Had an excellent week. We set a goal this week to get 8 lessons with a member present. We went throughout our week and one by one many of our appointments cancelled. By Saturday if all our lessons went through we would have had 13 but so far only 3 went through. We were pretty down because 10 of our scheduled lessons fell through. Then on Sunday it was fast Sunday. We fasted that our investigators would be there for their appointments. We had a miracle yesterday. We got 4 lessons with a member present more than doubling our whole week combined. So we ended up being just 1 shy of our goal of 8 but the Lord really helped us out in the end.
One of these lessons on Sunday was Natalie. Last week I explained how we began to teach her because Elder Phair needed practice with the lessons. We taught her the first half of the second lesson on Friday. Then she came to church yesterday and we had a lesson after church. We taught about the spirit world and the kingdoms of glory. She had some great questions and really seemed to understand. At the end of the lesson we invited her to be baptized if she came to know the Book of Mormon was true. She said yes. We talked about how she can receive her answer and she offered the prayer at the end.
This last couple weeks the weather has been stupendous but this last week, the rain began. Usually in Oregon when the rain begins it doesn't tend to stop for a long time. So needless to say when we were studying that morning and we heard the dripping outside, our hearts sank. It poured that day. And we weren't really prepared because since we ride bikes it requires us to be in the rain a lot. But during this day of rain we went tracting. Some people were down right annoyed that we were dedicated enough to tract in the rain. We talked to a bunch of older folks and they told us to get inside. We just kept going. We were about to quit when we received the impression to try a house on the other side of the street. We knocked and a lady named Kirsten (spelled and sounds the same way as Kirsten Moody) answered the door. We explained the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy and set up a return appointment just as we had many many times before. The thing that made this person just a little different than the vast majority that we give a Book of Mormon to was that she was there for the return appointment.
We sat down with her yesterday and we had an awesome lesson. We asked her if she read the chapter we left with her. She said, "yes but it didn't answer the question I had. What I was wondering is why do we need the Book of Mormon when we have the Bible? So I decided to open the Book of Mormon to a random page." She explained that she opened it up to 2 Nephi 29. This happens to be the chapter where it says, "A Bible a bible we got a bible." This is the chapter every missionary wants to read with people who say they don't need the Book of Mormon but we're always scared that they might get offended. She, however, was not offended but took it as an answer from God to her question. She then commenced in reading from the beginning whenever she had the chance. She made it all the way to 2 Nephi 10. It was awesome! In our lesson yesterday we invited her to be baptized and she said, "I'm open to the idea but I've already been baptized." So we explained a little bit about the priesthood. We have another appointment with her this week on Thursday.
Really excited for these next couple weeks we are seeing miracles daily and the Lord is providing us with strength. Thank you for all your continued support. Love you all!
Elder Johnson
