Until After the Trial of Your Faith

Holy Bananas!! 

This week has been absolutely incredible. We have seen so many ginormous miracles!!

I'm gonna skip the small talk and get right to it :)

So the story begins Monday right after we finished emails. We were at Walmart getting our shopping done and we got a call from the Elders saying that someone had called the church about one of our former investigators and that he was in the hospital and wanted us to come visit him.

This investigator is 93 years old and we had been working with him awhile back, but he got really sick and we weren't able to see him for awhile. Turns out, in that time we hadn't seen him he had two heart attacks and a stroke!

Monday night we went to the hospital to see him. We walked in and the lady, who we later learned is his... sister-in-law... i think... anyway, she said that we caught him right before they were going to move him to the rehabilitation center on the other side of town. Literally, the people that were supposed to pick him up were supposed to have been there an hour ago. He was so happy to see us! The stroke made it so he couldn't really talk, but he did choke out "glad to see you". So yeah...

Later on in the week, we went to visit him at the rehabilitation center. During our visit, he took my hand in his and with tears in his eyes said, "I want to be a Mormon." Now we had tried and tried to get him to commit to baptism when we were teaching him but he just felt like he was too old. So we were floored! The spirit was so strong!

So now we have this 93 year old man, who can't walk, or talk that wants to be baptized. So there is no possible way to get him to church, but we talked to our mission president and he said that an exception could be made for his circumstances. So we are trying to figure out how to make this happen... but we NEED to make this happen for him. He wants it so bad. We have the entire ward council on board with us, and thankfully half of them are health professionals. Keep him in your prayers!

Second miracle, one of our recent converts has a brother.... That's not the miracle. The miracle was that said brother showed up at church on Sunday and wanted to talk to the bishop. He had some questions for the bishop and apparently bishop answered them to his liking. And he asked bishop how he could become a member of this church. Bishop told him to talk to us!

So last night we dropped by his house, set a date with him for May 2. Told him we wanted to visit him 3 to 4 times a week and he said as much as it takes! He said that he went home from church just feeling on top of the world and he knows this is right for him. Before we left, he asked us if we had anything for him to read that would help him learn about the church better... Umm yes. Yes we do. He is so incredibly prepared.

So now we have three baptism dates set... I have no idea how it happened. They literally fell into our laps. I've been pondering and pondering about why these incredible miracles have been happening...I honestly don't know. BUT ITS INCREDIBLE!

So yeah... that's pretty much been our week.

Ooo I learned some neat stuff in my studies today. Okay, so preface: our District has really been struggling with lessons and baptisms lately. Last district meeting we had a council about why our numbers are so low, and how we can fix it. So thats been on my mind a lot. And I was thinking about the incredible miracles that we have had this week and why they happened, so that we can help the district to see the same miracles.

So this morning I was reading in Ether 12 (one of my favorite chapters!!) And in this chapter Moroni is talking about all of the miracles that take place throughout the Book of Mormon like causing prisons to tumble to the earth, changing peoples hearts, seeing Christ, etc. And I noticed that the common theme to all of these miracles is that they happened "because of" or "after"or "by" someone's faith.

Then in Moroni 7:33 it says "If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."

So miracles come after our faith... I know we have all probably heard that. But it never really sank in for me. I was thinking about how hard my mission has been. How I have been trying to do the right thing and work hard, but haven't seen any fruits right away. And I haven't seen the miracles that it seems like other missionaries are seeing. And I think that Heavenly Father was allowing me to show my faith. Hoping for those promises to come to pass. Trusting that God was guiding me. And doing what was right, even when I didn't see immediate success. THEN the miracles start happening.

It was the same way with Ammon and all those Book of Mormon missionaries. They had to face SO much. They got so depressed. But God told them to just keep going, keep diligently doing the right thing, and He would give them success. And He did.

This gospel is so true, guys. And God is so good.

I love you all so much!!

Love always, Sister Rowland