Where the Lord Wants Me

Janice and Courtney-We were planning on having a lesson with Janice and Josh, but Josh couldn’t make it. We talked with Janice for about 45 minutes about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was really good. She understood all of it, and right as we got to Baptism and the Holy Ghost, her husband came downstairs and asked if he could join the conversation too. We didn’t really expect him to join, since he hadn’t in the past, but it turned out really well. He listened SO intently and asked some great questions. As we kept teaching and testifying, he even had questions about Tithing, Priesthood Authority, and a few other topics that we were able to testify of. He is a very ‘by the Bible’ type of man, and everything that we taught, he agreed with. I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ agrees with what the Bible teaches, because it IS what the Bible teaches. Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith! We feel that Josh, Janice, and her husband could all eventually come to church and be baptized as a family. They are intent on knowing what is true and love hearing what we have to share.

District Meeting-At District Meeting, the Mouritsens, our Senior Couple in the Woodbridge Ward, gave an insightful training on what it means to ‘take upon you the name of Jesus Christ’. We read Mosiah 4, which teaches about serving others and expounds on how to LIVE the gospel. We all took out of it that taking upon ourselves His name refers to living a life like the Savior: have faith, humble yourself unto Heavenly Father, and serve the poor and the needy. It was powerful to read the chapter and to reflect. I would encourage you to read it as well.

Divine Design-Brother Greco, Miguel, Andrew-We had an appointment and asked Brother Greco to come with us, but that appointment canceled, so we had to figure out what to do…Elder Benson asked if I remembered a lady that we had stopped by a couple of weeks previous, but my mind was blank….somehow he remembered her name and we found our way over to her house. She wasn’t home, but we knocked on the door next to hers and an awesome man from Mexico answered the door. He told us about how he works like crazy and goes to church three or four days a week and takes care of his son (the crazy New England life) and how he loves Jesus. We had a solid 15 minute conversation with him and set up to have the Spanish Elders meet with him. Before we took Brother Greco home, we stopped by one more referral that we hadn’t been able to see in weeks. The Spanish Elders who first found him asked us to go by on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but it was a Friday and we didn’t know if he would be at work or not. We knocked on the door, no one came. Knocked again, no one came. Eventually, Elder Benson knocked as hard as he could, and Andrew casually came down to greet us. He is super cool! He is a youth minister at his church, loves the Bible, loves helping youth find the Way, and loves truth! We were able to teach him a Restoration lesson, and he was so open. It was a tender mercy to be able to teach him at that time, and like a couple of weeks ago, tune in next week to see what happens! Note: There are only 5 episodes, so don’t switch that channel just yet! The best part was that as we drove Brother Greco home, he talked about how that was so cool to see everything work together, even though we didn’t have anything planned. We listened to Elder Rasband’s talk,”By Divine Design”and marveled at how God had worked that day. Also, to members of the church, go out with the missionaries 🙂 Amazing things happen when members and missionaries join forces 🙂 It makes everyone’s day better.

Knocking in Southington, then the media referral-We had a media referral for a wealthier neighborhood in Southington, and it turned out that the person didn’t even live there….we knocked a couple of houses and neighborhoods around and didn’t find anyone to teach, but shortly after, we received a media referral for a woman who really wanted a Book of Mormon and Bible. The effort is always worth it!

Hannah: We are still teaching Hannah and she is hoping to be baptized around June, maybe July. She is doing well and enjoys the peace that comes from the gospel, and her parents are a big support!

Service at Brother Parra’s: We helped a member to clean out his gardening shed and put some shelves in! Elder Benson’s organization skills really came into play and helped immensely! We had a lot of fun figuring out how to level the shelves correctly and then how to fit the entire payload back in. We also got to play some soccer in the downtime!

The nicest rejection in the world: We stopped by a Less Active’s house, and her boyfriend answered. He said,”Let me be honest” (a common, wonderful phrase out here),”She is in between and pushing her in one direction or the other wouldn’t help”. Normally, that would have been pretty harsh, but Elder Benson and I agreed that the way he said it came out to be the nicest and best rejection we have had on our entire missions combined. They also gave us brownies and some water, so that was a plus 🙂

It has been a great week! We are seeing lots of small miracles each day and are loving our time here! Only 5 more weeks to go, so another update will be coming next week!

Love,

Elder Davis