I'm glad you all were safe and had a good time at beaver! I know, it would be weird without me there ;) I can't wait to be able to share that tradition with all of you when I get back.
This week started out kind of slow. We were tracting a lot early in the week but nobody seemed to be answering the door, let alone listening to us. It was kind of discouraging but later in the week, we were greatly blessed.
We have been praying a lot to find someone to bring to the temple, and it seemed to be in vain as we were seeing very little success at the beginning of the week. But on Thursday we decided to stop by a long-time investigator we hadn't talked to in a while. Her name is C. and she usually answers the door pretty quick when she's home, so I was a little worried after I knocked a couple times and there was no sign of her being home. I felt we should knock one more time, and then about 20 seconds later, her son came and answered the door. We walked in and C. was sitting in the kitchen and looked quite sad and a little worried. As we began to converse, she told us that her mother had passed away on Sunday. We shared scriptures from the Book of Mormon about the state of our loved ones after this life and bore testimony of the Atonement and the blessing we have to see our loved ones again. We then invited her to come to the temple and shared why temples are so important and that in the temple she would find the comfort she needed. So we went to the temple on Saturday and the Bello family came with us and Brother Bello was able to translate the tour into Spanish for her. The spirit was so strong and C. loved the temple. It was an answer to our prayers.
On Friday, we were eating with the Bello family in their backyard, and right before we started eating, their neighbor walked into the backyard and told us she had just visited the temple with some coworkers and she loved it! She sat down and ate with us and we spent more than an hour talking about the temple and the importance of the temples. She was asking so many questions and brother Bello bore powerful testimony as he shared personal experiences of his in the gospel.
We have another investigator that someone in our branch had invited to church named J. E. We met him at church and invited him to the temple and he said he'd love to come and see it. We're praying for him that he can find the truth and the peace he is looking for.
I've been able to translate for a couple temple tours myself and it's been awesome to be a part of the blessing of the open house. I've also been translating a lot in church ever since I've been back in the branch so I'm getting a lot of practice.
I love you Mom! Thank you for everything! I'm glad you guys had fun last week! I'll talk to you next week.
Elder Thayne
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| "This truly is the house of the Lord" |
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| Elder Ryan and Elder Thayne |
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