4/13/15

Well it's been quite the week! I'm still LOVING Branson and we're making progress with both our wards so that's good. :) We actually almost have a progressing investigator!! She just needs to come to church and then we'll be good haha. We went on exchanges with our sister training leaders this week and I went with a sister I came out with...Sister Ma'alona!! :) CRAZY!! We really haven't seen each other since like 3 months into our missions...mostly because I haven't really seen ANYONE my whole mission cause I've been in the boonies haha BUT it was really good to see her. We were reminiscing about the good ol' days in the MTC haha I remember being SO scared to go to the MTC and then I ended up LOVING it and making like a trillion lifelong friends so anyone who's worried, Sue?? ;) DON'T BE! I was also able to go on another exchange this week with...SISTER SHUMWAY!!! :) Sister Cryer had a baptism to go back to in her last area and Sister Shumway asked me if she could come on exchanges with me and so it worked out perfectly! We had a good time. We were focusing all week on having active member lessons because as a mission we struggle with 'finding' statistically that is. WHICH! That role happens to be the member's role... SO we've been working as a whole mission to improve our work with members. It's so simple really. When we were baptized actually LONG before that! Before we came to earth when we found out that we were going to have the gospel, we PROMISED our Heavenly Father and our friends and our families that we would share the gospel. ALL God's asked us, YOU to do is INVITE. THAT'S IT! Our job is to open up our eyeballs and see those people around us who don't have the gospel and say "hey! We’re having a dinner at my church this Wednesday. Would you like to come?" or "You look like you might be interested in indexing. I've had a great experience with it. Can I show you how to get started?" or "Ya know we've been friends for a long time and I don't know that I've ever really shared with you what my church believes but I'd like to have some of the missionaries from my church explain the basics to you. Would that be ok?" THAT'S IT! You have SO much to give and all you have to do is invite people. You're not called to teach, you're not called to entertain, none of that, JUST INVITE! I can testify that the work will NOT be stopped by any of our lack of effort but our progression and our opportunity to be trusted by the Lord will be directly influenced by the seriousness we have toward our covenant to share the gospel. I want to share an experience that Sister Shumway had the other day. She was at Sam's club and she was running late for her son's concert and she was literally running out the door and a man came to help her load her groceries in. She felt the spirit tell her that she needed to talk to this man but she had seconds before she had to leave. As she's chucking groceries in her car with the help of this man she asks" SO area you a religious man?" "Yes I am." "Do you have a church you go to?" "Yes I do" "Well hey! You should come to ours!" "I might just do that." "If you give me your name and number I'll send some missionaries your way to tell you more about it." "Ok.".....That man met up with the missionaries that night. He's getting baptized in 3 weeks. We do not have to worry about sounding eloquent or offending people or ANYTHING! The Lord can and will do his own work. You just open your mouth and invite and watch the miracles happen. There’s a family here in our mission who has helped with 100 baptisms...because they invited that's all they do. They have people over for dinner! It's simple and it's what the Lord expects from us. Please don't miss out on the miracles that the Lord wants you to be a part of. Remember who you are and what you promised and remember who those around you REALLY are. The prepared are IN YOUR LIFE. Maybe they're not your best friends! Maybe they're a guy at the grocery store but we can ALL do this work. Try carrying some "I'm a Mormon” cards with you or make it a goal to invite someone you know to dinner and allow the gospel to come up in your conversations. You just invite and the Lord will take care of it all. I love you! I want to be like this too! We can work together and as members and missionaries combine efforts, the hastening will happen in more than just our hometowns but they'll happen in our hearts. I challenge you all to pray for an easy missionary opportunity this week and then to open your mouth and invite! :)

 

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno