Monday, April 28, 2014

Member Visits! (EP)

Dear everyone,

Guess what I learned this week. I learned that the Lord leads us all the time if we are willing to follow the Spirit.

Exhibit A:

We were walking back home down one of the many cycle paths here in Cwmbran when we saw a man across the street carrying groceries and walking quickly. Elder Jones said "Is that Martin?" I looked and sure enough, it looked like him (Martin is an investigator we have been trying to contact for about a month now, kind of frustrating.). The guy looked at us and said hello and then turned and walked/jogged down the path between some houses.

We evaluated the situation. We haven't seen this guy in a month... This could be our only chance... He is getting pretty far away as we speak... Let's go!

We started to chase him. It was in the most casual/not-stalker way possible. Usually I wouldn't do that kind of stuff because it could look bad, but I felt totally comfortable doing it. I take it as a confirmation that it was the right thing to do.

We finally got about 20 yards behind him and called out his name. He turned. Yes it was him. But he didn't stop, he yelled something about being in a rush and then kept going. We both stopped. I don't know why but I felt satisfied with our efforts. 

Exhibit B (which goes along with exhibit A):

We followed the paths to a member in our ward. The cutest elderly Welsh woman in Wales! She is one who walks into church on Sunday morning singing "Good morning, good morning, to you and you and you and you" (from Singing in the Rain) as she shakes our hands. Her name is Daisy.

I knew the general area of her house but like many of the homes here they all look the same. I guessed on a random door to see if it was her. After ringing the doorbell I looked to my right and out comes Daisy from the house next door. She didn't look so good, her eyes didn't have the light they usually have. She told us "there is no one there love". "That's alright because we were looking for you anyway!" we said. 

Long story short she had walked outside just at that moment so that she would see us. We stood on her doorstep for a while. She was SO grateful that we dropped by. She was in tears as we spoke to her. MAN if I wasn't a missionary I would have given her a big hug! She was in tears, I was in tears, I'm pretty sure Elder Jones was in tears too. I felt SO grateful to be there at that moment.
 
By the end of our conversation the light had returned to her eyes, we felt amazing, she gave us some sweets, we invited her to pray for one of our investigators and we left. Giving her something to do like praying for an investigator of ours is really good because it gets her mind off of her problems and helps her serve others.

Then to top it all off a member gave us a lift home and bought us fish and chips on the way. Awesome!

A day of miracles. A word of advice for everyone, go and visit members. Keep checking on them. A phone call could take less than 5 minutes but it makes huge difference. The length of time isn't important, it is the content. 

Love,
Elder Jacob Packer

Oh yeah, and Elder Jones is doing awesome. He destroys me when we play Chess. I'm just letting him win... :)

Sorry this email is super long. I don't usually like sending long emails but this one just popped out of nowhere.

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