Last week I told you I had been fasting for a miracle. It seemed like after I did this we faced a lot of challenges and opposition in our day to day work but finally last week that miracle came! We were walking to go teach some friends of ours, when we walked past a trailer where a man came out and asked us if we were Mormons. I hesitated because I thought he was going to want to bash with us but we stopped and talked with him, boy was I wrong! He actually used to meet with missionaries over fifteen years ago and in fact he almost got baptized. He said that the only thing that stopped him was quitting smoking, although he told us that he now is ready to quit and pick up where he had left off. He recognized that God sent us to him; he said it over and over. How great it was to find this man. We returned to his humble home with our recent convert, Brother Gun and he did a great job of fellow-shipping and explaining his newly developed testimony of the church. They hit it off. Kenny even came to a Mother’s Day social and he came to church with us the next morning and kept remarking how he felt so comfortable there--truly a miracle from a loving Heavenly Father. I guess we will see if he gets baptized before I leave or not (he is currently on date) but I am sure happy to be a part of his journey back to our Savior.
This week I was able to attend the funeral of a great man that I used to meet with over a year ago. The funeral was different from what I am used too. We were a little nervous to go because we were not sure how it would look if two Mormon missionaries showed up to a funeral but everyone was so nice to us; it was pretty neat. There was a preacher from a church that preached at the service. He was a nice man; we had a couple of good laughs with him. The service started out with a military tribute and that was powerful, but then the preacher started his thing. It started normal but then he just started yelling and screaming and a whole different spirit came into the room; the peaceful calmness of the spirit left. I do not mean to bash the preacher, but I feel like he failed. He didn't speak words of comfort that the family needed. He didn't reassure anyone that they could be with their father, husband, cousin, brother or friend again and while he preached, the spirit was absent. It really opened my eyes to how impactful the Restored Gospel is. Truly we need to feel God’s love in such a hard time. I missed that and I feel bad that is not the message that this preacher decided to talk about. This guy did sing a really good song though! It was really good so I feel like that left the funeral service on a peaceful note. I am glad we could go show our support. I am so thankful for the plan of salvation!
Speaking of the plan of salvation, we had a killer lesson with Cheryl and Austin, one of the couples we are teaching. We were covering the plan; Austin has lost his mother not too long ago, so he was down about that, our lesson really seemed to help. Cheryl is Awesome! We were covering the Kingdoms of Glory and she made an awesome connection. She said that she has always wondered what Paul meant in the Bible when he said he was carried up to the third heaven to dwell with God. And she said it finally made sense what that meant! It was one of the moments that you really cherish as a missionary.
So I had to talk about enduring to the end in Sacrament yesterday. I think it was good practice for my homecoming talk coming up. There was one scripture I quoted that I found a lot of peace with! Has the Savior not overcome the world? It has already been done. I know in the toughest of times if we point our hearts back to God we can receive spiritual strength--that will give us the strength to endure.
John16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Have a great week and Keep the Faith!
- Elder L. Kaleb Bingham
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