But back to the baptism, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we put one of our investigators that is married to a member on date for the 24th, well she kept that date and made it and was baptized. It was so amazing to be a part of, Sister McCune and I were able to go and help her out of the font and hand her her towel and the feeling that was present as she gave us a big wet hug is unlike any other. I am so happy for her and her family, they have made so many steps in the right direction and it has been amazing to have spent 7 months alongside them helping and guiding them. The next day in Gospel Principles after she had been confirmed a member and received the gift of the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting we asked her how she felt and she said she didn't even know how to describe it and you couldn't put words to it. We later asked her and her husband how they felt that the gospel has blessed their family and they shared how it has blessed them in all ways. They've been able to come back to church and come back together, it has strengthened their marriage and helped them make better decisions. It was so great to be able to help them recognize blessings and look forward to more to come as they continue to make covenants together.
However as great as that all was possibly the biggest peach of the whole event was a text that our now recent convert forwarded us from a friend that is from West Virginia who made the trip down to support her and attend the baptismal service. She wrote: "you know when you go to a church as a visitor sometimes you feel uneasy sometimes no one welcomes you, well I can say that I was a visitor at the church in Tennessee, the ladies came up to me and hugged me like we was friends for years and the bishop and the elders introduced themselves I have never felt that welcome in a church in my life thanks to all that made that day so special for y'all and treating me and my husband so great."
THAT is what the gospel is all about. Inviting others to come unto Christ, guiding them along their way and welcoming all who are placed in our path.
So that was probably the climax of our week but we also had some other pretty awesome experiences, herding cows and teaching a farmer about the priesthood, meeting a potter who asked for a Book of Mormon, and a couple of Spanish lessons.
Herding Cows: a ward member invited us to come and help move a couple of cows from one pasture to the other and so we held up panels and guided a pregnant mama and a calf into a trailer. It was only a little bit intimidating when mama cow got a little spooked and was trying to get out of our makeshift corral, but the ward member and his backwoods countryboy neighbor seemed to have full confidence that we weren't going to get trampled so we trusted them and we got them moved. Before we loaded them though we were helping the neighbor dig some holes for posts because he is working on building a barn. As we did so he asked us a question about why the boy missionaries were called Elder which lead to a discussion about Priesthood and a brief overview of the Restoration and him committing to read more of the Book of Mormon his member neighbor gave him and boom you have a lesson.
Potter: when we went back to find an investigator who stood us up we ended up talking to his neighbor who was out in his garage. Turns out he has a studio out there and had a wheel and kiln and showed us some of the pieces he was working on, he kept asking us if we were going to leave him with material to read which we did after explaining about the Book of Mormon he became yet another person out of the thousands of people in this area that think the Book of Mormon replaces the Bible to understand that it is separate and distinct and yet still valuable. He was excited to read in 3 Nephi and we are excited to go back and talk with him more.
Spanish lessons: We had three lessons in Spanish this week two we read from the Book of Mormon with and the other we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the member that came with us invited him to come to General Conference this weekend after he gets off of work and we think he might actually come! Hooray!! In ward council on Sunday Bishop Whittaker said he thought that with all of the Spanish in this area half of our congregation should be Latino. Hermana McCune and I both in unison said "Where do they all live Bishop?!" he said he wasn't really sure but that a lot of them worked here, which is great but some of them travel long distances to work here, but we are still looking I honestly have no doubt that if our ward were to have more Latinos in it it would be due to the efforts of McCune. She is doing so great and has so much drive and fire to find Spanish, and her Spanish is so good, at least 10,000x better than mine, she carries all of the lessons and has taught me a lot. I'm so grateful for her.
Once again it has been another great week. I love Greeneville, I love the people here and my companion and being a missionary in general. Life is grand God is good.
Hope y'all have a great week!!!
Love,
Hermana Hall
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