26 April 2016 - Week 24: Trying new things

Bonjour tout le monde!

I had a great week! The first thing is that we invited two of our amis to be baptized (the other, we weren't feelin' it during the lesson and decided not to) and one of them accepted and the other is going to tell us his answer on Friday! So, we have a baptism the 21st of May! It was cool because when we asked her to be baptized, she was surprised at first and then said she was wanting to wait until September (her birthday) BUT then she said, "If it's the Lord's will for me to be baptized on May 21st, I will!" Woo hoo! She has a lot of faith and she'll be ready!

Like I said last week, we've really been seeing the blessings of being obedient. And this week, we're trying new things that we've learned from other missionaries. We had an exchange with the sisters in Paita (Sœur Vogel and Sœur Reorau) and they are awesome missionaries! We learned 2 great things from them. 1) to pray as a companionship before each lesson and before we go searching for old amis and inactive members. And 2) to always ask to share a scripture and a prayer, especially with inactive members, even if you're just standing outside their house. We had a really great experience with that yesterday. We went to an inactive sister's house to see if we could talk with her. It turns out that she wasn't home, but her husband, who's also inactive, was. We asked if we could share a scripture with him and he said no, but he said yes to a prayer. So we said a prayer and talked a little and the conversation just turned toward sharing a scripture and he didn't stop us! We shared our testimonies and even said another prayer. It was a really good experience and I could feel the Spirit there and I knew he could feel it too. We're here as missionaries to help other come unto Christ and to invite the Spirit into or back into their lives. And before we had gone up to the house, we had prayed together to have the Spirit. These things are so important in missionary work, but I know that it's not just missionaries who have experiences like that! We can all pray to be guided by the Spirit every day and look for ways to share the Gospel.

Another thing that we learned from the Riviere Salee elders was that the sondage really works. The sondage is pretty much a survey about our religion--just if the person has ever heard of the Church, knows members, or heard about the Book of Mormon or the Plan of Salvation. Stuff like that. It's a less-threatening way to do contacting, I think, because the person just thinks you want to ask them questions, not convert them. Yesterday, we had some good experiences doing the sondage and found several good potential investigators! We gave away 6 Books of Mormon and we have 4 return appointments. And the coolest thing is that because we prayed with some of the people we talked to and taught about the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation while we talked to them, that counts as other lessons taught! We're really excited for the success we had yesterday and are more motivated to go out and find more new amis! The work in our secteur is improving. We had amis progressing--we had 5 amis at Church on Sunday! Wooo hoo! And we're finding more new amis and also asking members to help us find the inactive members. There's work to be done and Sœur Rooarii and I are motivated!

I'm really loving my mission and I'm learning so many things that I can continue to do after my mission to keep learning and progressing in the Gospel. There are some moments when I think about home and family and BYU and what I could be doing if I weren't on a mission. But then I remember why I came out here--to serve my Heavenly Father and invite others to have the same joy in the Gospel that I have. The longer I am on my mission, the more I appreciate the life I have and my family and the more it feels like a sacrifice to be here. But I'm not sad or thinking about coming home!! Don't worry! I just want to let you know how much I really love you guys and can't wait for the day we're reunited! But for now, I'm a missionary and I love the work!

JE VOUS AIME!!

Sœur Matheson :)