book of Mormon and look on mormon.org, it was really cool. So that was inspired. Oh and we also met someone who was a convert when he was 12 but doesn't practice anymore and we asked him to crack open his Book of Mormon and start reading it again, he said he would so that was successful. 

Thursday we had our last before baptism lesson with Bonnie and we taught her about the temple. We even had pamphlets for the Atlanta Temple from when it was rededicated a few years ago. Made me hungry for the temple, but really, when am I not? I wish we could go more often. 

Friday was great. Weekly planning, service, then dinner and tracting. We ended up tracting for longer than normal because our appointments fell through; however, we met a lot of people got a new investigator out of it. That was cool. The best part of that night was that we had forgotten our phone in the car and we had TEN missed phone calls/texts/voicemails... Two being from the Assistants. YIKES! Well, one was from Bonnie and she left a voicemail after her interview and said, "Hey, it's me. Looks like I'm gettin' baptized tomorra!" (She's got a real Southern accent by the way). So happy. Oh, and the Assistants just wanted to know when and where our baptism was, so no issues there.

Saturday. Great day. We met with a less active couple that I love. They're hilarious and sarcastic and I just know dad would love the husband so he makes me laugh more. But we asked them if they would be interested in having us re teach them the missionary lessons. So this was the visit where they would tell us their answer... They said yes! They first asked why we wanted to do it, and we just said that learning doctrine helps people change and that we're not there to be visiting teachers but to be full time teachers of the Gospel. Brother Baker really liked our response, so they said yes. Then we had lunch with this awesome family in the ward, they're one of my favorite families, and they took us to a delicious Thai restaurant, who knew Cornelia could have good restaurants? Then we tracted. Talk about sweating! It was SO hot! And a lot of people were surprisingly rude to us. But we did meet this really awesome man that wasn't interested in taking the lessons, but he was going to read the Book of Mormon and look at the website because he's looking for a church. We had a really good discussion with him and he asked why this was the faith that we felt like was true. That's always fun to talk about.

Well, after tracting we needed to prepare for the baptism. Oh and I've been playing the piano a lot for random things because no one here knows how, and it's horrifying because I'm so bad, and I was supposed to play for Bonnie's baptism, so we went a little extra early so I could practice. 

Turns out, President and Sister Bennion decided to come to the baptism, so she played the piano-- THANK GOODNESS! 

The baptism was postponed about forty minutes because everything was ready, but Bonnie's daughter and grand kids weren't there yet.... They left the house on the hour that the baptism was supposed to start, and they live about 40 minutes away. I discussed different things with the ward mission leader and we decided to start the program, so song and hymn, but then have everyone bear their testimonies and begin the rest of the program when her family arrived. It worked perfectly. I wasn't sure if it would work, but the Spirit was so strong during the testimony meeting that it really set the tone for the rest of the baptism. It all went so well and it was  just exactly how it should have gone. It's so nice when after all that planning, stress, phone calls, and scheduling, it all comes together just for that one person to make a covenant with the Lord. 

It was a wonderful week. And I loved it.

Love y'all,
Sister Smith

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