MISSIONARY & PERSONAL PROGRESS

September 2, 2010

This morning we called back on a lady Orson had found tracting yesterday. (Have I mentioned how we tract? Since I can’t do the extended walking/standing thing very well because I’m such a wimp, Orson goes door to door. I follow along in the car. When he gets someone who is willing to talk to him, I begin praying that we will be able to teach this person. We’ve had a few good nibbles this way.) Anyway, Katrina, a woman with a darling baby in her arms said he could come back this morning, so we did. She was busy helping her Aunty (pronounced Ahnty) write up a funeral thing because the Aunty’s Aunty had died. She invited us back to the patio and we began talking. We asked her about her spiritual background and she said she’d been a Baptist but was now attending the church up the street from us that had changed from the Broome Christian Fellowship to New Victory Life, a Pentecostal group. She wasn’t happy about that because she said she’d been cautioned against Pentecostals.
Since there’d just been a death, we started just talking about death and our beliefs. The Aunty asked if we believe in Hell. I started to explain about the spirit world and how it was divided into two parts when Katrina broke in and said, “Yes, and then you have the thing with 3 different levels.” We picked up our chins off our chests and asked how she knew that. Eight years ago she’d had the lessons in Darwin and been ready to get baptized when her ex-partner left her and she just fell apart. After a while a friend took her to the Baptist Church and she said she really felt the spirit there. But since she moved to Broome 8 months ago, she hadn’t found the Baptists so she’d been going to the other church. She isn’t happy with it because she says she doesn’t feel anything there. She goes because she likes the music.
So we went on with the lesson grinning on the inside. She didn’t remember too much so we just taught as if she was brand new to it all. She said she’d read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She also sounded like we would probably show up to church on Sunday. She also has a 7 year old son and has been married just a year to the baby’s dad. Wahoo!
Tonight I introduced Personal Progress to the girls here. I tried to make it a special evening similar to New Beginnings. I included their moms on the invitation, but neither showed up. I had found a CD with 4 YW songs on it so I used 2 of them, “Walk Tall,” and “I Walk by Faith,” (my favorites) as the opening and closing songs. I also had typed the words so they could follow and really understand the meaning of the songs. Then we began talking about the PP booklet. They were pretty excited to hear about the torch necklace. There were only 2 of them here in the office. I told them I’d ordered more and chains to go with them. I was going to give them to the 2 who were baptized, but they decided they wanted to wait until they could have the chains also. Then we talked about the YW Recognition necklace. The booklet has a picture of the necklace and they thought it was really beautiful. We took turns reading paragraphs and talking about it. It went really well. We had some special refreshments; I gave each of them a silk rose to remind them of tonight and took them home. We also gave them each a copy of their own scriptures. Only Tammy had her own Triple Combination. Attending were Tammy and Dale Rollason and Carolyn Shires. Dale, the non-member who came to scripture study the other night, showed us that she’d already bought her Study Journal for the scripture class. She’s moving right along and we are so grateful for it.
We kind of said farewell to our Brazilian couple today. We’ve tried and tried and tried to get back in to teach them and to get them to come to church. They just seem overcome by their work schedules and lack of interest in the gospel even though they believe what we taught them. We wrote them a letter explaining the importance of the decision they are making and told them to let us know when they have time to put God in their lives. They are just too accustomed to being Roman Catholics who never go to church or do anything religious. We also included a copy of the Family Proclamation and The Living Christ (in Portuguese).