Monday, March 17, 2014

Hastening the Work!--February 23, 2014

February 23, 2014

Maayong buntag tanan!

This week has been super exciting because my brother got his mission call!! I'm so proud of him!!! Charleston, West Virginia, is going to be a super lucky place!!

This week in the Philippines was pretty cool! We only went on exchanges for 1 day, so we got to work a lot in our area. We went on exchanges with the Matalom sisters. It was super cool! Matalom is a group. Their attendance is usually 24 people. They are working on getting a meetinghouse. I really loved my time there. We met a little boy filling up buckets of water at a well, so we helped him carry the water home. Then, we met his mom. At first, his mom really didn't want to listen to us. She basically pretended like we weren't there, but after a few minutes, we convinced her to let us come back the next morning. She didn't let me hug her before we left.

When we went back the next morning, we shared about how Heavenly Father loves her, and how to pray, and who to pray to, and a little bit about prophets, and we told her that her family could have an opportunity to be together forever. She started crying, a lot. We didn't even share about Joseph Smith yet, but she was so happy about just learning how to pray. She told us that she felt like our message was true, and that we were really sent from God. At the end of the lesson, she hugged me first! That like never happens! Hahaha But, I was soooo happy that I got a chance to teach this sweet sister. 

We were doing evaluations after the exchanges, and the sister I was with told me that what I shared with her during exchanges was exactly what she needed, and it was like I could read her mind. I can't express enough how much I love the times when I follow the spirit and someone tells me that that's what they needed. I love being an STL! It's been a little weird to adjust too, because we don't like work in our area, but I'm so happy that I have this chance to serve in a different capacity than I thought I would.

We met such a cool investigator!! His name is Loloy. He was walking his dog as we were walking to church, and he told us that he was really interested in our message. We finished teaching him the first lesson last night, and he said that he would read the entire Book of Mormon! And that what we taught him makes complete sense. It was such a cool lesson! I feel like he will be baptized. He will help the branch here a lot!

The coolest thing about the week, though, was at our missionary member correlation meeting. It was sooooo great! We told the members that we were only going to be in our area on Sunday this week, and we needed them to visit the people we are trying to get to church (investigators and inactive members) And they all signed up to visit one of the people on our list. They gave us a specific day they would go so we could remind them and follow up with them. And in our relief society meeting the sisters asked us who needed help. We told them about a few people, and they talked about how they were going to help these sisters get back to church! I'm so happy! The members are all starting to see how important they are in this work. Especially now since we don't really work in Maasin that much. It's super cool! Everyone is starting to get really excited about missionary work! 

I'm so happy for missionary work, and I'm so grateful that we all have the opportunity to help our brethren. I gave a spiritual thought in relief society. I was thinking about reasons why members might be hesitant to share the gospel. But, I realized that missionary work isn't hard. It's just giving people what they need, Lots of love. These people just need our attention, some of our time, and a little of our love to find the gospel and stay in the gospel. 

Weekly Challenge: Think of someone who didn't come to church last week, and send them a text or give them a call and tell them that you love them and missed them at church.

Thanks for all the support and prayers!! Natural disaster free for 2 weeks now! Woo!

Gugma,
 
Sister Bingham

No comments:

Post a Comment