Hey everyone!
Pretty great week, if I don't say so myself. We've taught more
lessons this week than we have in several transfers. We've been busy! We
had a great lesson with Eric and his daughters again. We finished the
plan of salvation, and they all seemed to understand and accept it. His
fifteen year old continued to surprise us with her questions and
thoughts of the gospel. This family is so prepared! Unfortunately they
didn't come to church! Ugh that was frustrating, and we had the one
gospel principles lesson that Eric needed to hear! After Bro. Stringam's
great gospel principles lesson, we both felt sad that Eric wasn't able
to hear that for himself. We'll be having a family home evening
with Eric tonight at his neighbor's house and I'm really excited for
that.
I had a really great experience on Thursday afternoon. We had a gap
of time with absolutely nothing going on in our area. Bummer. So, we
decided to help some companionships in the zone with the work in their
area--a blitz, as we call it. We talked with Elder Nelson and Elder Duke
to see if we could help them in their area. We set aside about three
hours to just get to work and see what we could do. Wood went with Duke
and I went with Elder Nelson. I asked what we'd be doing, and he said
we'd be tracting. I'll admit that I was hesitant because the area we
were going to was one of the wealthier parts of Surprise, if not the
wealthiest. The first whole street was nothing but rejections or slammed
doors. Woo. We cut through a park and found another street.
Along the way we had a great discussion about how to fire up wards
to be better member missionaries. We came to the new street and knocked
on the first door. A woman, probably mid 20's, answered the door. We
introduced ourselves, and she introduced herself. Her name was Amanda
and she said that she had a lot of friends from high school who were
members of the church. Elder Nelson asked her if she had ever read the
Book of Mormon, and she said no. She continued on by saying, "It's funny
how you say that because recently I was just thinking about your church
and how I'd like to actually read the Book of Mormon for myself." Just
then she had to run inside to check something. Elder Nelson and I just
looked at each other like, "Did she just say that?" While she was inside
I picked out a mormon.org card and began to write down our phone number and location of the church. I was thinking about which mormon.org
video portrait she would like the best. For some reason the profile of a
woman named Shawni came to my mind. She's a mom, photographer, blogger,
I thought it would work. Before I could write anything down, Amanda
came back outside. The conversation somehow switched to football, no
idea how. Probably because she's a huge Packers fan and seeing as they
just lost...you know where I'm going with this. I changed my mind and
wrote down the link to one of the former NFL players, Rob. It's a cool
story about football and his family, and I thought she'd like that one
instead. She saw the card and said, "Hey I've seen those commercials! I
saw one the other day about a woman who talked about her kids and
photography. I liked that one because I like photography and I wanted to
learn more about her." It was Shawni's profile. Of the three dozen
differnet commercials, she saw Shanwi's. I asked her if she wanted to
see that one too, and she said that she'd love that. I wrote down the
link, and felt slightly guilty that I hadn't followed that prompting the
first time. I know something like a name isn't worth making a big deal
about, but wow. We were so led by the Spirit that afternoon. I don't
doubt that we were being guided every step of the way that day, even
just to talk with Amanda about the Book of Mormon and a woman named
Shawni.
Saturday night was quite the night, one that I didn't expect to
see for a very long time. Scott was baptized. We were teaching Scott
back in the former Copper Canyon ward way back when Angelos was here and
we had lessons twice a week with them. Part-member family, Scott was
not a baptized member of the church. Missionaries had been working with
them for years. We had a few instances where Scott accepted the
invitation to be baptized, but for one reason or another, he wasn't
ready. It was kind of frustrating at the time, I cared about him, but I
think my pride was saying, "Come on and get baptized already, you know
it's true!!!" We lost them with the split of the wards, and they became
part of the Sisters' area. A couple months or so after the split, the
Sisters started working with them again. At transfers last week, Sisters
Falke and Rohner leaned over to me and said, "You know Scott's getting
baptized next weekend right?" I freaked. I immediately put that in my
planner so I wouldn't forget it. Saturday night was so great when I
walked into the church and saw Bishop Pottle and Scott standing next to
each other dressed in white. Their whole family was excited for them.
Scott came over to me, gave me a hug and said, "It's sure good to see
you here!" It was a different Scott. Bishop Pottle and Bro.
Tanner (formerly in the Copper Canyon ward but have now become quite
good friends of mine) told me that his wife just stopped pushing. If he
wanted to do it, it was his choice. It took him some time but after
reading and some serious praying, he was ready. It was a wonderful
feeling to sit in the church and hear the bishop bear testimony about
the temple and eternal families.
Write back soon everyone, take care and be good.
Much love,
Elder Eric James Turner | |
| Eric with Scott and his family |
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