Dear Family and Friends,
Gah! I just love being out here! Northern California's treating me well. I'm starting to get this lovely three-quarter-sleeve tan line from the shirts and sweaters and blazers I wear, so that's fun! And today I bought and waterproofed around 4 pairs of my shoes...it was a ripoff haha. I only got through 4 pairs before it ran out of waterproofing spray! Oh well...
So it rains on and off here. Also, the leaves change color! It's gorgeous. And the sunsets have been gorgeous as well. The members are also great! There are so many quirky, odd people living here haha. But the cool thing about serving in the singles ward here is that I get to see how people with totally different backgrounds and views and personalities (and I mean REALLY different people...VERY odd and VERY quirky) can get along and "become one" through Jesus Christ and learning about His Gospel.
Lots of crazy stuff happened this week! First off: Sister De Rurange and I are getting very creative in our contacting techniques. We usually will just start walking alongside someone and then ask something like, "Hey there! So if you could ask a Mormon anything, what would you ask them?" That one's great, because either a person's never heard of Mormons, or the person goes on about how we only read the Book of Mormon and not the Bible...and then we can pull out our Articles of Faith pass-along cards and read those to them and they are sufficiently humbled...and then we'll ask them if we can come by their home and teach them more sometime!
Or we give out
mormon.org cards with our Facebook pages on it and my
mormon.org profile link as well...those
mormon.org cards are GREAT! It's cool contacting college-age students, too, because they're usually trying to figure out who they are and who God is. But the COOLEST thing is that I have 400 friend requests and dozens of messages on my Facebook from people who've we've given cards to on the street! It's cool when I read messages that say, "Hey I checked out your profile on
mormon.org and I have some questions..." I am SO grateful that our mission is an iPad mission where we can get on Facebook and teach people all over the world.
I've also felt this week that the Second Coming is much sooner than anyone feels. General Conference should be proof of that! Last year they lowered the age for missionaries to go out and serve. They've opened hundreds of new missions. This year they asked every single member of the church to participate in missionary work (SO COOL! It takes EVERYONE for this work to move forward, not just set-apart missionaries). And they repeatedly talked about "hastening the work."
Then this week the thought just sprang to me: we are now preaching to every nation on Earth. You know how? Through Facebook. We're teaching people in China. In Cuba. In Africa. In the Middle-East. People from China, especially, are being taught the gospel online, flying to America to get baptized, then flying back to their country and practicing God's Gospel privately in their homes. The Gospel has reached every corner of the Earth. It is being preached worldwide. The Prophet has asked members to participate so that everyone on Earth will have the chance to accept or reject the Gospel before Christ comes. The Second Coming is much sooner than anyone feels. But God promises us that as long as we are trying our best, or enduring to the end, we have no need to fear.
I also wanted to share a miracle that happened to me and my companion this Friday:
We were walking down Yulupa Avenue to our ward church building from our apartment and contacting on the way. As we were walking along the street, a semi-truck drove down the road and snapped 2 or 3 low-hanging wires between two electric poles. So naturally, Sister De Rurange and I called 911, which transferred us to the fire station, and we told them about the wires snapping. We were pointing across the road at where the wires lay and a man sweeping his driveway thought we were waving to him, so he yelled across and waved to us, "Come on over!"
We walked to the street light and crossed the crosswalk then walked down the other side to his driveway. He looked so relieved and said, "Have you come to talk to me about Jesus?" We were SO surprised! No one EVER asks us anything like that! Then he teared up and hugged us (which was weird haha since we're technically not allowed to...but we hugged him back - he needed a hug). We talked a little bit, but then the firemen came. The lines that snapped were actually only cable lines - I learned that the electric wires are the reeeeally high ones on telephone poles - and the cable company was going to come out and fix them so they would be high enough. We were able to talk to the firemen a little bit about the Gospel AND a couple neighbors that ended up coming outside to see what the ruckus was about.
