Week #79 - What an Amazing Experience this Week!

Guess What?  You will not believe it?  We met, taught, and committed a man to be baptized on November 2nd!  

Just 4 days before I return home!!

Here is the story:

A member in our ward here has a company and has hired 3 men for work for so many months.  They introduced us to all three men.  They have come to church a few times since working for them.  Anyway, they only speak Spanish!  So to teach them we had to call President Ensign and get permission and we had to talk to our Bishop to see if we could go forward and teach them.  They both said, "Go for it!"

The member introduced us and then we set up an appointment with them, an Elder who speaks Spanish and the members.  So we have 3 men that we are teaching.  So pause in this story and I will be back....

The day after we set up the appointment with these 3 men we decided to call on some people that we had not talked to for awhile.  We called a number and it was a different person - Jose answered.  So we started to talk to him and asked if we could stop by and talk to him.  He only spoke Spanish!!  So we decided to invite him to be taught.  Then we realized that we already had 3 other men meeting together with someone to translate.  We couldn't reach him, so we drove over to his home and had to park forever away and ran to his house - we didn't want to be late to our teaching appointment at the church.  We told him that we had a translator and could we teach him in 1 hour at our church?  He said yes!  So we ran back to our car - said a prayer of thanks and made the calls needed to be ready to teach 4 men the 1st lesson in Spanish (with a translator)

....back to my story.  We all sat in the church and as we began to teach the spirit was so strong.  The men were kind and interested.  But there was one man in particular that really wanted to know more.  He believed everything we said and discussed.  I looked over at my companion and nodded my head.  We both knew what that meant - we needed to commit him to be baptized right then.  When Sister Pearson asked him, he became very sensitive and then told us that he was going back to his country on November 6th (the same day I am going back to my country!) and yet he wanted to be baptized.  So we set the date for November 2nd!

His name is Fernando and he came to church on Sunday and bore his testimony that he believes all we are sharing.  Wow!!  Jose is also interested (he was the man we randomly found calling people).  We now have 5 discussions and interviews we need to make happen before November 2nd!  Intense, but we know it can happen and we are so excited for Fernando.  We hope Jose and the other men continue to progress too!

I gave my "Last Testimony" at Zone Conference and it was so incredible.  I had no idea what I was going to say, but I felt the Spirit and opened my mouth.  When I sat down I felt God's love for me so powerfully!  It just encircled me!  At that moment tears began to flow - I felt the Savior's approval "'well done' though good and faithful servant".  It was such a good feeling - it radiated peace, love, and joy all at the same time!

I cannot believe that I only have about 2 weeks left.  I am leaving it all here - every bit of energy and strength I have - No Regrets!! I love you!!  

Love,
Sister Rees