Ritchell the member from the Philippines that we met at the thrift store came to church yesterday with her non member husband and recently blessed baby! They only stayed for sacrament meeting because her husband had to go to work, but he asked lots of questions and she told him that he can meet with the missionaries to help him learn and understand. So, Sister Chestnut and I will hopefully get to teach them together as a family. The ward was SO welcoming to them and even offered to help Ritchell by translating. Her husband tried but doesn't know all the church vocabulary in English so I noticed he struggled so next week when they come we'll have a member translate for her.
Other news is that we got to meet with Sarah Cha again. She's a really busy mom living in Korea where all the kids do lots of after school activities like Taekwondo so it was a miracle we finally got to meet her again. Thomas just started the first grade this past week so that was cool to hear about. Thomas reminds me so much of Tyler. He was going on and on about minecraft and just is silly like Tyler. I love their personalities. I wasn't able to play with the other two kids, but we taught Thomas the primary song "Choose the right" and Sarah was really good at help us teach him. She mentioned how they haven't been to church in over 6 months and knows they need to go, so we'll see if they made it. It's starting to get busier for her going back to work now, but she said we could maybe come over sometime this coming week for dinner. So, I'm praying we can.
The best part of my week was when we met with Crystal. She's still progressing!! So that's great! We had a couple really good discussions with her this week. On Monday, we followed up on if she had read 3 Nephi 11 in The Book of Mormon. She did of coarse :D She did have a couple questions about the Godhead, baptism and the Holy Ghost. Which we assumed she might have since we never really talked much about baptism or the gift of the Holy Ghost yet. So, by the guidance of the spirit, we decided we weren't supposed teach what we planned, but to help answer her questions. We helped her understand that when Jesus Christ talks about how the Father and Him are one they are one in purpose. They are all separate which made a lot more sense to her. Then she mentioned how Christ says we all must be baptized or else we can't receive salvation. Taught her about how Jesus Christ set the example for how we should live. He was perfect and even He was baptized. We explained that baptism by immersion is symbolic of being spiritually reborn and we make a covenant-a promise- with God that we will follow His son Jesus Christ and always remember Him. She is really logical and understood pretty quickly how baptism is important and how it cleanses us from sin and guilt. She asked if we could be baptized more than one so then we were able to explain the sacrament to her and then it just seemed to click for her. She understood why we go to church now to be able to renew our covenants weekly by partaking of the sacrament. As we talked about all this I began to feel the spirit directing my thoughts towards giving her a baptismal commitment. I knew it was time but ya know? The nerves started to kick in, but I didn't let my doubts carry me a way. I asked her how she feels she's progressed since we first met and she said she hasn't received a confirmation that God is real, but she knows she has so much more to learn. She doesn't want Sister Chestnut and I to ever go back to America because we have a responsibility to help her learn. She's so cute haha. As she shared her desire to keep learning, I could feel the spirit build and get stronger and stronger. I remember looking over at my companion a couple times to see if she was feeling it too. By Sister Chestnut's look and light tape on my leg, I just knew it was time to ask Crystal to be baptized. So, I asked her. I whimped out and just gave her a really soft commitment by saying, "when you do receive that confirmation that God is real, will you follow Jesus Christ's example and be baptized?" She, of coarse, without hesitation said yes. I could tell she understands baptism is important. We promised her that she will receive that confirmation as she continues to meet with us and prayer. She told her that we'll even help her learn how to recognize when the Holy Ghost testifies of the truth to her.
Met with her again on Tuesday and Wednesday and both were great discussions as well! On Tuesday, we watched the apostle Elder David A. Bednar's mormon message videos on Patterns of Light. After watching those together, Crystal mentioned that she believes meeting us was God's plan for her. As soon as she said that I just testified to her that that's true! God loves her so much and knows her personally and meeting was not a coincidence. It was all apart of His plan for her. On Wednesday, we continued talking about the different ways we can feel the spirit. We watched a video on lds.org called Feeling the Holy Ghost. It was only in english so we stopped it frequently to help her understand. After the video we did an analogy with her by turning off the lights and asking her what she will do in order to get the light back on. She thought it was funny, and we all had a good laugh because she's way too smart. She understood really quickly that in order to receive revelation or feel the spirit- like waiting for light to turn on- she needs to act. We need to go and turn the light switch on. We talked about President Uchtdorf's talk receiving light and truth and the 4 steps he talks about for what we need to do. We read Alma 32:27 together and talked about how faith is like a seed. Talked about how we need to nourish the seed and grow our faith into a big strong tree. I then asked her how she feels her faith has grown since she first met us and her words exactly were, " 3 weeks ago I couldn't believe in God. I couldn't see my seed. But now I can see my tree. Those words were beauty to my ears! I wish I could relive that moment over and over. Coming on a mission was all worth it just to her her say she is starting to believe in God.
I received my call about when I go home. The office couple sister Meyer called and asked if I was needing to go home for school in August and it felt right saying yes and so she added me to the group coming home in AUGUST!! Yay!! There's a chance President Morrise can make a special transfer for it since BYU doesn't start till August 31st but I'm hoping I just go home with the others on August 7th. After this transfer I'll only have 3 transfers left! CRAZY!!! Time will fly on by. It's crazy! It's about 4-5 weeks till conference too! Wowzers!!
This past sunday one of the investigators didn't get baptized because his father was going to disown him.. so the elders are trying to help him through that trial with the help of the bishop. Really sad to hear though :( Wow! Alejandra will be great in YW!! :D We go to either class. Whichever we decide to go to. The YW room is so small though so we only go there sometimes. It's still a small young womens but they actually have leaders. And soon we'll get more because they are going to combine our stake with another nearby stake because they've made new stake centers and new ward buildings. That won't happen just yet though.
When we get meals with members it's either all of us or it's just me and my companion. Just depends. Usually it's just the 2 of us. We had one last night and it was way nice and really fun. The family seemed to think I was really cute and funny according to Sister Chestnut so that's good news. A lot of Koreans like the way I talk in Korean it's very cute I guess. haha
Love you all
Sister Kelly <3
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