Hello family!
Life is still pretty normal
here in Papara!
The transfers are in 2 weeks and I'm
pretty positive I’ll be the one leaving. But we never know because
Soeur Carter was here for like 8 months ha.
Our Amis are doing good, but we've
definitely had a dip in progressing investigators and are on the hunt for new
investigators. We've done quite a bit of tracting the past couple of weeks and
we’ve met so many great people, but when we follow up, nobody's interested or
they're "too busy". I guess that's just missionary work, eh? We have
found 1 or 2 Amis though from tracting so that's worth something!
One of my favorite Amis right now is
Monihia. She's 17 and both of her parents are members (converts). She's taken
the lessons for a LONG time and she wants to be baptized and sealed with her
family, but she has this wall and she can't figure out why it's there or how to
get over it. She shared this in our Sunday school class last week and ever
since she shared that, I could not stop thinking about Monihia and how we Have
to help her get over this wall she has up. We've talked a lot about baptism
with her and engaged her a couple of times but every time we engage her- she
says she not ready. Were just like- yes! yes, you are ready!
So when she shared this in our class
we thought- she just needs to act. That is the only way she'll get over this
wall. She needs to make a decision and she needs to act. It's like when we want
to go swimming, but the water is really cold. Are we ever completely ready to
jump in? Not really, because we know it will be really cold! So we wait a
little bit, we dip our toe in, we walk around the pool but we're never actually
going to get in until we first make the decision to jump and then actually jump
in. It's a little scary at first and uncomfortable right when we jump in but
after a few seconds in the water- we realize that it's really not that cold and
we can now enjoy swimming.
Well anyways, I got the prompting
when she said that to engage her for baptism that Saturday. At first I was like
no- that's too soon and crazy but the prompting wouldn't go away and
I thought about it every day until we went for our lesson with her on
Wednesday. We fasted and prayed and had SUCH a good lesson about baptism and
about this wall she talked about. We engaged her for that coming Saturday
annnnddd she said no. Ha ha, she said she knew her baptism was close, but she
never thought for March. I told her the option was always there for Saturday
and I really prayed and hoped that she would make a decision to show up on
Saturday to be baptized buttttt she didn't. Even though it wasn't for Saturday,
I know that it's close too. We just have to keep working with her and help her
make a decision and act. I just really hope it's before I get transferred! And
even if it's not, I know that that will be SUCH a happy day when she does get
baptized.
We also were supposed to have the
baptism of Anita this Saturday, but her Dad still hasn't given the
authorization. So that was a little disappointing, but I know that that will be
soon as well. I know that she just needs a little time to be courageous and
talk to her Dad and tell him really why she wants to be baptized. She already
wants to serve a mission and I know she'll do great things when she becomes a
member.
With all of our Amis and the people
we meet, I still love, love, love seeing the changes in people and to watch how
this gospel changes them. Family Tauhiro still continues to make me so happy to
see the changes in this family and to feel the difference in their home when we
come and have our lessons. Families like them make all the tracting, all the
disappointment, all the worrying, all the sweating, and all the work WORTH
IT.
I know also that changes sometimes
don't come as fast for some people as others. Sometimes we just have to be
patient!
Merci pour les lettres et pour votre
soutien! Je vous aime!
Soeur Taylor
PS I can't send photos this week
sorry - next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment