8-27-2012

On Wednesday we were able to witness a miracle. I fasted because I just felt the need to fast and also I needed added strength going into a baptismal interview that I was to conduct for a baptismal candidate in my district, but it turns out the interview was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day. So I went throughout the day still fasting hoping that something will happen. So the day came and went at a pretty normal pace, nothing too exciting happened and I ended my fast at six. That evening we had an appointment at 7:30 and this appointment was a pretty solid one and so we brought a member with us. We showed up at the door and she said that she was having some family problems and that now was not a good time. So I'm thinking to myself, this stinks both of our scheduled appointments today (the baptismal interview and the one at 7:30) has fallen through. So we get into the car and the member asks us what our backs up plans were and so I looked into my planner and looked up our backup plans and for some reason they didn't feel right. I look at Elder Johnson was like, hey what the heck lets go see this guy who we dropped off a BOM to like a week earlier, so we drove clear across our area to this man’s house and he wasn't home. So we drove a little further and stopped at a potential investigator that we had, but she answered the door and said that now wasn't a good time. So by this time it was 8:15ish. My first thought was, there has to be someone here who is ready so let’s go tracking. Then my second thought was, no this member has some homework to do so we can just turn around and drive home and by that time it will be 8:30 and 30 mins isn't too bad to cut short and also we will give the member 30 extra mins of reading time tonight. So I sat there for like 5 mins just contemplating in my head what to do. Then all of a sudden I hear myself say, let’s go down Colorado road. Colorado road was about two blocks away and so we turned down that road and as we starting driving down it I remembered a referral that this area had received like 8 months ago that lived on Colorado road. So we knocked, and she came to the door and invited us in. We found out that she has some medical problems, but she has a strong testimony in the Book of Mormon and also Joseph Smith. The reason she has not been baptized yet is because she has commitment issues and also she is afraid to go to church with her medical problems. So it was cool to see how everything just lined up in order for us to find this girl. We hope that we will be able to work through her problems, and see her into baptism. Well I will at least, seeing as I am still going to be in Lexington. Then we had another miracle this week. The baptismal interview that was cancelled and then rescheduled for Thursday actually ended up getting baptized on Saturday. So we invited a bunch of people to come to the baptism, and only one person showed up. The preacher from the other church that we have been getting close with. He showed up and he loved the service, he had a lot of questions. Questions that we answered as best as we could, but he said that he loved it.
Now I am going to switch gears and talk about trials. I am grateful for the chance that we all have to go through trials and times in our lives where we feel humbled and our dependence on the Lord grows more and more. As I started to write my mind reflected back to a scripture in Ether 12:27 "If men come unto me I will show unto men their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." This last week was a really bitter sweet week and once again I was humbled. I am hoping and praying that this is a good enough humbling experience to last me for a while, but probably not, I can be pretty prideful. Anyways our top progressing investigator, the one who was set for baptism on Sept 15 dropped us yesterday actually. So that was a hard pill to swallow and I am still trying to swallow it. She was doing so well and ready and on fire for her baptism date and then her mom talked her out of it. It was one of those, pinch me now, I am dreaming right?! But she explained how she wants some time to think about it, and if she still wants to get baptized then she will wait for a year or two. So we have experienced both ends of the spectrum this week.
Elder Taylor