Jellybean

We had 14 investigators at church this week in total. The 2 sets of elders had a total 7, and we had 7. That's nuts.

Now that we're going around and using President Senior's inspired methods of finding, we are literally running into people that are completely prepared. We have a goal to only teach people who have an ultimate goal of actually getting baptized. Not people who simply enjoy the company of the missionaries or so on.

 

Let me tell you, President Senior is so close to the spirit right now. Like, his revelation stream is headed towards a temple. It's wayyyy cool.

So this week was a lot of breaking up. And by that I mean, we broke up with some investigators that had apparently already decided they were breaking up with us, and then we got surprise dumped on Sunday. That was a rough one.

 

But with that said, we found people WAY more sincere and ready for the gospel then the people who were just letting us in because they felt bad if they didn't. Sis Packard and I decided we wanted to only teach people who were willing to make changes. So we made a list of like 6 people we were going to go see with a "make or break" meeting. Were we going to teach them after that, or not. So in doing that, we prayed and wanted to know who to cut and such, because we're getting super busy and can't afford to waste time. So when we got to the people's houses, oddly enough, some of them saw us, and closed the door. Check. Check. They've never done that before! So hey, that was pretty clear answering.

 

So we moved on and found some people completely ready for the gospel. So that was miraculous. In fact, let me tell you about Jellybean.

We met her a few days ago outside of the noodle shop that we eat somewhat often. (Sis Packard once got sick off the food but despite that, its close to the church, so we return often) She tried to speak to us in english a tiny bit. She was so cute and tried so hard! We came back and saw her yesterday after being dropped by our most promising investigator (her foreign boyfriend won't allow her to study anymore and she just doesn't want to have trouble with him. Annoying because she can't even speak french so I don't know how they communicate. That's obnoxious.) So ANYWAY we both feel like we should go talk to Jellybean before she gets off work.

 

We pray for a miracle. We get there, she asks: "How do I become Christian?"

 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

 

So I bring up baptism, because well, that's how you become Christian. She says: "I got baptized once! But I didn't understand what I was supposed to do or what it even meant. They just told me to close my eyes and think of Jesus's face." So we went over what a REAL baptism should be, authority and all. Before we know it, we're brought into Jo's noodle shop and she has us sit down. She says she has so many questions that we can probably finally answer for her.

Every question was something in the Restoration. She had such great preparation for us finding her that we had to start all the way from the creation to tie in all the things she knew and wanted to know. We ended with Thomas S. Monson. The whole time, she's making connections, asking great questions, and I'm just like, "This is unbelievable."

 

She looks up and says, "I need to find someone with this authority to baptize me. This all makes sense. When can I be baptized? You're going to have to teach me so I can be ready and know what I have to do until then. When can we make appointments?"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

 

Boom. She's got a date for November 30th. We tell her about coming to church, she's all willing. She says: "Sunday right? What time? Oh just 3 hours? Okay I can find someone to cover my shift."

 

JUST 3 hours?

 

So as we were leaving Jellybean says in cute asian english, "I love Jesus!" and as she passed Jo, the man who owns the noodle shop, she says: "Jo, guess what? I'm Christian!! I'm Christian!!"

 

Oh man. When all seemed lost, we found a very bright morning. Of all the drops and disappointments, it gave us an hour to go find Jellybean. The rarest jellybean of all!

 

Jo responded to her: "I'm still Buddhist." to which I said, "That's okay. We'll still come eat here."

 

But really. Wow. What a miracle. What a miracle. What a miracle to be Christian, in the ONLY church that has the correct authority to baptize.

Love,

Sister Painter
                                                  The mission home in Bangkok