COVID Missionary Chronicles: Trust The Lord's Timing

¡Hola a todos!

How was everyone's week? I hope it was amazing and you were able to count your blessings. I wanted to take a moment and say a quick CONGRATULATIONS to all my friends who graduated this past week! Whether y'all are off on Missions or off to school, you're going to do amazing things!!

This week was pretty crazy here in the GANM. Let's just say President Harris has a lot of faith in his missionaries haha. Let's get into it...

For starters, English class went great this week! We had 6 people there which is a huge improvement from how it's been the past few weeks. One guy in particular (who's name is Hugo) caught our attention super quickly. This was his second time coming to English Class and he came prepared with a few questions about the Book of Mormon! We were able to answer some of them during the spiritual thought and afterward he said he wanted to learn more about it! A HUGE MIRACLE!! We have been in contact with him to try and set up a lesson!

Teaching itself was pretty slow this week. Jessica cancelled her lesson and we had a couple of other people cancel as well. We were however able to teach Rosa again! It'd been quite a while since we taught her so it was nice to be back around the round table at the Hilton's with Rosa. We talked about Temples and Eternal Families and it was a super tender lesson for Rosa. She's doing great and she loves learning about the gospel!

Also, I've got some huge news! So y'all know how much I love the Rivas Family. That sweet family has gotten me through so much in the past 3 months and I couldn't be more grateful. You also might remember that Hermana Grover and I started teaching their daughter Rosemary the lessons for her baptism. Well folks the day has finally come...ROSEMARY IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!! I'm beyond excited to have Rosemary be my first baptism on the mission. Even though she's not a convert baptism, I still taught her all of the lessons and so I'm counting her as my first baptism. When Hermano Rivas told us the news this week I legit almost started crying. She will be baptized this coming Sunday! I can't wait to tell y'all all about next week!!

Alright, now to the crazy part. First I'll give little background story. Apparently President and Sister Harris were on a mission leader Conference and the topic was using the Book of Mormon. President Harris felt kind of chastened because he didn't feel like he had taught his missionaries how to use the Book of Mormon to it's full advantage. Now, fast forward to Tuesday. All of the ZL's and TL's had a Conference with President Harris where they discussed this concern and President Harris came up with these two challenges for the mission...

1. Each companionship needs to place at least 1 Book of Mormon everyday (give away a copy of the Book of Mormon with an invitation to read and pray about it)

2. Starting this upcoming Tuesday we are going to start reading the Book of Mormon as a mission. We will all read it in 65 days (approximately how long it took Joseph Smith to translate it)

As you can probably imagine...we were shocked when we found out about these challenges in our District Councils this week. However, we excepted the challenge and Hermana Lambert and I have had some pretty amazing experiences!! We had interviews with President Harris this week and he stressed to me that he wanted us placing both English and Spanish. It's been cool because we've really just tried to talk to everyone! We are now on day 3 of placing a Book of Mormon each day and we have been blessed to meet 3 amazing people!! Here are our experiences...

The First day we placed a copy was on Friday. Hermana Lambert and I decided to start at the Tiendas and see what kind of luck we would have there. After talking to everyone in the store we came to the conclusion that the Lord needed us elsewhere. We got in the car and said a prayer asking the Lord to guide us to the person he had prepared. I remembered a trailer park that we had driven by a few times but had never contacted anyone there. We decided to try it out. We got there and parked at an old abandoned trailer home and said a quick prayer for safety and guidance as we walked through the park. We started walking and the third house we walked past there was a guy sitting on his front porch. We walked up and started talking to him. His name is Marcos. He said that he had talked to missionaries a little bit before and that he thought we were cool people. We gave him a rundown of the Book of Mormon and he said he'd be interested in reading it. We gave him a copy and promised that if he'd pray he'd find the answers to his questions. It was a really cool experience and a big testimony builder for me on how perfect the Lord's timing is.

The Second copy we placed was to a guy named David. We saw David working his fruit stand on the side of the road. We pulled off and decided to go and chat with him. He's super old and has had some bad health problems but he still farms and sells his fruit every weekend. We talked to him for quite a while and he accepted a Book of Mormon and said that he'd have to get his wife to read it to him because he can't read. He was honestly the sweetest guy!!

The third copy we've placed actually happened last night. We decided that we were going to go through and visit some grey dots in our area. We decided to go and try this one guy who lived literally out in the middle of the woods. We got to his house and I had kind of an uncomfy feeling about the whole situation. I wasn't sure why, but I knew the Lord was telling me we weren't supposed to be there. We turned around and started heading back to the main road when we drove past another trailer park. It's a super small park so we drive one lap around and when we got to the other side, I had a prompting to drive it again. I'm glad I followed that prompting because on our way back around we found Filemon and his family. They seem super cool. We talked to Filemon for a bit and found out some of his beliefs about God. He was about to head to church himself so we asked if we could leave him a Book of Mormon and come back next week to talk with him about it. He accepted and he said that he'd pray about it. This was another huge testimony of the Lord's timing. I'm not sure why I had an uncomfy feeling at the first house, but what I do know is that if we had stayed there longer, we wouldn't have crossed paths with Filemon and his family. 

We've had some pretty powerful experiences this week as we've been super specific in our prayers. In every prayer we ask the Lord to bless with the opportunity to talk about the Book of Mormon in every conversation as well as bless us with the words necessary to touch the hearts of the people we find. Prayer is a huge thing that I have found such an admiration for on my mission. I pray about every single thing that I do and I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life in ways I never could've imagined. I invite all of you to make prayer a more consecrated part of your life. Sometimes it's easy to brush over our prayers and treat them as a check box item, but when we use them to their full advantage, just like the Book of Mormon, we will see so many blessings pour into our lives. 

I'm super excited to keep y'all updated as we continue with these challenges from President Harris. I'm super excited to start reading the Book of Mormon again this week and seeing what the Lord has instore for me to learn! I love all of you so much! Thanks again for your continued support and prayers! Keep moving forward! Love y'all!!

Hermana Adams 

Photos:

1. Sister Porter and I goofing off...como siempre jajaja 

2. Memorial Day BBQ (indoor because the grills were broken)

3. Language study with Hermana Flanary

4. On our way to Blairsville 

5. District at Jim's BBQ in Blairsville