We were contacting a referral the other day and the lady's son answered the door. His name is R, he's 27, Puerto Rican by blood but New Yorker since birth, and a super special child of God. Not to mention he is like straight out of Seinfield. Anyways, we started talking about religion and the tough things he's going through in His life. As the conversation progressed, we testified of the love and awareness of His Heavenly Father. His eyes lit up. We asked him how he felt to know that God loved and knew Him, and he answered in a one word sermon, "thrilled".
It really caused me to think of Alma's questioning in Alma 5:26 when he asks, "have ye felt to sing the song of redeeming love?" When we truly think about the reality of a God that knows us personally and loves us perfectly, it really is thrilling! When we understand and feel His redeeming love, we want nothing more than to sing it right on out! .. But then the follow up question, "can ye feel so now?" Does the gospel thrill us still? As we ride along the ups and downs of life, as we spend entire days knocking and talking without any success, it's easy to forget how thrilling the message of His infinite love really is. But it is SO real and SO good and only takes an upward and outward gaze to get the song stuck right back in our heads.
And today, I'm singing!
We are seeing so many miracles, and what's even more beautiful is that they are specific miracles of progression with our wonderful friends we're working with. I'm stoked about it!
First, M. She's the cutest little stay at home mom of one adorable baby from Honduras. She LOVES the Lord and has incredible insights on lots of gospel topics. As we've been meeting with her, we've definitely felt the spirit but she just doesn't keep commitments. She's super Cristiana, and decided she was going to go back to her church. As we were planning what to do for her, the lesson just wasn't sitting right with us. I asked if there was a video we could show her, and Hna Beckstead suggested "The Will of God", the one about the gardener cutting down the little current bush. We went right over to her house and spoke with her. At the end, I knew we were supposed to give her a baptismal date, but I was a little baby about it. Super scared. As I tried to end the lesson with any other words, I simply choked on them as they came out. It was incredibly weird. So I just said, what the heck. And invited her with a date and she said yes and HEAVENLY FATHER KNOWS WHATS BEST.
Secondly, M's brother C. He's the one that had read the Testimony of Joseph Smith as a youth in Honduras, right? But literally every time we teach him he's like yeah, yeah, loving it until we invite him to baptism and he's like, "what have I told you? I'm not getting baptized again!" And do we were out with a member, cute Hermana Lenox, and the less active we were visiting didn't answer the door. So we're like, 'where to?' And she suggests we try another less active, so we head over there, but as were driving over Hna Beckstead and I both felt like we should go visit M. We visit her instead and C is there! So we share the bible video where Jesus heals a man blind from birth, telling him to go and wash and be healed and the spirit was SO strong and we discussed the beauty of action and following the example of Jesus Christ and he said he would 'possibly' be baptized and Hermana Beckstead and I danced out the door with baby tears in our eyes. There's just something special about him that we can feel as we teach. ALSO he came to church and participated like a champion and #happydays!
On the way home from the lesson, we checked our phone and.. What do you know? Call from our dear President! Hna Beckstead is getting transferred and I am going to stay here in Charlottesville and train a newborn English sister baby! ..What? There's a super crazy influx of sisters but no hermanas coming in so, here we go! Haha. Good thing Burkeville taught me to love English speaking people too! God knows what he's doing. ☺️
So much love!
Hermana Yost
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