Hello all!
I hope everyone is doing great! I have about 4 days or so left! I leave the MTC to go to Kentucky at 4:00 A.M. on Monday morning!
This week has been awesome. It has been a bit hard to stay focused since we have been ticking down the days, and things are about to get a whole lot more real.
We had an awesome lesson with James (Hermano Pacheco). Hermana Coleman took it to the house and committed him to baptism. It still wasn't an awesome lesson for me since I kind of went on a weird tangent, but everything considered it was great. That lesson really reminded me to focus on the investigator and just worry about their needs and have faith that everything will work out well.
The next day (Tues) we had a lesson with Ivelisse. It was only Elder Lindsey and I in that lesson since Hermana Coleman was at the doctor, so we didn't have our secret weapon. But we went into our lesson planning to talk about her prayers and help her recognize her answers to her prayers and eventually getting to the apostasy. It was an awesome lesson. One of my favorites so far. We talked about her progression of faith and talked about her testimony and how she has received answers to her prayers. We started talking about joseph smith and she flat out told us that it all made sense and that she knew he was a real prophet. At that point, there was only really one way to go. So we brought up baptism and told her that was her next step. When she brought up she was already baptized as a Catholic, i was able to simply and with as much love and understanding as possible explain to her the apostasy and pretty much after one minute came to the point where I had to tell her that the catholic church has no authority to baptize (which sounds harsher here than it did in our lesson), she made the connection between everything and set a date for March 24. Obviously we won't be here, and when she asked who would do it since she had just barely found out in the beginning of our lesson that we would be leaving, we sadly told her that new missionaries would come after us. We still have a lesson with her tonight, but then that's it.
As we asked her to pray to close the lesson, it was one of the most powerful experiences we have had. This whole time with Ivelisse we have seen little glimpses of her as a real person, not the investigator. As she has asked us to pray for her husband and pray for certain things that her as an investigator never talked about, and we have prepared to always focus on her as a real person and not our investigator in the MTC. So, in that prayer as she began to thank Heavenly Father for us and the patience we have had with her and for helping her and her husband she started to get really emotional. That kind of got me too, so as we started to leave it was bittersweet to know it was almost over with her.
It is hard to understand I think, but we really have formed special bonds with those that have been our investigators. And us we left that room and started to pray after our lesson, I had the most overwhelming feeling of love from Heavenly Father, more than anything just confirming to me that this is His work and that everything we have done as representatives of His son Jesus Christ has blessed people. It will rough to leave here, but I know i have learned a lot.
On that note, we had our "demonstrate teaching" meeting with the group of new missionaries. We learned that we had been recommended by our teachers for our teaching and then selected by the Training people to be the demonstrating companionship. I don't say that to brag, but I say that because it was so surprising to us and such a confidence booster. Hermana Coleman couldn't come since she has been super sick lately, so it was Elder Lindsey and I again. We had three sets of investigators and talked to each of them for about ten minutes and then the new missionaries would commence after us. Our second set was a couple from Guatemala, so we got to kind of show off a bit with our Spanish in the beginning, until we switched to English. If there is anything I saw from doing our demonstrations was that we have learned so much these last 9 weeks. There was one Elder in particular who was so dull and so condescending to the investigators that I couldn't believe it. The husband in the Guatemalan couple actually called him out on it since he (the investigator) had just said how his best friend died and now he was scared for the health of his mother and then the future with his handicapped daughter and this ridiculous Elder started saying in a monotone, haughty voice how the investigator can be forgiven of his sins, and how he can rest easy since the demands of mercy and justice had been satisfied. . . yup, that really comforts somebody. The moderator in the room was just shaking his head, it might not sound so out of wack in this email, but it was very apparent that this Elder was not even listening to the people and did not even seek to comfort this man. I can't say much, I am not a perfect missionary, and I never will be. I am not even out of the MTC. I know how green I am. But if there is one thing I have learned, it is how to love people enough to focus on their needs. That Elder will learn, he will grow, its not a huge deal.
I cannot wait to get to Kentucky, this time next week!
Well, I am out of time. I love you all. Hope all is well.
Much love,
Elder St. Martin
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