We have had some amazing miracles happen this week!!!!!!!! I don't really know how to express myself completely over these words. But the Lord has blessed us so much!!!!!!!!! I don't think I put enough exclamation marks to truly show how I feel.
Well..........we baptized someone this week. Yeah.....we met her less than a week ago and well she just got baptized yesterday. Her name is Ashleigh (pronounced Ashley) and she is 16. Looking back, I can't believe we did it all so quickly. But it was truly an amazing experience.
But first I want to explain a truly fantastic story about how prayer works. So we got a ride to one of our appointments by our ward mission leader, Brother Cooper. As soon as he dropped us off we realized that we had left our phone in his car. As a missionary having your phone is extremely important. We had several phone calls that we needed to make and all the numbers were on his phone. And the worst part is that he was driving about 10 miles back to his house and we couldn't afford to go all the way to his house to pick it up. We frantically looked through the ward list and tried calling him on the phone at church, but it went to his phone at home. We looked for his cell phone number but we couldn't find it anywhere. We had another appointment to get to in 5 minutes. We had done everything we could. Well not everything. We knelt down and offered a prayer. In my prayer I asked specifically for Brother Cooper to be inspired to look down and see our phone and then remember that we had left it and turn the car around and come give it to us. We acted in all faith. When the prayer was over we went out to our car and looked around for brother Cooper. He was no where in sight. We got in the car and we were about to leave the church parking lot and Brother Cooper pulled up and opened the window as we drove past. He gave us the phone and said, "You must have said a prayer." We said we did and then immediately drove off. Prayer works! It just does. This experience has taught me that you must act in faith. Faith is the key to getting prayers answered.
Alright so now the other amazing miracle of this week. So this last Wednesday we went to Waldport and went to this one lady's house named Lulu. Lulu likes to take children under her wing. Ashleigh was one of these girls. When we got to Lulu's she said that Ashleigh wants to be baptized as soon as possible. We asked her to see if that was a confirmed answer. And it was. So I thought for a moment about D&C 20:37 where it has the qualifications for baptism. They must desire, truly repent, desire to serve, etc. After talking with Ashleigh for a little bit we decided that she qualified for baptism. The soonest possible was, well...that weekend. The only problem was we needed to teach the lessons because she had already come to church many times. So we taught her all four lessons in two days. She had her interview on Saturday and was baptized on Sunday. Everything seemed to fall into place. On Sunday (yesterday) we had the baptism all ready and prepared. We even invited a few investigators and one of them showed up along with a bunch of ward members. Well Ashleigh and Lulu weren't there yet. We waited about five minutes and we called them and they said they were on their way. Well to cut it short, they ended up being 45 minutes late to her baptism. We were really stressed. We rushed to do the baptism so we could get to church on time. It was spiritual but didn't really run very smoothly. Afterwards, I was really sad. I felt inadequate and that we had done the baptism too soon (which is probably true). I wished we would have let them have a week to prepare instead of a couple days. Man not only that I forgot to bring an extra white shirt so my suit got kind of wet. Well we confirmed her in church later that day. That was really spiritual too. Then I realized that I didn't need to feel inadequate. I felt a huge prompting to get up and bear my testimony first thing. So I did. And I just told them the truth. I said I felt really inadequate as a missionary because I was kinda new only been out 6 months and my companion's been out a couple weeks. I told them about the experience with the phone and about the baptism and then I proceeded to testify of something I didn't even know I knew. I said I know that the Lord makes up for what we can't do. Even if we are inadequate or incapable or just make stupid mistakes, Heavenly Father will take care of us as missionaries through Jesus Christ. I can't really explain it quite right but it was the most spiritual fast and testimony meeting of my mission. I was crying, Elder Thomas was crying. We knew that God loved us no matter what mistakes we make.
This week was full of just awesome experiences like that. We taught Tommy again this last week. He talked to his Jehovah Witness Mom about being baptized. Unfortunately she was completely opposed. Tommy told us he really wants to be baptized. He says he knows the Book of Mormon is true and that he feels really good when he reads. He's 16 right now so we may have to wait until he turns 18.
We also are still working with Jay (Jedidiah). He seems to be doing alright. This morning he called us up and just asked me if I could say a prayer for him on the phone right there. So I did. It was also pretty cool. He thanked me and said that he really needed that. We may try to give him a blessing this week.
No news really on Lilian she is still sceptical about being baptized. Um yeah we have a lot more investigators. It's almost too much to handle. If the work keeps up this much we may have to get more missionaries serving here. That would be awesome. Well I better get going I love you guys!
Love Elder Johnson
