July 30, 2009

This week has been another full of tender mercies from the Lord. You’ve got to love the roller coaster ride of Missionary Work!!

First the bad news, Nick is not going to be ready for awhile, he’s just not keeping committments and is still having a hard time with smoking. Please keep him in your prayers.

Now for our beautiful miracle!
Sunday Erin couldn’t get off work for church and she tried finding someone to fill in for her for 3 hours. So we set up a lesson at Taylor Strange’s house (she is Erins best friend) for that night. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and the lesson went great! Taylor and Mike Fox were there and helped us teach. The Spirit was very strong and through the whole lessong we didn’t talk about baptism, mostly because the Monday before we commited her to baptism and she said the she wasn’t ready and did want to be rushed. Then we didn’t see her for the rest of the week because Taylor was at ‘trek’ and Erin is a very difficult person to get ahold of. After our lesson on Sunday we went back to the apartment and finished our planning for the next day, when the phone rang. It was Taylor and she told me to get everyone together (Elder Chan was in the shower and thought I was crazy for telling him to get out RIGHT NOW!) We gathered around the phone and Erin got on the phone and told us that she had prayed and had decided to be baptized on Aug. 9th! My last Sunday here! She really had just caught fire the past couple days. I gave her a nice copy of the book ‘Our Search for Happiness’ with my testimony in the front  and she read it until she finished it at 2Am!

Today Erin called us while we were shopping and asked if we could have a lesson this morning even though it was P-day and of course we said yes (we had a lesson with her last night at the Olson’s house too).  I made some quick phone calls and had everthing set up. Sis Simmons and Sis Cloward changed their plans, picked us up and took us to the Fox’s where we planned to teach Erin since she was home alone. She pretty much taught us the Word of Wisdom and all about Tithing.  The really great thing is the branch has just taken her and fell in love with her.  She has already contacted her Institute Teacher and the Branch President down in South Carolina where she will be going to school! You have to love someone who is so fired up about the gospel in their lives.  She has already started doing family history so she can do baptisms for the dead for her relatives!

That has been our week.
I couldn’t ask for a better end to my mission!
Elder Oakford