Hello!
I have had a good week! An interesting one, but good!
During
sacrament I had some fun memories pop into my had from those meetings
in my early years! I remember standing on my chair looking at whoever
was talking with my camouflage binoculars, eating little sour orange flavored "lollies," as the Aussies call them, from my moms purse, and
getting coloring books out of mom & dads black brief case they
brought to church. That is WAY back, you can tell cause I said mom and
dad. Ha. Good fun lil memories I thought of yesterday, do not fear
though, I am not trunky in the slightest. ha. We have done a lot this
week and it has been fun! We kinda rearrange our wall art and Put both
flags side by side, with Ol' Glory above my bed. SO I decided to take a
few pics.. haha. Also, We found a Scarface poster under our bed that
said "Money Power Respect" so we shanged it to 'Faith Priesthood
Respect For God" it was funny! We covered up where it said Scarface and
put Missionaries and covered some of the inappropriate things he was
holding into pass along cards and a paper air plain. haha. It was funny!
So that is in our apartment now... And they other day I read In Alma
where Captain Moroni rends his clothes, creates the title of liberty,
and rallies the people. SO during companionship study when we all share
what we learned I shared that and how much I liked reading it. As the
others went around and shared, I realized there was a hole in my shirt,
and the neck was really tight (yes I am getting fat I know! but I
lost like 9 lbs in 2 weeks, or like 3-4 Kgs) so I joked about something
making me mad and ripped my shirt where it had said hole and tore it
off.. haha then made our own title of liberty and we all signed it! haha
kind of like our own legacy scroll for those of you that have served..
haha That is some of our wall art now... pretty cool! Thought you would
enjoy that! hopefully the picture of it loads so I can send it! Our
library is not the best... the internet is really slow.... but Come what
may right!
So this week at Church some of our older members, the Kirbys,
brought their friends to church. He was introducing them, they looked
oddly familiar when I saw them. HE said the just returned from a Mission
in... And before He could say it I said "Saint George Utah, In the
visitors center!" I had met them there when I went down to visit dad.
Elder and Sister, now Brother and Sister, Houston! Remarkably they remembered me! I found it fascinating! It was so much fun to talk to
them. They said the miss the desert. ha. I also got to ask them if they
knew Sister Busteed. they lit up "we LOVE sister Busteed! she was one of
the missionaries we got really close with! In fact she said she would
come visit us!" They were happy when I told them that she was from my
home ward and knew her little brother quite well. Also funny, my first
companion Elder keefer is serving currently in their ward in Sydney!
Pretty cool. they were so happy that we could make such connections. It
was fun to talk to them. I normally don't remember people.. so I was
happy. What a fun miracle!
As I always like to share, My core experience with god this week
was definitely in teaching a referral family. They are good people who
are looking for a church. They study the Bible everyday. Walking into
their home it almost felt like a members home. All the kids were happy
to see us and even shook our hands. We really got to know them and
taught the restoration. But it was unlike any other Restoration lesson I
have taught. It was THE MOST "Preach My Gospel" I have been a part of, I
keep saying. Anything and everything we did it was just like preach my
gospel said to teach. From How To Begin Teaching to the Baptismal Commitment even to having the Father of the Home say a kneeling prayer at
the end of lesson and leaving a short time after! The spirit in that
lesson was incredible. They actually asked questions to make sure they
understood what we were saying. We asked if they would read the Book Of
Mormon. Their Response: "How could we not?" It was incredible. The
Member we brought, who gave us the referral, was fantastic. Testified at
the right times and knew his stuff, because we took the night before to
co-ordinate. like Elder Ballard said in the November Conference the
Lord IS Hastening his work. The People we are finding are more prepared
than I could imagine. I am SO grateful to be able to be the Lords
Set-apart full time servant right now. It is incredible what the spirit
can do... I hope to be able to teach like this for every investigator we
see, not Just Graham and Denise.
Our teaching is getting better. One of the members recently asked
to have us teach her children that is close to being baptized. We were
excited to be invited to their home for the first time since I have been
in the area. It has really helped us build relationship and trust with
that family, but more so our teaching. Teaching a young girl seven years
old, even though she is a bit brighter than most in her Sunday school
class, forces you to teach simply. This is just what we have needed. It
has been a blessing to teach things simply and understandable. Since
she is so young we can see what confuses her, indicating what it is we
need to make more clear and improve on. It was been Great! Little
Matilda will be more ready than most that get Baptized at her age.
What I really found interesting when Elder Halek, from the
Area Presidency, came this last week was when he told us we are there
for the Bishop and Ward Council to use. It was really needed. It is so
easy for missionaries to get a little prideful and say "oh, the ward
council doesn't do enough for us, they won't help us." That is not how
it is supposed to work. We are there to help THEM. We are their tools. I
understand that we need to be careful with that and make sure we are
still fulfilling our purpose, but it was fantastic to get a different
point of view and understand what bishop sees rather than what we see.
We definitely can and are starting to work better with the Ward Council.
If we stay on course here the area should be heading a good direction.
We are working to make sure we do our part.
I love you all so much and am so grateful for the Examples I
have had in all phases of my life! You all are truly an inspiration!
Love,
Elder Ford
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