Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 9:37 AM
Getting a Christmas package that has the WHOLE mail room talking before you even know that it's for you! Hahaha what a GREAT and exciting Christmas box to receive! Thank you so much, Mom! Everyone was holding it and looking to see for who it was...Anziano Proctor took one look at it and said "It's for Sorella Bowman...and it's from her mom." Sure enough, it was! Thank you so much!
I cannot tell you how wonderful of a week it is been. There have been tears of joy, tears of sorrow, and laughs of confusion and happiness this whole week! So many miracles have come, practically into my lap! So many new people I have met...not investigators quite yet, but they are coming around the corner...I can feel it.
All of these miracles came when I just humbled myself to the dust. I have been really focussing on making my prayers more meaningful and REALLY SPEAKING with Heavenly Father...not just covering the basics. As a Thanksgiving Treat, we had training on my birthday (the 18th) and for that specific training we watched 17 Miracles. WHAT AN AMAZING MOVIE!! I have never been so humbled in my life! I realized what little faith I have...and how the Lord really DOES FOLLOW THROUGH with what HE SAYS HE WILL DO!!! So, I have been working on it..really pondering what faith is..and how much more I can improve. And thus the miracles began to flow...
I said last week that Paola didn't want to learn anymore...let me recount to you all my MIRACLE to President this past week: (sigh) If only there was room enough for more! I have SUCH a strong testimony with the training we experienced on the 18th. Just asking inspired questions really, really works. Saturday night we had an appointment scheduled with new convert/less active/nonmember family. The nonmember is the daughter and we have been teaching her for a while. Last Saturday she EXPLODED on us and we had NO idea why. We waited a week and decided to go back again and focus more on the mother. As we showed up, our cute little lesson about God is our Heavenly Father and the Gospel Blesses Families...no one is home EXCEPT for the daughter. DAH?! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?! She wasn't very happy to see us, but let us in anyways. The daughter left for the bathroom and my companion and I looked at each other...both expecting the other to give SOME direction. I just let my companion take the lead in the lesson like we practiced, praying the whole time that SOMETHING would come to my mind when it would be my turn. As she looks at me...I have absolutely NOTHING in my head...and I start with that. "Paola, I have no idea what to say to you right now..." and from there, I don't really remember what I said...but it all led into inspired questions. I testify that they were inspired because I don't remember at ALL what they were...they were all leading up to one question that Literally broke the dam in her heart. I asked one question and she just started bawling. Come to find out, all our suspiscions were confirmed and our lesson went from her never want us to be in her home again, to her wanting to read the Book of Mormon and to work on a desire to come to church. THAT, in itself, is a miracle.
That was Saturday. Sunday was beautiful in the fact that the Primary President has asked me to do Primary Singing Time and teach the children the Christmas Songs for the Primary Program. THANK YOU EGBERT FAMILY FOR ALL THE INSPIRED TEACHING YOU HAVE DONE AND I HAVE WITNESSED!!!! Sorella Nilson played the piano while I taught. All I had them do was clap the rhythm along with the music, sing the words after me...just very basic things. ALL THE CHILDREN LISTENED AND FOLLOWED ALONG!!! The Primary President and her counselor just stood in the back with their mouths LITERALLY opened...I'm looking forward to next sunday. :) Monday night, I was just down in the dumps again because we need to find more people to teach. We had spoken to a lovely woman on the bus and I just got so tongue tied in what she was spilling to us. I couldn't quite get an invite out because she spilled and then had to get off. As I was praying...I asked heavenly father to help us find her again. As I was praying I felt a strong impression to be at a certain bus stop at 12:00 the next day. As I was listening, I told Heavenly Father that we had an appointment at 11:30..but if we neeed to be there at 12...I KNEW He could make it happen. The next day: We are on the bus and everything is going just fine...the wind is really strong and really picking up. All of a sudden we start hearing snapping noises and are just confused with what's going on. The cables to the bus snap and all the power shuts off...it's 11:20. The bus slides to a stop at the FIRST stop for the bus we WOULD take to get to " THE STOP" in my impression. As I am calling our less active...the bus to take us to "THE STOP" shows up almost immediately...and I run for it. I recall all this to my companion and I am anticipating exactly what the Lord wants us to do. As we show up...it's 10 minutes until 12:00 and we start looking. We never found anyone, but we taught a homeless man...I just felt impressed to teach him. He didn't understand much, but he did ask for a book of mormon in Italian for his son so his son could translate it for him. I was bummed because I was expecting to see the woman again...but I felt a little voice say "I am proud because of the fact that you listened and went anyway" That's what I am holding on to...I went anyways..not knowing what to do and not really getting any success. But we are all learning...and it was a testifying factor to ME that the Lord WILL do what He SAYS He will do.
There is so much more to share and I just can't fit it all in! Long story short, I smiled at a girl on the bus and she approached us..asked to learn from us and we have an appointment with her on Sunday. It was a strange encounter because it NEVER happens...but we will see how it goes. Yesterday we were searching for some less actives and we couldn't contact them, so we went to a member's home to warm up. As we were doing so, we shared a thought and ran for the bus. We got to the train station and had to run for the other bus...Good thing we did so because as we sat down a man turns to us and says "YOUR MISSIONARIES FROM THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS" Why..yes..yes we are :D ANd he starts saying how he was studying with the missionaries in Torrino and now that he's here he wants to study with us. He has a couple friends who would like to study too and about 100 people who would like to come and listen to us share spiritual thoughts and learn to pray. He wants us to call him (today) and get something started. We've passed him to the Anziani and they have either got a crazy man on their hands...or one of the most golden finds I have ever heard of. So here we go forward with faith...We received another referral from the Anziani and are looking forward to teaching this woman.
MIRACLES HAPPEN!! Happy Thanksgiving to all and I miss you all!!
con amore,
Sorella Bowman
No comments:
Post a Comment