June 27, 2012

I am in the library today. It is a cute little library!

I don't have much time, but I wanted to tell you about an experience this week. We were driving to church on Sunday when Sister Palmer asked what we were going to teach our members who invited us to have lunch with them after church. I immediately said, "Ways of knowing the Book of Mormon is true," before really thinking about it. After I said it, I thought it was weird that I would say that- the members have been in the church for a long time, and are very active. Normally we talk about General Conference talks or teach the doctrine and ask if we can help them with their missionary work. But we didn't talk any more about the lesson, and we went to our meetings. The very first person to come up to us in sacrament was this member we were planning a lesson for, and she said she was excited because her daughter (who normally goes to another ward) came to church with a friend and she wanted to introduce us. She is a cute 14 year old girl name Mackenzie who has been given a Book of Mormon and is reading parts of it. Church went pretty well... (I won't go into detail- but she was put on the spot WAY too much!) and then afterward we had lunch and shared our lesson with the family. It was so perfect! We asked them to share their testimonies of how they came to know the Book of Mormon was true, and there was a powerful spirit that was felt. Their experiences were so neat and definitely strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon. Afterwards, the girls went to clean dishes and the member came up to me and said that her testimony of missionary work was strengthened, because the lesson was inspired. She went on to say that her daughter had been asking her about her own testimony, and the mother had been looking for a moment to bear testimony to her daughter, and this situation had been perfect. She had also had little feelings that had her invite her daughter and friend to this ward, the bishopric had felt prompted to have her give a talk in sacrament, Sister Palmer and I just so happened to have the exact Ensign we needed in the car because a lesson to a less-active fell through... all these little things fell into place, and there is NO WAY it was a coincidence. It was so neat to sit back and see all the things the Lord had done to make that a perfect lesson for all of us in different ways, and it was all by small and simple feelings and promptings that none of us would have recognized as the spirit until we saw the big picture. The spirit is so subtle, but so powerful!

Also, we had the opportunity to help a family move. They are moving to New Mexico, and they are 'free spirits.' They decided to only bring the things that would fit in their little car, and they are going to 'start over' in their new home. Holy Chaos. It was one of the strangest experiences I have ever been a part of, and I don't even have words to describe how weird it was. ...so weird!!! She is less active, and her valiant visiting teacher saved the day. I have no idea what they would have done without her. I think the most interesting thing was to see their priorities. They were so confused when not everything in their house fit in their car, so they just started cramming in boom boxes, a billion shoes, rugs and wall hangings while leaving out the photo albums and pots and pans. They sat on the side, being overwhelmed with their friends, shouting, "Priority! This bag is a priority!" to the visiting teacher and I as we packed the car trunk and back seat. After 5 hours, Sister Palmer got in the car to go home we were silent except for the occasional, "what just happened...?" "Sister, that was the single most weird thing I have ever done..." It felt like the twilight zone.

By the way, service works! Sister Palmer and I always see this woman come into the lobby, so we always say hi. She is always pretty intense. She has a daughter with MS who she takes care of, and there is always a lot of drama with the hospitals that take car of her. She was feeling particularly overwhelmed this week, and Sister Palmer and I offerred to help her out. She was SO grateful, and after we set up the date and time, she left. It wasn't long before she called us up and said how impressed she is with the us and the church, and talked about how she has had previous good experiences with Mormons. It turns out she has a new preacher in her church who she does not like at all, and she is looking into other churches. She wants to come to church with us next week and take lessons from us! We love giving service!

Love you all so much! Enjoy your summer- I can't believe it is almost half way over!

Sister Kimber Mahrt