Jess sent this to me, Rhonda, two weeks ago when I told her I was asked to talk in Sacrament meeting on her mission:
You
have to talk on my mission huh... voi että. I am so sorry that I have been so
bad at sharing stories. Well, a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to see an
investigator that had been investigating for 2 years go to the waters of
baptism. He had always known that is what he needed to do from the beginning,
but he just had one problem. He works on Sundays and therefore could not come
to church. When I got to the area we had a big "heart to heart" and
tried to figure out how to get him to baptism. We set a date and started
working for it. He didn’t make the first one and that was sad, but we tried
again and he made the decision he was going to make it to the 25th of February.
When he put his mind to it, he did it. He talked to his boss and goes into work
earlier so he can be done in time to make it to church. To see the joy that
came to him from being baptized and then receiving the Holy Ghost was amazing.
He is so happy and so excited that he is finally on the path to the temple and
eternal life. This investigator also invited his friend to start learning and
has been helping us to teach him. His friend should be baptized on your
birthday momma.(April 22) It’s amazing to see the change it has brought to the
friends life as well. Then we had a cool experience in Haaga. Sister Nelson and
I were out on a train platform and we choose a random guy to go talk to and he
immediately said that he was interested. He told us that he knew us. That he
had seen us often and we were usually on the same train and bus as him, but we
had never talked to him before. He said he was just waiting for us to come talk
to him and asked how we knew that he wanted to hear from us. He came to church
the next day and we started teaching him and he learned that day that we do
baptisms for the dead in Sunday School. He said he knew this was the true
church and had been waiting for someone to tell him how he could help his grandparents
on the other side. He was way cool too, but I haven’t gotten an update on him
lately. Then in Haaga we also had another investigator that went to baptism
soon after I left. He came from a Hindi background and was so excited to find
out that he had always been him and that god loved and knew him personally. He
especially said he loved that he hadn’t been a dog before this life or a tree
or anything. he had always been him and will always be him. He was relieved and
said that makes so much sense and feels so right. He had amazing faith and even
received a blessing to help him live the word of wisdom and from that day on lived
clean. such an amazing example of faith. We also had an investigator in Haaga
that was a refugee and when he got to Finland he wanted to go to church. So he
asked the guy he was living with if there was one close. the man said he didin’t
know, but that two weird girls had given him a card with a church address on it
the day before and that he could try there. Well, he showed up at the church
the next day and received the Book of Mormon. He told us that as soon as he
started to read it he knew that it was from God. he started living the gospel
without us even teaching him. he wanted to be baptized so badly, and he read
the Book of Mormon in about two weeks. He had to be deported before he could go
to baptism, but he called us from Holland and asked how he could find a church.
I know he is in the Lord’s hands and will accept baptism when it is good and
safe for him to.
Those
are some fast track highlight stories from my mission... I hope that helps at
all. Man, I can’t wait to tell you more about my mission one day, I just cant
do the miracle that it is justice over email.
