Monday, June 30, 2014

Ashleigh!!!

This week was full of tracting! Tracting a lot.

The highlight of this week is Ashleigh! We went to the ward barbeque on Wednesday, and there were two people there we didn't recognize. One of them turned out to be Isaac, who recently returned from his mission to Peru. The other was his friend Ashleigh. She is not a member of the Church, but she wants to learn more. She has been studying the Book of Mormon, For the Strength of Youth, True to the Faith, and other Church materials for several months, but she's never met with missionaries.
We got to know her at the barbeque, and set up an appointment for Friday to teach her at Isaac's house. The lesson went great! She already knew quite a bit about the Church and the message of the Restoration. She said she had been told that everything about the Church was made up. Then, one of her friends watched the video "The Restoration" with her. She saw the depiction of the first vision and thought to herself, There's no way this is made up!

She's reading through the Book of Mormon now, and she's in 1 Nephi 22. At the end of the first lesson, we typically ask the investigator to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. She hesitated and said, "Well, I kind of already know it's true..." Yeah! It is! We just didn't want to spoil it for you. But she said that she feels she can be ready for baptism in August. So that will be a great day!

Of course, there are always challenges. She is living at home, and her family is very much against her learning about the Church. She has a triple-combination of her own, but she hides it and all of the rest of the Church materials in the back of her closet. Also, she has a job right now and is scheduled to always work Sundays. She wants a different job, though, so hopefully HOPEFULLY she can get a new one that won't have her work on Sundays. That's the story so far! We're teaching her again tonight before FHE!
Other than that, like I said, we've been traaaacting! It's so great to see the difference between tracting for hours on end, and a member making a simple invitation to a friend to meet with the missionaries. There is no comparison. A member referral gives us the opportunity to teach and invite people to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end! (That's our purpose as missionaries, by the way.) And when we're not able to do that, we have to tract. So hopefully we'll get a lot more great member referrals!

Yesterday we went to lunch at a member's house after church. Shaylan was there, and she totally seems to have a good group of friends in the ward! They were talking about stuff they had all done together the night before and the thought that came to Elder Rosequist and me was: You did something without us? I thought we were friends... But really, we're super glad she has friends in the ward and is doing so well! Especially because her best friend in the ward left last week for BYU. But she's doing great, and Taylor too! There's the update on our recent converts!

Good stuff all around. Thank you all for the love, prayers, and support. I hope you're having an awesome summer! Choose the right, and be excellent!

Sincerely,
Elder Rogers


A Thought from Mom: To parents of missionaries:

“On the other side of that veil there are angels riding with their chariots of fire to be a protection for your child.”    ~Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

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