Well first I'll talk about our investigators. Gale is getting baptized this Sunday and we are all way excited. He got married legally last week even though he doesn't live with his girlfriend, just to be safe. Great and her little sister Bim are taking all the steps to get baptized, and they are both looking for new jobs right now that don't make them work on Sunday. Recently Great promised God through prayer that she would go to the temple. Really exciting. We have another guy, brother Golf, who really impressed us in a lesson last week. He is searching so hard for the answer and he's gonna get it reaaaal soon if he keeps doing the things he has been telling us he's doing. Reading and praying every day. The 5th of next month looks HUGE for our district with baptisms.
Throughout the week, teaching English was a blast, Book of Mormon class was great, and we had some way good lessons with some potential investigators. Me and Elder Purser also got to go home teaching with the 1st counselor in the Bishopric to visit a member that probably doesn't have much longer to be here with us. He has some brain condition where he is slowly just losing control of his body and its way sad, but he shows so much gratitude to us for visiting him just by the way he looks at us you can see it in his eyes. He can't even speak but I feel the Spirit when I speak to him and when I'm in his house. His wife is such a strong member. I teared up during the lesson when she just broke down and started crying talking about how much she prays for help from God in watching over God's Priesthood. She spoke with such power! She pointed to her husband laying there and said "This is God's Priesthood! I need to do everything that I can to take care of him because I know if we endure together we will live with God again!" :') lovely
On Saturday we had the opportunity to go with a bunch of members to this orphanage with a bunch of blind and deaf children. It was such a good experience. Those kids knew nothing but love. No matter what situation we are put in, we have a decision to be happy. I learned a big lesson from those children.
After that is when I had like the craziest experience ever. We went with the Sister missionaries and with brother Bank and sister Ef to go visit brother Sagon, a way less active member who used to be an Elder's quorum president that I have talked a lot about before. Like with every story ever haha there is a ton of details that I'm gonna miss but I hope you'll all get the main points... Usually whenever we go he is super sick and can't even walk because of this back surgery he got, and that's why we gave him blessing a couple weeks ago. This time he greeted us and noticeably was so much more happy than normal. We sat down and didn't really know where to start (planning is so important you guys plz don't suck as much as me when it comes to planning) but he thankfully had some stuff in mind that he wanted to talk about. He said he had some stuff for us to translate! He went and grabbed a big stack of letters and said it was from a senior missionary that used to be in Bangkhen, Elder Manning. He had me translate a couple for him and oh my worrrdddd they were so powerful. Brother Sagon and his wife, and his first kid have been baptized, but his last two kids haven't because he went inactive by the time they were 8. All of the letters were talking about how he needs to lead his children to get baptized because he KNOWS that it's true but is denying it to himself. Every single one of the letters finished with the same sentence. In bold letters: Brother Sagon. God loves you. He misses you. He needs you. Lead your family and come back. The Spirit was INSANEEEE after reading through a couple and then it felt like time just stopped. There was some kids playing in the halls outside and cats fighting and some other noisy stuff, but it felt like it all just stopped. I can't even explain it. I knew he felt the Spirit as strong as I did when Sister Black testified of God's love for him. She said God loves him so much and needs him so badly, and begged Brother Sagon to just realize God's love for him. He sends people to visit him all the time, and people like Elder Manning that challenge him to be worthy to baptize his children. Sister Black went like sooo hard it was crazy. After that I grabbed his leg and looked him in the eyes and asked him, or rather God asked him through me: "Do you know this feeling you are feeling right now? That burning in your chest? I know you're familiar with it. Where does it come from?" That was followed by no shorter than 3 or 4 minutes of dead silence. It was the most powerful silence I have ever experienced. I kept almost breaking the silence, but at the same time I was praying that nobody else would say anything. I'm glad I never said anything because he finally broke the silence and said. "God. It comes from God. The Holy Ghost." and just looked down at the ground and started crying. I was being so impressed by the Spirit the whole time to commit him to go to church on the 5th. But I was doubting it because he hasn't been to church for almost 10 years, and he has NEVER been open to talking about a specific date to go to church. But finally I just said, "I cannot deny the Spirit any longer. The Spirit is telling me over and over again to challenge you to come to church on the 5th of next month and listen to the testimonies of the members that love and miss you." He just lit up and replied with joy, "I was thinking the same thing. This whole time I have been thinking the 5th of next month is the day I will go back to church, but I didn't know if it was the Spirit or not. I thought you were going to try and get me to go to church tomorrow. But the fact you knew I was thinking the 5th is an act of God. I will go. And I will try to bring my entire family." WLEJRASKJGWOREIUTFDLKGASDFKTAWHTA)S(FDIUGAJ$WIJWARO hehehehehehehe YES!!! YES!! WOOH!!! We were like all crying at that point and I JUST WAS OVERCOME!!! I completely lost it during his closing prayer and just started bawling. It might not sound as cool being told in a story like this but the feelings I felt were just something else. I'm so lucky to have been a mouthpiece in that situation. I am so excited for the next chapter of Sagon and his family. We happily marked the day on his calendar. The 5th of July.
Outta time. More Sagon stories will come. Hopefully with better and more full detail. I love this work. Talk to you next week, happy 4th of July!
1. for those of you keeping track at home that's 4 pictures of me going HARD at burger king this transfer
2. at the orphanage
3. donuts (shoutout to sister black eating the bag.. the spiritual powerhouse that led to sagon committing to the 5th)
4. orphanage again
5. the church
6. the members we got to go and home teach
7. letters to brother sagon
