Monday-Tuesday
consisted of preparing the place for Sister Kafoa and getting Sister
Winegar ready to go. Wednesday morning we went to the Mission Office
where I dropped off Sister W. and stayed for some meetings and met
Sister Kafoa. On the way home I asked Sister Kafoa about her feelings on
obedience and she said in her Fijian accent, "Can we say 'exact
obedience?'" Why yes. Yes we can. That makes it easy! She's totally fine
when I need to correct or remind her about obedience things and doesn't
get upset, she just tells me "Oh, thank you for telling me." And does
the right thing. It's great.
She working
on opening her mouth and talking. She gets lost and/or nervous in the
middle of talking to people. Which is fine, her barriers will break down
by the time I'm gone, so it's fine with me. We've been practicing
teaching like crazy. Every single companionship study I try to have her
role play teaching me what she just learned from Preach My Gospel.
When we practice with the members she bears a solid testimony! Her
Spirit is very strong. She could probably say the completely wrong
thing, but so long as she ends by bearing testimony, the Spirit just
comes in. So I keep telling her that that's her strength, if she doesn't
know what to say, just bear your testimony. Sometimes she gets a little
nervous doing that as well, but when she does it it's powerful, so I'm
trying to use that to her advantage. She studies the lessons in Preach My Gospel
in her spare time even. She's determined to get it down. It's been
really cool to watch her. It's only been a few days, but I think she's
got a great mission ahead of her.
Saturday one
of the most spiritual experiences happened. This week we've set up two
lessons with Barry, had a team up for both, and he hasn't been home. I
was getting a little nervous. Wondering if he'd been trying to avoid us,
but the hard thing is that he doesn't have a phone, so we just have to
show up at his house and hope for the best. I had been praying all week
for him, to know how to help him be prepared to make a covenant with
God. I came across a scripture in Alma 7:14-15 and felt like we needed
to be bold and just tell him he needs to be baptized. Sister Kafoa had
also found a scripture in Mosiah that relates to baptism, and she agreed
that we should do that as well.
We showed up
at his house and he's home! He informed us that he would be moving to
Cornelia at the end of the month. While he was telling us, I kept
feeling like we should commit him to baptism. When we discussed it
later, Sister Kafoa said she was getting the same feeling. We read the
scripture to him, and after we read it, I looked up and Barry had tears
in his eyes. I swear the Spirit spoke through me, and so quietly I said,
"Barry, you need to be cleansed." We sat for a moment, all just soaking
in the Spirit. It felt like a long time before we said anything else.
He nodded and said, "That's exactly what I needed to hear."
Barry
is on date to be baptized! However, the Bishop was worried he could go
less active if he's baptized here, moves away, and is in a whole new
ward with a whole new group of people. We talked with Barry about it,
and he promised that he would be baptized on January 10th in Cornelia,
so long as Brother Wernli and us could come to the baptism. It felt
right, the original date was this Saturday, but that didn't quite sit
with all of us. Typically I would be nervous to postpone the date, but
we want him to transition into membership smoothly and for him to have
fellowship in Cornelia.
I'm so excited. The
Spirit was SO strong when we met with him, it was amazing! Probably one
of the most memorable experiences on the mission. Crazy how that can
keep happening.
Love it. Love y'all,
Sister Smith
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