Week 84 - Following through on spiritual guidance

Whaaaat?? A new nephew?? Awesome! I can't wait to meet little Lucas! Man, all my sisters are taking that "multiply and replenish the Earth" commandment to heart for sure. There are so many nephews I need to meet! 

Our week was pretty good! The weather has been beeeeeauuutiful over here! This week it was in the 70's and 80's and I loved it! It was a good change for sure. 

This week was a little frustrating in terms of teaching lessons with members. We've been trying so hard to try to bring a member to every single return appointment, but either the member ends up not coming or the lesson falls through. We had about 7 of them planned this week and only taught one, so that was rough.

We did exchanges again this week, and I always go into exchanges unexcited and not wanting to do it (because I'd selfishly rather be in my own area), but in the end we always have great experiences and end up enjoying it. I went with Elder Reidhead, an English Elder in Elkhart on Thursday. In our mission, Pres. Cleveland expects us to tract at least 2 hours every day, so we did. We didn't really talk to many people in those 2 hours, but we were confident that we had been obedient to the schedule. After those 2 hours, we could have gone on to doing something else, but we decided to tract for one more hour. At the 2nd house, a 17 year old girl named J answered the door. We talked to her about church and stuff and she told us that last week she saw a movie about our church called "Once I Was a Beehive" and she loved it! I'm not sure what that movie is about, but it sure left a good impression on her. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she had so many questions! About halfway through the lesson, I felt the prompting to commit her to a baptismal date. We invited her and she said yes! She's now preparing to be baptized on May 21st. It was a miracle! 

This past weekend we had Stake Conference up here in the South Bend Stake and we had the privilege of having 2 members of the Quorum of the 70 come. Elder Randall K. Bennett was assigned to come to our stake, and he brought with him a newly called 70, Elder Beheshti. They were all great meetings! For the Saturday evening session, Elder Bennett had asked each member of the stake presidency to prepare only a 5 minute talk. When they got to the meeting, he told them to throw all their talks and notes away and to speak by the Spirit. They did so and it was great! But even better was that after every talk, Elder Bennett asked everyone that was willing to share any spiritual impressions they received. Every time somebody would share something, Elder Bennett would ask that person a question such as, "Based on that spiritual guidance you received, what are you going to do?" They would reply and then he always answered back, "When are you going to do it?" I was so inspired by that teaching method! A lot of times we ask people to read or pray or do something to come closer to Christ, but I love the idea of directly asking them when they will complete it. I received a lot of personal revelation during Stake Conference, the most frequent being that I need to be more open to the guidance of the Spirit in my life. 

That's it for the week! We're still working on finding somebody that's willing to progress and accept a baptismal date! It's been tough but we won't give up.

Elder Thayne