Our investigator S brought her father to church last sunday. We figured he was just visiting for a couple days. We then learned that he had moved in with them. He told us he really enjoyed church and wanted to learn more about what we believe. We went over Monday night to teach them. He is a very spiritual man but hasnt really ever followed an organized religion. He says he has been searching for a while and is waiting for God to tell him which church is the right one. The lesson could have gone on forever. We basically taught the whole restoration and plan of salvation lessons. If we had all night we could have kept on going too. He loved everything we were teaching and it all made sense to him. It was great to have S there to kind of help teach and with the support of her father it will help her be able to progress more as well.
We met another new investigator. Her name is T. She is 14 years old and is family friends with some people in the ward. Her whole family was supposed to go to the Gladys Knight fireside but she was the only one who was able to go. She loved it so much and wanted to learn more. We went and taught her the Restoration and she enjoyed it. She came to church yesterday and is excited to learn more. We are hoping it wont take too long for the rest of the family to join on board as well. I just look at her and want the gospel so badly for her. There is no way I could have survived my teenage years without the Gospel.
I cant remember if I have told you about our investigator T before or not. Well she is awesome. We have been teaching her for a long while now. She wen ton to mormon.org and requested missionaries. She is a single lady with a 21 year old son. She has something wrong with her back so she suffers from chronic back pain constantly. She wasnt in a good place in her life and she wanted a change. She knew she needed to get back a relationship with God. She has come so far since the first time we met with her. Because of her back pain it is not always easy to get up with her. But she has progressed well and has a set baptism date for May 24. We are so excited for her and the blessings she will see come into her life!
I love being a missionary. One of the reasons is because I love to be able to serve and help others. This week we went to go visit a family in our ward. It is a single mom with 3 kids. The mom struggles a lot. We showed up for our appointment and could immediately feel the tension. The mom and kids had just gotten into a huge fight. People dont hold back when missionaries come over so the fight continued after they let us in. We felt a little uncomfortable but knew we needed to be there. After a while everyone sat down on the couch. It was still pretty awkward. We could tell the kids were embarrassed because they were just getting screamed at in front of us. The mom was mad at the kids and we could tell she has just had it. My mind was racing of things we could do. The spirit was not in the home and they were not in a place where they wanted to hear us ramble on about a scripture. We said a prayer and then I asked if they had any board games. The kids then ran into the back and grabbed the game of life. I then suggested that we all go around the table and play it. They agreed and we set it up. After about 5 minutes into the game everyone was back into their happy regular selves. The mom was joking around with the kids and the kids were excited to be spending time together. It felt so good to be able to come into the home and bring the spirit and be able to change the course of there night. We had another appointment so we couldnt finish the game but we were able to leave them happy and spending time together as a family. There is no better feeling then being able to bring joy to others!
Let me tell you one more story.. It was Friday and we were sitting in our Missionary Leadership Council meeting. It was just a normal meeting we have once a month. Our mission president gets up for his time to teach us. At the beginning of his lesson he tells us that he has some exciting news for us but he is going to wait until after his lesson to tell us so we listen to him and not just focus on the announcement. My mind was racing and my guess was that he was going to tell us that we are finally getting ipads. After a long hour he tells us that he got a phone call at 11pm the night before. It was Elder Pieper of the 70. He explained that Elder Perry, of the quorum of the 12, was supposed to be coming to Raleigh for a Priesthood meeting this weekend. Well because of circumstances he was not able to come so Elder Niel L Anderson of the quorum of the 12 apostles is coming in his place. He saw that there wasnt anything set up to visit the missionaries and he wanted to change that. He asked if he could meet with the Raleigh Mission on Saturday at 2:30... Thats right. Surprise!! The next day we were going to meet with Elder Anderson. President Bernhisel then stated that we needed to get the word out to all the missionaries. That if we had baptisms or other events we needed to try and move them so that we could all be together the next day to meet with Elder Anderson. We all got on our phones and started calling everyone. We were so excited!! So Saturday came and we all gathered in a building and anxiously waited for Elder Anderson to arrive. He walked in the room and it was so amazing!! He came with Elder Pieper, Elder Parker, and Elder Martinez of the 70. He wanted to shake all of our hands! So we all were able to line up and shake their hands. They all spoke to us. Elder Anderson spoke about our purpose as missionaries. He told us how lucky we are to be serving here and how we need to take advantage of the amount of people that already have faith in Christ. We need to work off that and expand their knowledge. He told us that in our lifetime we will see the Faith of people decrease but that The Book of Mormon will become an anchor for the world. He expressed the great importance of building our testimonies so deep into our hearts so that it can never get out, even during the hard times we all face in life. He walked around the room while he spoke and I was sitting near the front on an edge. Well he kept stopping right next to me and was staring into the depths of my soul. It was pretty much the scariest thing of my life. haha jk. It was awesome. He even used my name in an example. But I have to say one of my favorite things he said was when he was explaining to us a little bit about how the missionary calls are extended. He told us that there is a special category for missions in the United Stated and in his own words he said that some of the best missionaries get sent to stateside missions. He said that missions in the United states are very important to the church. And I have to agree. I am soo happy to be serving here in North Carolina. There isnt any place else id rather be.
All in all it was obviously a great week. There isnt much better than being able to meet an apostle of the Lord. And be surrounded by all the missionaries here that I love so much.
The Gospel is the best thing that has ever happened to me and i hope it is for all of you! If its not, ask me how it can be!
I love you all. I love my savior Jesus Christ. Thanks for all your support.
Love,
Sister Judd
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