Another good week in Loganville/Monroe. Something that i love from week to week is looking back on the week and seeing the many little miracles play into one big picture. All because of our faith in this great work.
We have this family we are now teaching, the Mcelhannons. Sister Ngo and I found them one cold evening when we were tracting near a less-active's home. Thank goodness Sister Ngo was there too, because the wife is from Taiwan, and she spoke to her in her native language. That night we just taught the father of the family, Leonard, he's as southern as they get! They're kind of a funny pair, but a cute family. We haven't been able to follow up with them for the longest time. But just this past week, we had a message from Leonard telling us that his wife is interested in meeting a member from our ward who's from taiwan and talking with her. So we gave the member her number, and he member called right away! She got back with us saying she scheduled an appt for dinner and a lesson at her home with the Mcelhannan family. Me and Sister Tanner were so excited! we found some videos on mormon channel to share with the family, and a great mormon message of a member in taiwan from mormon.org. Well the lesson went great, we were able to teach the restoration, and we also invited them to church. They told us sometime they would make it but they didn't know if they could this sunday. Then on sunday, in the middle of sacrament meeting Sister Tanner shakes my arm with a big smile on her face and points to the family walking in!! They stayed all 3 hours, their 2 kids went to primary, and the wife stuck with 2 members from our ward who are from taiwan and china, who all 3 became friends quickly! This family is amazing and we're praying so hard for them! We plan and would love to put them on date this week, or at least commit them to baptism. Sister Tanner and I remembered that we now have 2 sister missionaries in the mission from Taiwan....which would be some good food for thought for President Bennion to chew on during board week this week before transfers:) WE feel they would be of great benefit here in Monroe:)
Another cool miracle, there is a new couple in our ward, the husband was baptized in Acworth back in May, and the wife is nonmember. We've seen them in Gospel principles, and when we talked to them briefly, they mentioned they lived in loganville, but no one knew where, even the bishopric or ward clerk. Well there is this one neighborhood in Loganville that sister tanner and I have been determined to tract, because we recently discovered a new subdivision of the neighborhood that is huge! We had gone to the same part of hte neighborhood 3 different times to start tracting, but someone would call, or we would talk to one person for the longest time, and then run out of time to tract. Each time we went back we would knock the same doors, because nobody answered. Finally the last time we went, we knocked on the same house where we always started, and as soon as we were walking away, the nonmember wife of the couple walked out of the garage! I didn't recognize her at first, but she recognized us and invited us in from the cold. We visited for a bit, and shared with her a quick message from the Book of Mormon, she loved it and added her own comments, but didn't believe it was scripture, said it was a good thought, but not scripture,.. thats only because she hasn't read the book.. yet:) We were so happy to find them! We didn't know we would find them each time we went to that area, but we went there for some certain reason:)
Another cool miracle, there is a new couple in our ward, the husband was baptized in Acworth back in May, and the wife is nonmember. We've seen them in Gospel principles, and when we talked to them briefly, they mentioned they lived in loganville, but no one knew where, even the bishopric or ward clerk. Well there is this one neighborhood in Loganville that sister tanner and I have been determined to tract, because we recently discovered a new subdivision of the neighborhood that is huge! We had gone to the same part of hte neighborhood 3 different times to start tracting, but someone would call, or we would talk to one person for the longest time, and then run out of time to tract. Each time we went back we would knock the same doors, because nobody answered. Finally the last time we went, we knocked on the same house where we always started, and as soon as we were walking away, the nonmember wife of the couple walked out of the garage! I didn't recognize her at first, but she recognized us and invited us in from the cold. We visited for a bit, and shared with her a quick message from the Book of Mormon, she loved it and added her own comments, but didn't believe it was scripture, said it was a good thought, but not scripture,.. thats only because she hasn't read the book.. yet:) We were so happy to find them! We didn't know we would find them each time we went to that area, but we went there for some certain reason:)
So there is this other woman who we tracted into that lives nearby our church. She invited us in first time we met with her. We taught her a brief message of the restoration and gave her a book of mormon. She's a cute stay at home mom with 2 kids, she lives with her boyfriend, who is the father. But life has been very hard for her and she would resort to alcohol, she told us that the week before she was a complete alcoholic, and it broke her heart to look back and see she was like that in front of her kids. So when we came she felt a sense of hope and suddenly had no desire to drink, or turn to alcohol again. WEll the second time we followed up she told us she wasn't interested, but she got herself back into church, baptist :/, and she feels we awakened her to her sense to come back to god. Well that was about a month ago, and yesterday when we were by the church again, SIster TAnner felt prompted we needed to stop and just say hi to her again. AS soon as we pulled up she walked outside and sat down, but saw us and walked towards us. She said she was doing pretty good and things have been looking up since we last saw her, she was just stepping outside for a smoke. She said she really appreciates our love for her, and she always feels at peace when she's with us. She doesn't know what it is but she there's something different about us. Then she said she had to go back inside to help her daughter with her homework. We distracted her from drinking once, now we distracted her from smoking:) haha But I thought of how she's not interested but she still feels the spirit when she's around us. She's one of those people that recognizes us as disciples of Jesus Christ, and she recognizes the spirit, but she doesn't know what she's searching for, and doesn't know she's looking for this. It's right in front of her, but someday, she'll remember that spirit and she'll know to come to us when she wants to accept our invitation:)
So our ward mission leader has been gone for a few weeks, we found out that he had emergency surgery on new years day. Our bishop's wife told us he found he has cancer, and the family has a newborn baby in the family. Broke our hearts to hear, yet through it all they still came to church yesterday for the sacrament to support their son who gave a talk. We have an assistant WML who is taking his place in the meantime. Our bishop is still on the search for new ward missionaries, hopefully we'll have some here soon. We've given him some suggestions. So for now , our ward mission is having some setbacks. But it will pick back up soon, it always does:)
So our ward mission leader has been gone for a few weeks, we found out that he had emergency surgery on new years day. Our bishop's wife told us he found he has cancer, and the family has a newborn baby in the family. Broke our hearts to hear, yet through it all they still came to church yesterday for the sacrament to support their son who gave a talk. We have an assistant WML who is taking his place in the meantime. Our bishop is still on the search for new ward missionaries, hopefully we'll have some here soon. We've given him some suggestions. So for now , our ward mission is having some setbacks. But it will pick back up soon, it always does:)
Also, our convert Anel has been trying to go less active on us. We were trying to figure out how to tell him he needs to make it to sacrament, but our last visit he told us he had to come to pass the sacrament! So he finally passed the sacrament for the first time yesterday!! We were so proud of him and seeing him in a white shirt and tie. Soon he'll be blessing the sacrament. Love the priesthood power.
Well hope ya'll have a great week! i'm going to enjoy my last week in monroe, its going to be soooo hard for me to leave here. These people are family!!!
Love, Sister Hulme
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