Hello!
Well... what another fantabulous week it has been in Sunny
St. Helens! The weather here is so good! Can you believe I've gotten a
tan in the north west of England? Miracles are possible!
This week we had a great opportunity to teach during Church about testimonies and how faith is like a seed, we were using a Church DVD showing a video called "A man without Elequence" where President Brigham Young outlines the principle of it doesn't matter how you can say things/ how you sound when you bear your testimony... but rather how even if you do not have talent for public speaking a testimony that comes from the heart is where true conviction lies. So we taught those simple principles and we taught how Alma compared faith to a seed (Alma 32) and how we need to continue to nurture our seed (or our faith)
We had 5 minutes left in the lesson and I received a prompting, that I should show a video about temples to end our lesson. Obviously a bridge between talking about testimonies our whole lesson and then just showing a video about temples was a pretty big jump... but I received a prompting and so I did. Just before we ended, a hand rose it was a woman who had recently come back to church, she said "it's funny that you should show that, I've been dreaming about the temple now for 2 weeks" I just love how blessed we are when we pay attention to the promptings we receive, we all need to develop testimonies to enter the temple, and when we do... what a beautiful moment that is!
Anyhow, what a week it has been, so many wonderful spiritual experiences, let's start off with one:
Elder Raybould and I had just finished lunch and we had just a few
hours to pass before our next teaching appointment, so far everything
that day had feel through, our potential investigators weren't in or
they had cancelled... it was pretty bleak to go talking to people on the
streets on an average Monday afternoon. We were speaking to everyone.
After a while we had gone around, speaking to everyone who was walking
around, no one wanted to stop to talk to us for some reason (perhaps the
timing or just the weather) and so we decided to talk to people who
were sitting down, we approached a man who was sitting down on a public
bench with two suitcases near his feet, he didn't look too happy but we
spoke to him anyway. His name is John, John explained to us that he had
just become homeless that day and that all his worldly possesions were
in his two suitcases underneath him, he had no where to go... he was
originally from Leister so he had come a far way... and he was litteraly
stuck with no where to go.
We explained to him that there were no co-insidences in missionary
work, and that we were just meant to meet him at that time, we sat down
and he agreed that he would allow us to teach him and so we did, we
taught that alot of bad things happen sometimes to good people, but it
was all part of a bigger picture that we couldn't see yet. He is now one
of our investigators and we took him to a local homeless shelter
(because he didn't know the area too well) and carried his bags for him
there, he was so grateful and so were we... Heavenly Father put us in
the right place at the right time, sometimes we just don't initially see
where sucess lies, but when we pay attention to the promptings we
receive miracles happen!
We are also teaching a Slovakian couple, they sure are amazing...
they were taught in Slovakia by missionaries, and we just happened to
bump into them the other day... God really does "Prepare a way" (1 Nephi
3:7) for us to do much good, we just have to look for the way he has
prepared for us.
I had a very strengthening experience this week, we had a potential
investigator who was a single female and due to increasing legal
complexities we cannot go into her home by ourselves alone, so her
appointment was in an hour from when we last met her and we were stuck,
we called many of our ward members, they were either busy or at work. I
don't like the feeling of being let down, so I proceeded to call all our
members one by one...I just went down our phone list... and during all
my conversations with members I asked them who do they know who would be
availible to come with us... and there was no luck. Until it came to
the last name on our phone. I called the last name on our phone and it
was a member who I had never heard of going out with missionaries
before... I invited him to come out and he met us at the time and place
appointed, well he was even 5 minutes early! I love how the Lord makes
you go just one step further.
It reminds me of when Nephi had broken his bow, he had tried to
continue to hunt... Nephi asked where should he go to Hunt... the Lord
told him to go to a mountain. Now, it was probably easy for the Lord to
put an animal infront of Nephi for him to hunt and for him to have a
"quick fix" or it would have been easy for Nephi to just try without the
Lords help. God told him to go "one step further" and he was successful
in his hunt. I've developed such a strong testimony of this principle
during my mission.
This week we decided to find somewhere near Liverpool and so we
did... I had another Crazy experience! So I met a Chinese man, and I
start off talking to him in English and I ask him if he speaks Mandarin,
he replies "yes" and he asks me if I do, I reply "a little" I start off
a conversation in Mandarin telling him what we share and asking him
about his religious beliefs, he then presumes I am chinese and keeps on
speaking, at this point I don't know what to say because he just went on
for a couple of minutes and then it is silence I'm staring at him and
then I reply "really?" in Chinese... he smiled and said "really" he
probably thought I could understand all of what he said... I proceeded
to ask him some more questions and I give him the website. I love
Chinese people!
What a great time it is to be a missionary!
Love you all!
Elder Sapaden
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