Hermana Arnold and Hieleson |
It has been really amazing the past week but also some of the hardest days. It is difficult to study for 3 hours at a time in the classroom and it is difficult not to have my music, my movies, or my lap top. But I keep on reminding myself why I am here, and that is because I love this gospel and I want others to feel the joy that I feel.
The past week or so, we met our first investigator, Roberto. Hermana Hieleson and I love to teach him, although it is very difficult because he speaks so fast! But from the words we can gather, he says that he lives in Mexico City, teaches Spanish, and lives alone. His family lives in Senora. He told us that he is kind of lonely because he doesn't talk to his family a lot and they dont help him pay for any of his bills. It is hard for him.
Our first lesson, we taught him about the love of God and that he isn't alone. We taught it in the simplest way we could muster, because we do not speak very good Spanish. We talked about the spirit and I wanted to explain to him what it was like, which is warm and a strong feeling, however, at the time, I didn't know those words, all I could do was place my hand over my heart and say es aqui, nuestra corazon, that means it is here in our hearts. I wrote my testimony down in Spanish and I read it with all sincerity in my heart. I know he could feel it.
The past 2 lessons, we felt pretty confident because the spirit was so strong, after we talked about the love of God, we talked to him about the first vision. He didn't seem that amazed, or at least how I thought he would, but he kept on pointing at introduction of the Book of Mormon, and he said that the missionaries who taught him previously said to us that they taught him a little about the introduction and the testimony of Joseph Smith. What is amazing, which has never happened to me before in my life, is that while he was saying that, I had the impression that we needed to invite him to read the Book of Mormon. Then a minute later, MY COMPANION, invites him to read it. It amazed me because the spirit was prompting us the SAME THING! That was such a powerful experience. We were blown away and we just wanted to teach him again.
Inside the CCM |
So, that night we had our own personal study, we prayed to know what his needs were. I wrote down my inspirations from what I received from scriptures, and from Our Search for Happiness. the next day we collaborated on our inspirations, and what we soon came to find is that we studied was very similar! We were able to apply each of our ideas. Then I had the idea to pray and ask again what he needed. As soon, as we ended the prayer, I had the impression that he needed the Holy Ghost which applied to everything that we had been teaching him!
The next morning, I was looking for scriptures that emulated the Holy Ghost and then I looked in the Bible Dictionary about it, and I read about how people can feel the Holy Ghost, but when they are baptized they also RECEIVE the gift of the Holy Ghost. I had the prompting to invite him to be baptized. My companion thought that it was too soon, but for some reason I felt that we should.
When we started to teach the third lesson to him, we went about our plan which was explaining to him simply what the Holy Ghost was, and how to feel it by reading the Book of Mormon. But twice now he has not followed up on our invitation, he said he was talking to his girlfriend, and feel asleep or he had a siesta. We weren't surprised but that didn't help him any for him to feel the spirit himself. For about 30 minutes, we were teaching the lesson and something didn't feel right. We weren't giving him something he needed. I could not understand what he wanted I even asked him, ?quires necessitas? what do you need? we were just talking but he wasn't feeling it. He looked sad. This was getting us know where, and I wanted so bad to say everything I needed to in English. I am confident now I can teach the gospel in my own Native language! I wish I could, I really took for granted my language! We kept telling him he wasn't alone and that God loved him and we there to help him. Then he said, "every missionary says they want to help me, but how?" I told him," Gracias!" i was so happy he FINALLY expressed what he needed!
So we started to talk about Baptism, and me and my companion decided to ask him to be baptized. He kind of laughed a little and he said, "right now" "si" He said he didn't know a lot about the church and wants to learn more before he agrees to it. So we promised we would teach him a little more, and he promised to go to church with us on Sunday! After, that our brains hurt...we were so disappointing, we were hoping for another Earth shaking experience, but it wasn't...I am not going to lie, it was extremely hard. But we learned something that night, its that we needed a purpose to teach: our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ and be baptized,repent, recieve the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. We forgot about that purpose, and I think that is what Roberto was trying to teach us. We realized we needed to apply his life to the gospel, he needs his purpose! That is why he is so sad, he is going through his life, not having any goal or desire in life like we do.
Our next lesson we plan to teach him about the Plan of Salvation and apply it to his life so, he can fully understand why he is here and why he is not alone. He is a child of God. He needs to know that. We are excited to teach him, we hope we'll have a good comeback and he will start to have the desire to read the Book of Mormon because if doesn't apply to him, why would he want to be apart of it? He is really cool and we care about him a lot, even though he is a fake investigator...the spirit still prompts us and the spirit is still there!
We tried to express that to him, and that we care about him, but the only way we knew how to say it was we love you. So, I told him in Spanish, we love you but not in a crazy way! It made him laugh.
Hermana Arnold at the CCM |
Hermana Arnold.
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