UNTO vs INTO the Hearts

FRIENDS:

IT SNOWED THIS WEEK. just like a quarter of an inch. But it was still enough to cancel school and work and the grocery stores were out of milk, eggs, and bread. Crazy Georgians.

We went to the new missionary follow-up meeting this week and wowie wow was it so so so good. I've been to this meeting four times and I've never learned as much as I did this time. Mostly we just role played a lot. But it was so helpful! We role played "How to begin Teaching" with President Bennion which is super nerve racking, but also awesome because he's hilarious and he can give us really good feedback. And we were able to use it so much this week. We were also able to have the worldwide missionary conference! My favorite talk was by Elder Bednar talking about the Holy Ghost. It was really helpful. One of my favorite things that he said was that we can take this wonderful message UNTO the hearts of people, but only they can invite the message INTO their hearts. If we could push this message INTO the hearts, everyone who has heard President Monson would be a member!

We were finally able to see Trevor and Anna again, after a couple of weeks of them being sick, they're finally better! We had a good lesson on the Book of Mormon and then we asked to say a kneeling prayer. We knelt down while Trevor and Anna sat on the couch. After we were on our knees, Trevor (the less active) says "I guess I'll kneel too." Then Anna (the nonmember) says, "I don't want to be the only one not kneeling!" So she gets down on her knees as well. I know the power of just being an example is huge and so influential. Afterward, Trevor made a comment saying that they needed to do more kneeling prayers, and I know they will.

This week we had gotten a referral for a Bible for a woman named Jessie. We had tried calling her over and over to set up a time for us to deliver it but she never answered. One night all of our appointments fell through, so we decided we would just stop in on Jessie and see if she was home. She wasn't, but we knew that there had to be another reason we were in the area, so we started knocking doors.Nobody was answering. It was really dark and really cold, but we were determined to find our reason for being there. As we were walking down the street we saw a house that didn't have any lights on, but for some reason we felt like we needed to knock on the door. We knocked once...no answer. Then again... no answer. But we waited for a little bit longer. Finally a lady opened the door named Ciara. We told her who we were and asked if she had heard of our church before. She said yes and invited us right in! We gave a lesson on the restoration and invited her to be baptized and she accepted! We gave her a Book of Mormon and made a return appointment after we had said a kneeling prayer. The next day we received a new referral on our area book.. It was Ciara! She had requested a bible the morning we found her, but we didn't receive the referral until after! It was truly a miracle finding her and it just goes to show that Heavenly Father does guide us in this work, as long as we follow the promptings that come to us we will see miracles.

Funny Story: As we were street contacting one day we started to talk to this lady. We introduced ourselves and our church and asked her if she attended a church. She did and she told us the name of it (don't ask me what it was because I have no idea.) but we asked her what denomination it was. She looked confused and told us "mainly black." ...?? As we were trying not to burst out in laughter we rephrased the question,she let us know it was an episcopal church and then walked away leaving us to laugh to ourselves. (: silly. She probably thinks we're racist now. Hope not..

Anyways, I know that miracles are all around us. Miracles happen only through and by our faith. Pray to see miracles! I love y’all and I hope y’all have a fabulous week!

Love, Sister Merritt

Chocolate covered cherries we made with a member.