Hello,
This week we were had a lot of appointments to go to. The week goes
by so much faster when you have a bunch of people to go and see. We are so
excited for the upcoming baptisms that we have. The only thing that seems to be
standing in our investigator's way are rides to church and or jobs. It is
really hard to come by good jobs here apparently so all our investigators are
starting to move. We are doing our best to find jobs for everyone. Kind of
difficult but we will figure it out.
We taught a lot of really amazing people this week. There was one man
that we met while we were eating lunch at a recent convert's house. His name is
Jose. Jose speaks Spanish (go figure). Jose approached us after lunch, talking
about how he wanted to change his life. We like starting conversations like
that. We spoke to him shortly about the gift of repentance and how the
Atonement can change every aspect of our lives. We set up a return appointment
for the following night. We had a very spiritual lesson with him about the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. We invited him to build his faith through prayer. At
the end of the lesson we had a prayer with him. He prayed, asking that God
would help him to overcome his addictions and that he would be able to come to
church with us the next day. Well, he came! It was awesome. He had gotten a
ride from one of the Hispanic families in the Branch. What was even better
about him coming to church was the fact that a brother from the High Council,
who lived in Ecuador, just happened to be visiting that day. This good brother
was Jose's personal translator for the whole day. It was great. We spoke with
Jose this morning and he said that he was going to be there every Sunday from
now on. Turns out that he knows a lot of the recent converts in the Branch and
has already asked them if we can have the lessons in their home. Amazing.
We got to see a lot of little miracles this week, but it is always
those big ones that you enjoy the most. We had the opportunity to give Sister
Gamble a blessing this week. Her health has been very poor lately. She was
suffering from cancer a while back but had since recovered. She has been under
a lot of stress lately and apparently the stress induced a hernia. Thursday May
17, 2012 she went in for surgery. She asked us to give her a blessing right
before she went into surgery. Of course we were more than happy to do that.
What was really cool about it all was that we had enough time to sit down with
her before the blessing and just read scriptures for an hour. We figured that
we had to do our studies in the morning anyway and we might as well include
Sister Gamble. She definitely appreciated it. After the blessing we adjourned
back to the waiting room and proceeded to plan out the rest of that week. We
waited there all morning and into the afternoon to make certain that Sister
Gamble pulled through. Not that we can do much from the waiting room but,
Sister Gamble had asked us to stay so we did. Never conducted a planning
session from a hospital before, but it worked out alright. We got to talk to a
very nice lady about the Gospel while we were at it. The head of surgery would
constantly peek her head in and ask us if we needed something. She has to be
the nicest lady that I have ever met. Finally after a couple casual
conversations and banter back and forth she asked us, "So what church are you
all from?" Perfect. We had a short little discussion there, maybe a minute or
two and said that we would love to come back and talk with her sometime. She
was more than happy to have us back. After that wonderful little conversation
she had to get back to work. We proceeded to plan. Time flew by and before we
knew it, it was almost 1 o'clock. We had an appointment to go to at one and
Sister Gamble was still in the recovery room. (aka- No missionaries allowed) We
felt terrible, but we had to leave if we were going to make it on time. As we
were walking through the hallway, there was our good friend. The head of
surgery. She said in a very worried tone, "Are you leaving?!" We told her that
we did and explained the situation. She said, "Well would you like to see her
before you go?"...well...of course we would. Off we went into the restricted
area to see Sister Gamble. She was so thankful that we had stayed the whole
time and that we got to see her before we left. She was a TROOPER! 2 hours of
surgery and she was awake for the whole thing. She was released from the
hospital just a day later and we got to see her last night. She said, "You have
no idea how thankful I am that y'all stayed there the whole time. I definitely
felt your prayers. I just wanted to let you both know how much I love you. It
meant so much to have MY missionaries there with me. I knew that you would be
there." Miracles happen every day here. It is a beautiful thing. Can't wait
to see what happens with the head of surgery.
We visited the Marshallese church on Sunday after the Branch meeting. It
was really amazing to see their place of worship. They meet in an old boat
garage that they have converted into a chapel area. We got there after they had
already finished, but we got to stay and talk with a couple of our
investigators. We are starting to teach some of the people that attend there,
but we are still in the process of getting translators. Once we get passed that
road block everything will go very smoothly.
Sorry, got to go. Love you
much.
Elder McNinch
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