2 Jewish Men and Backgammon in the Park

I used to think that all my friends who served missions were SUPER lame when they said they couldn't remember everything that happened in the past week and had short, boring emails. But now I am sitting here trying to think of what all happened since my last email and I'm drawing a blank.......haha Time in the mission is just super-sonic compared to "the real world" :) But thankfully I have been keeping an awesome journal to help me remember everything!

 

So last week was super hard. The MTC buzz finally died off and I found myself in the midst of the difficulties and trials of the Lord's work. I hate feeling unproductive and that's mainly what I felt like all of last week. Since we don't have any investigators or referrals, we have been visiting a lot of inactives and ward members. Most of the time no one is even home during the day so I felt like we weren't even fulfilling our purpose as we just drove around and left notes for people. From thursday to friday we had MTE's (missionary training experience) so we had a trio with Sister Twitchell. It was fun having both of my comp's with me but I still couldn't shake off that feeling of being unproductive. But on Saturday we decided to switch things up and not just wait for investigators to "fall" into our hands. On Saturday our whole zone decided to do a zone wide fast and my testimony of fasting has increased 10 fold! Fasting truly does bring about miracles.

So Saturday morning our apartment complex had a Mother's Day Brunch that we attended. We sat next to a Chinese family and also an Iranian family. I chatted with the Chinese family for a little while but they were super hard to understand so we started to talk to the Iranian family instead. They just kept asking us all these questions and seriously invited THEMSELVES to church and then asked "How do we become members of your church?" It was awesome!! We did a victory dance in our apartment as soon as we got back :) Sadly they are in the Del Norte Ward sooo we don't even get to teach them. BUT it was still proof that Heavenly Father is SOO mindful of us and that when we submit ourselves to His will He will truly bless us!!

Then on Saturday afternoon we took one of our ward member's dog on a walk to the dog park. I wish we could just have a dog with us ALL the time! It was soooo much easier to talk to people and they were less intimidated to talk to us since the puppy so was dang adorable. We talked to this one man, Dan, for about 45 minutes and at first he was super anti-mormon. He told us that "his Jesus and our Jesus are not the same person" and that there was no possible way that he would believe in a modern day prophet and the Book of Mormon. So we just listened to him and his beliefs and stated things that we agreed with and even quoted from the Bible. When he left he just thanked us for the wonderful conversation. Even though we didn't get his contact information or anything, it was just amazing to watch his perspective of us change. Our purpose as missionaries is to Invite others to come unto Christ and by the end of the conversation we could just see how much closer he came to Jesus Christ. So we just might have to start a dog walking service in our ward. :)

Sunday it was SOO amazing to talk to my family on the phone!! Even though it has only been 2 1/2 weeks since I had talked to them last, it felt like it had been years since I've heard their voices. I am soo grateful to have the family I do! I LOVE YOU ALL!! I forgot to tell everyone this last week, but for those of you who are members and reading this blog: GIVE REFERRALS TO THE MISSIONARIES!! Invite them to your home, accept their invitation, follow through with it, and don't be afraid to share this Gospel with everyone you talk to. As you continually strive to become more charitable and express the pure love of Christ to those you know, you will not fail. Charity never faileth because Christ never failed.

By now you are all probably wondering about the 2 Jewish men. So Sister Sorensen and I decided that we would go to the Lake Poway Park and chalk the Plan of Salvation on the sidewalk. We were sitting under the pavilion contemplating whether the Plan of Salvation would be considered "graffit" or not when these 2 older Jewish men started talking to us from the parking lot. From what I could hear it sounded like they were trying to bet us $400 about something. Sister Sorensen must have heard something else cuz she went up and started talking to them. Naturally I was a little freaked out. But next thing I know they are teaching us how to play backgammon under the pavilion. Their names are Jacob and Dr. Siad (LOST!! ahhh!) They were probably the funniest people we've met so far and kept joking about how we were cheating since we had God on our side. So because we have God on our side we actually kicked their trash and beat them at their own game. [Side note: earlier that morning I thought about taking these 2 BOM's out of my purse cuz it was getting super heavy, but decided to keep them in there just in case :)] So after we won I reached into my bag and pulled out those 2 BOM's and said "Since we won, we will give you both a special book to make you feel better" and I PLACED MY FIRST BOOK OF MORMONS ON MY MISSION! They took them and Jacob opened up to a random page and the first passage he read just happened to mention Moses and they just looked at us like we had given them a monkey or something. We then explained a little bit better and we made plans to meet with them again on Thursday!!

This past week I have truly come to notice the Lord's hand in my life. I've learned how important it is to truly give my everything to this work and to continually strive to becoming more Christ-like. In my personal studies one morning I was reading in 1 Nephi 8 about the tree of life vision. In verse 30 it says, "They came and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron: and they did press their way forward, continually holding fast to the rod of iron, until they came forth and fell down and partook of the fruit of the tree" When I get home from my mission I want to be so exhausted from giving everything I possibly have to this work, so that when I finally reach the end, I can fall down and partake of the fruit. At the end of this life I want to be able to fall down at my Savior's feet and partake of the eternal fruits of celestial life.

I love being a representative of Jesus Christ with all my heart. I know that Heavenly Father knows each and every one of us personally and He truly blesses us when we strengthen our faith and press forward in obedience. I have learned so much about how important our free agency is and when we obey God's commandments and laws, we receive even more freedom! I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of the Restoration of Jesus Christ's Gospel and my testimony grows exponentially every single day. I know that "inviting others to come unto Christ" doesn't just mean baptizing and teaching people. It means doing what Christ would have me do to bless someone's life and plant that seed into their hearts. This is truly the happiest I have ever been. The Church is True!!

Love,

Sister Morgan