Chapter 43: A Hastening of the Lord's Work

4/19/2021

Today was a cool pday, we got to go pick up a desk and visit an art gallery. Everyone at the gallery was really nice to us, and we got a lot of nice compliments from the ladies there. There was a rescue dog that came up to us that is usually apparently very hostile to males, it started barking as soon as it heard us, but after approaching us it immediately stopped, and then proceeded to follow us around for the rest of the time. That was quite the shock to everyone, it’s as if the animal felt more loved near us than anywhere else.

4/202021

Today we did not get shot, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if we had. We made some muffins and brought them to a woman whose daughter recently passed away, but the woman lived in a sketchy trailer park area. We found what we assumed was her house, and at 8:00 at night opened what we thought was her screen door to knock on her actual door. Well, it was actually a random man’s door and not the woman we were searching for, and so we accidentally invaded this man’s house without intending to. Fortunately he was very patient and didn’t mind. Eventually we got the muffins delivered to the right house.

4/21/2021

Today was a great day for our investigators. We got to sit down and speak to both the Woolseys and to Sister Parker (the mother of Brazos and Travis), albeit very briefly. Unfortunately when we spoke to the Woolseys they had regressed a little bit in their comfort levels of the idea of Cybele being baptized, but that made our visit tonight even more important. When we cemented plans and ideas of how to help Cybele move forward with preparing for baptism, and again they seemed stunned at how willing Cybele was to pay attention to us. We’ll be going over every day now to watch Book of Mormon videos with her and talk about them, and we’re excited to see how it goes. We had a lot of really great lessons today.

4/22/2021

Today we got to help out at the Food Bank for service for a couple of hours. One woman there said, “I decided. I’ve adopted you both”. The Food Bank workers are really grateful for our volunteer efforts since most of them are pretty old and we can do all the heavy lifting that they don’t want to. We also had a lot of lessons today and got to watch our first Book of Mormon video with Cybele. She enjoyed it but being the bargainer she is, she made us promise to play “Go Fish” with her if she sat through the video. Well, both of us held up to our end of the deal, and I played the most intense game of “Go Fish” in my life.

4/23/2021

Today was also a lot of fun, we officially picked up Travis and Brazos in the Family Home Evening that we had tonight, although the Family Home Evening went very awry.

Sister Parker (the mother of Travis and Brazos) asked if we would be willing to show them how to do Family Home Evening, so I made assignments to everyone, including a request from a testimony and spiritual thought from the Taylors. The mistake was that I didn’t set expectations with them, and so Sister Taylor talked for ten minutes, and after she was done Brother Taylor immediately picked up where she left off before he continued for another 20, before I finally jumped in and told them we would have to leave shortly. The boys were grateful that we ended it, and to try to reinvigorate them we played a two minute game with them at the end, which they really liked and successfully brought their energy back.

4/24/2021

Today we went over to Brother Taylor’s to help with service. Brother Taylor has to be one of the most patient men that I’ve ever met. He had a tree fall on his house this week and it absolutely destroyed his back porch. There were tree limbs everywhere, and so our service for today was breaking all the branches down into useable pieces of firewood. Despite the fact that it absolutely destroyed everything Brother Taylor was just as happy and chipper as ever. It was impressive to see that this didn’t even phase him. We roleplayed a lesson with Brother Taylor and his wife afterwards and had to try really hard to control the lesson since both of them had a goal to derail it. That was also a lot of fun.

4/25/20221

Today we were a force to be reckoned with. We brought forth our plan to reactivate a major portion of the ward and talked about it in everything from Ward Council to individual quorums. We were very excited to help everyone feel that they had a part in our Ward’s efforts to gather Israel. On top of that we also had a lot of lessons today both with members and investigators. It made for a very busy day.

Today for a spiritual thought I want to share a messianic quotation from Isaiah as it's recorded in 2nd Nephi:

2 Ne 16:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said: Here am I; send me.

The answer to the call that we see here is Isaiah saying that he'll be the Lord's servant, however we also know that this line was one spoken by the Savior when he volunteered to be our Redeemer. Likewise this is a line that each one of us must answer, each one of us must learn to volunteer the same, our lives, energies, and talents just as the Savior did. "For how long?" until the Earth is without inhabitant, until there is no one left to love, until Christ shall declare of His great work, "It is finished."