We did have a really amazing experience this week with a woman named Josefina. We met her our first week here, she was outside cutting her nails and we were lost looking for an apartment. Well, our little missionary
So, that left us really surprised on Saturday afternoon when we checked the phone and had a missed call and voicemail from her. Her daughter had kicked her out of the house and she felt that she should call us. She knew that we were good Christians and that we could help her. It was such a tender afternoon. We went and met up with her in a parking lot and just loved her. We just listened, read in the scriptures, and prayed. The spirit was so strong!! She said that just a few hours earlier she had felt that she wished she could just drive around and get into an accident and have it be done with. But at the end, she truly felt God's love. I'm so grateful for those moments. She slept in her car Saturday night because she couldn't find a hotel room, and then a member came to pick her up in the parking lot of Big Lots for church on Sunday morning.
Church is so cool.
1. It was such an amazing Sacrament meeting. SO POWERFUL. And much needed. It was super tender because one woman got up and bore her testimony about the Elders who had taught her and how grateful she was that the Lord had sent her angels. Josefina turned and patted Hermana Huey and I on the leg with tears in her eyes and smiled. :) TENDER!
2. We got her in contact with the Relief Society president and by 6 pm that night, she was moved in with a member in Oxnard who was renting a room. HOW COOL IS THAT? She left us a message this morning saying how grateful she is and how peaceful she feels. She has been reading in the Book of Mormon these last few weeks even though we hadn't been able to meet with her and she feels the spirit of the Lord. Unfortunately she moved in with a member in the Elders' area, so we won't get to teach her anymore :( But I do feel so blessed to have seen this miracle this week! I love Josefina!
This week I studies about the brother of Jared, in Ether 3 and 6. I love the story of the brother of Jared and the stones. Hermana Eames and I had a cool conversation about it on exchanges this week--she's awesome, by the way! Anyway, if we compare ourselves as missionaries to the stones, we can note how the brother of Jared prepares them with love and then takes them to the top of the mountain, aka the temple, where they are touched by the hand of the Lord, one by one, aka endowed with power, and then sent to give light to the people. What a blessing for these people who are in the darkness! Can you imagine how much that light meant to these people during their year long journey? That's us! We get to go be a light to those who don't know about the gospel. And that doesn't just apply to missionaries, but it applies to all covenant members of the church. We have a responsibility and have made a covenant to bear each other up. Fast forward to Ether chapter 6. The people "commended themselves unto the Lord their God." We are consecrated servants of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we are called upon to go through storms. And it feels like mountainous waves are crashing down on us again and again and again. That's honestly how I've felt this week, in a non-dramatic way! But as often as they did cry unto the Lord, He did bring them to the tops of the mountains. In the end, the people praised the Lord for the tender mercies they had seen during their year long journey. They, too, had become endowed with power and light. They had been touched by the Lord, one by one, like the stones. I love the scriptures. And I LOVE MY CALLING!
Missionary work is still the best.
I LOVE THIS GOSPEL AND I LOVE MY SAVIOR!! :) :)
xoxo
Hermana Clark