I hope you all had a wonderful week. I sure did. We only had like 10
minutes to email yesterday so we set some time aside today to finish! So this
week has been full of many blessings and miracles. I will tell you all about a
few.
Like 3 weeks ago, Elder Rakuita and I were out walking around one of our
areas in the morning, trying to talk to everyone that was out doing a little
tracting along with that. It was in the morning around 11, so we were trying to
knock on the least amount of doors as possible because tracting is the least
effective finding tool at that time of day, most of the time ha. But we would
hit some doors that looked like people were home or that we felt good about. We
were walking past this house and we felt prompted to knock on this house, that
both of us would have just passed by because there were no cars out front or
anything. But we followed the prompting and went and knocked on the door. A
short time later a young guy, about 20 years old answers the door and steps out
to talk to him. We introduced ourselves and asked him if he was religious at
all. He said no but explained to us that his Dad was actually a Mormon, and they
had only been living in that house for a couple weeks. I could tell he wanted to
ask, "How the heck do you guys keep finding us!?" haha. He explained to us that
his dad had always wanted them to get interested in the church but they never
wanted anything to do with it. So we talked about the Book of Mormon and he
finally accepted one saying that he would read one chapter, and thats it, and
that he was only doing it because of his dad. So this last Tuesday, we had the
chance to stop back by that place again, and see if we could catch his Dad at
home. Not only were we able to catch his dad at home, but the Dads parents were
in town form Iowa, and they are active members! So we got invited in to stay for
a while, and ended up having a second dinner with that family haha, I was so
full. But it was so neat to see how we were lead to that family that is in need. The Dad explained to us that he doesn't go to church, but he is still
active at home. He reads and prays and lives his life in accordance with the
teachings of the Gospel. His wife really enjoyed our visit, and even though
she said during dinner when we tried to talk to her about it, "Nope! No way, we
are not discussing religion, now or ever!", haha, she still would love for us to
come back and visit anytime. I have a good feeling that in the near future we
will be able to not only help him to have the faith and courage to come back to
church, but for the family to become more open to investigating the church. It
is really neat to see how Heavenly Father leads us to these people.
Also, this past week we have the privilege of meeting a woman and her son. We ran into the woman by the mail box and talked to
her for quite a while about how the Gospel has been such a blessing for our
families. She described to us how her son, who is 11, is starting to really get
out of control with his behavior and that she is really worried about his
future. So we told her about how the Gospel can help and invited her to church
and left her our number to call us. The next day she called us and asked if we
could assist her in helping one of the elderly ladies that lives in the
apartment complex with moving some boxes. So we went and helped and in the
process got to know her son. We then invited him to hop on his bike and
come out and do missionary work with us, and he got super excited about that. We
took him out riding around town with us and talked to people on the street and
visited some members and shared some spiritual thoughts with them. It was so
awesome!! It was such a neat experience for him, and for us because we were
able to teach him and have the members help teach him all night. He got so
excited about learning about the Gospel that he practically begged us if he
could come to church with us on Sunday haha. Our first commitment that we left
with him was for the next 7 days, to give his mom a hug and tell her that he
loves her every morning and night, and so far he has kept that commitment. His
mother is very excited about the difference in behavior and attitude that she is
noticing in him already, and I love seeing how fast the Gospel can work in a
young familys life. He came to church with us on Sunday, he loved it, and the
members here were so good to him. Right away they took him under their wing. It
was so funny what he said after church. He said, "So I guess I am Mormon now
huh?" haha. He is well on his way, and so is his mom.
Heavenly Father has showered His blessing upon us this week. I am so
thankful to be on my mission and helping to improve these peoples lives through
Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is so perfect, I love it. I love you all very
very much. Have a splendid week!
Love, Elder Brad Dillard
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