What a Spirit-filled week. This has definitely been we week of precious lessons learned and heat warming experiences. We had the baptisms of Eugene Songor, Kiara Ray, and Kaylanna Ray last Saturday (This makes 11 baptisms in the Crossroads ward this transfer! Unprecedented!). The program was wonderful and everything went smoothly (thank goodness!). It was so great to see how bright and joyful Eugene's countenance was at the baptism. Cool thing about Eugene we didn't know until yesterday is that he has a wife and four kids! They are all back in Africa and he is trying to earn money to bring them over here. He is such a great individual and we have loved teaching him.
These past two weeks with all the baptisms has been interesting. We have surely felt the Lord directing us at all times but at the same time we have felt great opposition from the adversary. The interesting thing about satan is he knows our weaknesses and he will dig into those and try to slow us down and discourage us. He knew that he couldn't tear me down with external forces, so he tried to bring me down with internal forces... I will be honest, out of my whole mission these past two weeks have been the hardest to stay motivated to keep moving forward. It was enlightening though to recognize where those feelings were coming from and to then try and cultivate that weakness into a strength through Christ. Now that the baptisms are over I feel great! It was a cool spiritual experience.
I want to share my testimony to you about how important it is that we minister (not administer) to everyone, not just nonmembers. There is a family who lost their teenage son about 6 months ago due to muscular dystrophy and they are such a great family but haven't had missionaries over for quite a long time. Well by some miracle they signed up to feed us and it was so cool to see that as we went in there and just became part of the family they opened up to us about their loss and who they were. They invited us back for dinner later that week (Last night) and we were able to help them prepare dinner, play a really fun game with them, and then share a message about family history with them. After we had played that game and had many laughs. It was remarkable to see the willingness they all had to try something new. They hadn't really done any family history before so they weren't too sure how to start so they are going to be having us come back in about a week to help them get started and catch the wave.
This same thing has happened to another member family we are working with and it is such a blessing. I know that one of the most important things we can do on our lives is minister to others. Just take time each and every day to minister to someone, love them and connect with them on a deeper level that we do with everyone we deal with everyday. That is what Christ did 24-7. We felt the hearts of these two families change as we just loved and connected with them. This is why I love missionary work!
I love you all so much, thank you for all the love and support you give to me, you all have impacted me.
Sincerely,
Elder Young
P.S.- Picture time!
1.The big baptism with the crew! I love these people so much!
2.Our boy from Liberia Africa, Eugene!
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