Its been such an amazing week! Vanderhoof just feels like a dream now... I am now back in the Lower Main Land! Abbotsford is super close to the mountains so its beautiful! We are close to the US boarder. I see Mt Baker everyday... well, when its not raining. :)
Wednesday is when we made the move! I got on a plane with the other sisters up north and made it to Vancouver safely. Sister Schroeder picked me and and we were on our way to Langley where is where our YSA branch meets. We had ward correlation meeting and then we were asked to teach institute! So basically we just winged it... But luckily it was a mission prep class and we were teaching on the Restoration. :)
Thursday we got to walk around downtown Abbotsford and talk to people! I'm a little rusty to talking to city folk. :) We talked to this super nice lady but then she went into a little bakery. A few minutes later she came and found us down the street and she bought us a slice of carrot cake! So sweet! In the evening we saw our progressing investigator, Ory. We talked about following the prophet and the word of wisdom. He has been smoking since he was 13 and smokes about 15 cigarettes a day. We made a game plan for him to cut down 2 a day. He also wanted a priesthood blessing! :)
Saturday was our walking day! We walked around Abbotsford all day and saw so many miracles! We found lots of potential investigators! In the evening we met Ory at a YSA member's house and read a bit in Ether 12 on faith and he got a blessing. You could tell that it really impacted him. He kept rubbing his chest like he was feeling something there. Then on Sunday when we followed up with him, he said that he only smoked 1 cigarette that day! And that during his blessing he felt an overwhelming feeling of love that hasn't gone away since. He came to church and loved and even wanted to volunteer to help with the YSA Halloween dance next week! He is doing awesome! Please keep Ory in your prayers, that all will work out for him to be baptized in November. :)
Sunday we saw a HUGE MIRACLE! We got a text Saturday from a student that said she wanted to come check out church for an assignment in one of her classes. She also said that she was going to be bringing 10 other friends with her! So a few minutes before church we met up with them all and talked a bit about the sacrament and the classes and such. Everything was on point at church! We also found out that they were bible students and one of the bible colleges here. They were so nice and seemed to enjoy it. At the end they wanted to ask us some questions for there assignment. Me and Sister Schroeder were just a bit nervous so we also brought our awesome Branch Mission Leader with us. They asked great questions like "what's different to us than other churches?" "What are some traditions that your church has?" and more! They were nice and a couple seemed interest. One guy even asked if he could take a Gospel Principles book! What a miracle though, we had 11 nonmembers at church!
Yesterday was such a busy day because me and Sister Schroeder were trying so hard to reach our proselyting goals. We needed to set another baptismal date or have 2 new investigators. We hit the streets hard trying to find out where the Lord wanted us to be. It was 7pm and we were like "Okay, we can't do this by ourselves, we need heavens help." So we prayed where to go and nothing too distinct came to mind. So we drove over by the bus stop and we felt like that was a "No." So we prayed again and gave Heavenly Father a couple streets on where we could go to walk around and we decided to go to Clearbrook because Sister Schroeder said that there was a potential that worked at a McDonald's over there. So we went walking by the McDonald's hoping by some chance he might be walking out as we are there... But nope. So we walk a bit more and start talking to this older man, but down the street a ways I see this black man and knew I needed to talk to him. So I left Sister Schroeder to talk to the old man and I want right up to the black man and he was YSA aged! He said his name was Atone and he is from Jamaica and started having a good Gospel conversation with him. After a bit Sister Schroeder joined me and we knew we needed a baptismal date so we invited him to be baptized! Atone was very sweet and said that he wanted to learn about things more before setting a date but that he wants to come to church and learn more and is wanting to come closer to God! We set up a time to meet him Tuesday. Then then told us how he believes that God lead him to us. That he had been in his apartment all day and decided to go on a walk and normally he turns right at McDonald's but something told him to keep walking straight and then I walked up to him! So even though we didn't set a baptismal date to meet our goals, we were on the Lord's errand and it felt amazing. :)
I'm loving missionary life so much! I knew there are people waiting for us here! Plus, there are so many here! I LOVE IT!! I'm excited to continue to learn from Sister Schroeder and learn the area and get to know the members in the branch. There is no greater joy than comes from serving others and the Lord. If you are looking for deeper meaning to your life, try it! :) I love you all. Thanks for your support!
Love,
Sister Lofthouse
No comments:
Post a Comment