After they all left, we talked to the man more on his porch and he told us his name was Ryan Hawks, and that he'd met with missionaries multiple times but hadn't in a while. He said he needs help, and that he feels that our church can help him. He's having major issues with his spouse and wants to save their relationship, so he's seeking counseling, but a faith-based counseling. He also is looking for a job and thought maybe there was a person in the LDS church who had a calling to help him find a job. Then he teared up and said, "I had just prayed to God that He would send someone who could help, and right after that I looked across the street and you were there." WOW. God hears us and answers our prayers!
Ryan is a middle-aged man and Sis. De Rurange and I only teach 18-30-year-olds at the moments, so we referred him to the family ward elders to begin teaching him. Also, we set up an appointment with the family ward bishop in that area to meet with Ryan and see how he could help. I don't think it's a coincidence that those wires snapped right in front of us - if they hadn't, we wouldn't have looked across the street, and we wouldn't have seen that man, and we wouldn't have talked to him and discovered his desire to get help and come unto Christ and "be healed."
Another cool thing that happened: later that night we started teaching a new investigator, Jacob. We discovered that he does all sorts of drugs (sadly, it's SUPER common here) and he started going on and on and on and even BRAGGING about these hardcore, awful drugs he did one night. He was basically telling us about a drug overdose - how he started losing his sight and then his hearing and how he kept hearing voices in his head - and he kept going on and on and on......I couldn't take it anymore. So I stood up, looked him straight in the eye, and said so powerfully, "DON'T. DO. THAT."
He looked alarmed for a minute, and asked, "What?"
And I repeated, "Don't you EVER put those things into your body again. You almost died. Do you think Heavenly Father wants you to put those bad things into your body? Do you think He gave you your body to abuse like that? He wants you to be happy - are those drugs making you happy?"
Jacob teared up and said, "I won't. I don't even know if God exists, but if He does, He probably doesn't want me to do those things. I'm not happy. I need help."
Then Sister De Rurange and I and a member who sat in with us, Kaylene, talked to Jacob about how "God loves us so he gave us our bodies..." and taught him the Plan of Salvation. At the end of the lesson, Jacob kneeled down and offered a beautiful prayer and asked for help. Then I invited my first investigator to be baptized! And guess what? He said yes!
Ever since then, he's been so humble. He hasn't done any drugs since that lesson, and has gone from smoking more than a pack of cigarettes a day to nothing. He wants to be baptized the same day as his friend Ray, who's also been investigating the past few weeks with us. They're both planning on being baptized October 19th.
WOW. That definitely wasn't me doing any of the talking. It was so inspired - all by the Spirit. God promises that when we keep His commandments, He will give us "in that very moment the things which you should say."
Other cool news: we have another investigator, Anthony (I think I talked about him in the last e-mail) getting baptized October 26th. I love teaching the Gospel to those who need it! Don't ever let a person pass you by without sharing a Book of Mormon or pass-along card with them - my mission president, President Alba, said at a meeting last week with us missionaries, "You never know if the person you pass-up talking to on the street because you were too afraid or too nervous or too busy will never get to hear the Gospel - that passing by each other might be the only time that person will ever come in contact with a member."
So share the Gospel! It's not scary. I used to be scared, but now there's a sense of urgency about the work. Christ is coming again soon, and He is beckoning ALL of his children to come to Him and be healed; to come to Him and be saved. The only way to make it back to Christ is to "follow thou me" (See 2 Nephi 31), and we have the responsibility and opportunity to help people come unto God in this life.
I just want you all to know that I feel so close to God. Being out here is so amazing - to anyone young who is thinking about serving a mission: DO IT. It's so worth it. To anyone who feels after praying about it that a mission is not for them, don't think that doesn't mean not to spread the Gospel. It doesn't. EVERY MEMBER A MISSIONARY.
I love you all and wish you a happy week! I hope this e-mail wasn't too deep - after Conference I just feel even more excited and feel an even deeper sense of urgency! Christ is coming, and He wants ALL his brothers and sisters to have the chance to partake in His love. I can bear testimony that He loves you and me more perfectly and beautifully than we can know, and that all He desires is for us to come to Him. If we do that, and strive to stay with Him, then we WILL live with our Heavenly Father some day. I say these things in Jesus' name, Amen.
