Week 63

This week I learned about the power of reading the Book of Mormon.
We have an investigator, Brother Conrado... he is 70+ years old and should be getting baptized on July 27. He is really poor and sometimes has a hard time coming to church because he doesn't have any money to pay for transportation. He is a fisherman and sometimes he doesn't get any fish... so it's a hard life for him... but we recently saw a change in him. He came to church 3 times in a row. We always follow up on his reading when we visit him and he's been reading the Book of Mormon every day... sometimes for hours on end. After he's been reading the Book of Mormon, his faith is so strong and he's sure he wants to be baptized and that everything will work out. Last week he didn't come to church because he didn't have any money and when we asked him how his reading was, he said he hadn't read since the last time we had visited him which was several days before. He also said he wasn't sure about his baptism because of course he wants to be able to keep his covenants by coming to church every Sunday and he just wasn't sure he could. We taught him a lesson about faith that day and encouraged him to continue reading the Book of Mormon. When we went back to him later that week, he had read 30+ pages!!! and he was like... I'll find a way to come to church because God will provide a way. He went to go fishing Saturday night... his last chance to make some money. We were praying for fish!!! When we got to church yesterday and saw him sitting there, we were overjoyed!!! We asked him if he got some fish and he said none. We haven't followed up to see exactly how he made it to church, but I definitely know that God provided a way because of his faith and he
did everything he could to be there. And reading the Book of Mormon really increased his faith.

Our other investigator, Brother Reynaldo... is amazing. We are so excited for him. He just has a word of wisdom problem. He recently got a priesthood blessing to help and he said it's helped. He's been coming to church as well and is really doing well. When we asked him about his reading, he said that when he's reading the Book of Mormon, he has absolutely no desire to smoke. He forgets that he has that problem and says he just feels peaceful and happy. When he's tempted, he remembers to go and read the Book of Mormon and it's been really helping him a lot. There's power in reading the Book of Mormon. I know that is true. We had the opportunity of teaching an active family recently about missionary work and showed them how to give a Book of Mormon away. We had them practice on each other. We gave each of them a Book of Mormon and had each of them commit to give them away to a friend. I'm excited to see what happens. :D Even the little girl who's like 7 years old committed to give it to her best friend at school. It was so cute and when she practiced on me, she even shared the cutest little testimony about how the Book of Mormon helps her in her life and said that it would also help her! It was adorable! Sister Butler and I decided we would also do the same thing. Neither she or I have ever just given away a Book of Mormon before... I did once in high school I think... and here, usually it's part of a lesson when we introduce the book, so this was new to both of us. We wrote our testimonies inside and  marked some of our favorite verses and wrapped it and just gave it as a gift to a couple who works at the fruit stand by our house who we've offered to visit before but they don't have time... so hopefully they'll at least have time to read!

I love the Book Of Mormon! It's really my favorite book ever! And the more I read it, the more I LOVE it! How blessed we are that we have it. I hope I never take it for granted ever again. I wish I had more time to read it! I only have 1 hour a day for personal study and I spend most of that time preparing for the lessons that day and only have a short time to actually get some good Book of Mormon reading in. Of course I'm super grateful for this hour that I have... but I would sure love a little bit more time!!! :D And more time outside proselyting as well. We have a very good problem! We have so many investigators with baptismal dates! ha ha. We've stopped extending dates recently because we are encouraged to visit investigators with baptismal dates three times a week, and we just don't have enough time! We aren't trying to find new investigators at the moment... but somehow they keep coming! It's great! We got 11 new investigators this last week without even really trying! It's been crazy, ha ha. We've been focusing on getting our lessons shorter, but still effective and spirit-filled in order to have more lessons in a day... but in our area, there's a lot of walking no matter what, so we still can't have as many lessons in a day as we would like to have. It's a challenge... but a good challenge. :D

Anyways... that's about all that's going on with me right now! Thanks everyone for your love and support and prayers. I'm discovering more and more the power of prayer. Please include also my investigators and branch in your prayers... oh and also our zone meeting this coming Tuesday because Sister Butler and I will be doing an EPIC training for all the missionaries. Thanks! :D Love you all!

Sister McClellan