so this week was pretty great. I got to pet some cats. so that was good. hah. we decided at some point that as a save sister christensen's sanity initiative we should volunteer at the animal shelter. basically we were stuck in a room with kittens to socialize them for an hour. AWESOME. the only sad part was we saw persia, one of my investigator's cats (one who was about to get baptized but aborted to go have sex with some guy. I HATE THE WORLD AND IT"S STUPID NON-MORALITY!) now she practically lives with him in another city. and so cannot take care of the animals she once loved. poor persia recognized me and we had a moment. If only some people could see us how we see them, especially when they fall.
we also got a call from this guy that I taught back in december who we dropped/ he dropped us because he wouldn't keep commitments. he called and said "I want to investigate the church!" and we were like, okay you already did once, but now that you know what you were called, lets try this again. so we brought a member and visited him and outlined the things he needed to do to progress, and gave him a reading assignment and an appointment to tour the church. do you think he's done anything? no. even when we stopped by and asked him if he'd read and what he'd been doing otherwise? no, he was too busy outside all week making fire. UUUGGGHH. sister judd waited with us for an hour to show this guy around the chapel and he didn't show up. bluhh.
but yes we did get to see brandy take on the covenant of baptism. I always feel like there is a pretty good climax for baptism, we get to have daily contact for real, answer the nagging questions that are not about salvation but give them peace, and see the spirit work through many to achieve this goal for one. what I thought was really cool about brandy's baptism is that she included priesthood bearers who haven't baptized or confirmed anyone before. I just could really see the companionship and unity in those that were involved. I think brother Hudson also really needed that opportunity to officiate in the ordinance of Baptism. his family has been on hard luck for a while now, he's been trying to reach the goal of being sealed in the temple, just recently received the Melchizedek priesthood when the challenges started coming up. his wife admitted she doesn't have a testimony, he lost his job, and they were evicted from their home in short succession. the faith and strength he's exhibited has been truly inspiring, and I think will help pull them through this. that is something I'll remember for a long time.
what else happened this week? the sister training leaders came and ate all our food. haha. they also contacted anyone and everyone in their path, which I probably should do better at, but I get nervous and feel rude when I leave one person standing to run down the street to talk to someone else, or stop people as they're buckling their seat-belts and driving away. but as a result we got to teach a Spanish family from the DR, with a member who speaks fluently. that was an interesting lesson because I could only pick up bits and pieces, but I just felt a huge outpouring of love for this family. we're going to try to teach them English. we'll see how that goes. we also met and talked to this native american mom who was driving away, and didn't have time to do anything but get her phone number. when we went to visit her we just listened mostly to her thoughts and concerns, and were able to testify that yes, her people did originate in the holy land, here's this awesome book of scripture that tells you all about it. when she read the versed we'd turned to about accountability in Helaman she just started crying because it was something that she'd always believed, but could never prove. super spiritual.
I know that this is a divine work. I don't really understand everything, or why it has to be so hard sometimes, but God is in it.
ooh ra.
Sister Christensen.
