Week #77

Prsti-Fingers and Toes

This week's title has to do with the numbers of fingers and toes. This week we had more new investigators than the 6 weeks before that combined!!! It was so great! Yes, I can count on one hand how many investigators that is, but it's still more! One new investigator we met one month ago, and she didn't seem too interested, but accepted a Book of Mormon and gave us her number. We finally were able to meet up with her and she just opened up about how she's been looking for what God wants her to do more. She wants to follow Jesus Christ, but so many people around her don't know who He is. But a few days after she met us, she felt peace and knew we knew who Jesus Christ is. She started reading the Book of Mormon and is in 1 Nephi 18! She absolutely loves it! She feels like a child could understand it, and she applies it to her life now. For instance, she spoke of Lehi ("the one man who took his family into the wilderness"). She understood how that felt because of raising her family sometimes life brings them into situations that she doesn't know what to expect. But she keeps going with faith anyways. As Z was baring her testimony of the Book of Mormon, you could just feel her know the truthfulness of it and how much God has sent this as scripture and not just as another good book. It was so good to hear and feel! At the end of our lesson, I asked her to think about for next time, "Why do we have the Book of Mormon and the Bible?" We'll see what she thinks when we get to it next time. 

This last week I had my last zone conference. It was a little unreal. I felt like my normal self until it came time for the testimony meeting. Usually the leaving missionaries stand up and bare their testimony. I felt the Spirit prompting me to bare my testimony, but my fear overcame me. I thought, "What is this? Fear? This is not me. This is not the missionary who I am. I bare my testimony all day every day, why is this time so difficult?" As I was sorting out my concern, I realized that I didn't want it to be my last not because I didn't want to go home, or because I love Croatia so much (which I do love home and Croatia), but I was afraid to go home. I was afraid to go to a new life. I was afraid that I wasn't going to find my purpose as a returned missionary which purpose I came to know and love as a missionary. Then I realized that this is must be how it feels like to those who I have seen be baptized. It's scary because it's a new life. There is no way I can go back to the person who I used to be. And scared that I will go back to the person who I was which was not a bad person, but not the person who I need to be now. My fear overcame my faith, but as I realized my fear, I took a deep breath and had my faith overcome my fear. There are still times now that I feel that fear, but I'm trying to do like Alma in Alma 17:11. I'm trying to show these people to be a good example. I want to show them that our fear CANNOT overcome our faith. So these last 15 days, I will act on faith over my fears. I love you all and I hope that you'll overcome your fears. Volim vas!

 

 

S vjećnom ljubavlju,
Vaša kćer, 

Sestra Kristine Jolley
Uvijek Sljedići Braće