Sunday, January 25, 2009

Missionary-Minded!

As this month concludes, I would like to share a little, but huge experience I have had this month with a less-active member of the church.
It all started with my wonderful bishop. Sam Lungren. He is truly the most amazing guy that walks this planet. He is everything that you need in a bishop, but more importantly in a great friend and I truly consider him a friend. He made the month of January a missionary month. and I could go into great detail of all the wonderful missionary experiences he has had, our ward has had and all our spiritual sacrament meetings that we have had, but that is yet another story.
So as I pray for missionary experiences throughout my life, I never realize, when the experiences do come, that they truly were answers to my prayers. But I have truly been an instrument in the Lord's work and it is so rewarding. I had the opportunity to get a friend that was not coming to church, come to church. The church was a sensitive subject to her and we all knew that it wasnt something she liked talking about, none the less come to church. But I always gave her the invitations to come to church and to mutual. I never gave up, even though I often felt like I was doing nothing. But finally she came to sacrament one day, and since then she has come to sacrament every single week. I then invited her more and more to activities and she finally came, and she said she really enjoyed it and thought it was good. I was so happy to hear that, because the whole time she was there I was so nervous. Worried about what she was thinking and how I could make her think that it really wasnt that bad. But then today, she came to sacrament, and I invited her to sunday school and YWs and she came with me. It wasnt anything spiritual or anything, but it was a step. and those steps may be small but they really are huge in the long run. She may not have learned anything today, but maybe in a week she might.
Its just amazing how I have felt these last few weeks with this experience. I have never really had an experience like this before, and it has changed everything I do and say and think about the church. I now know, from talking to her, that she watches me at school, she reads my txts to invite her to come to mutual, she listens to my words, and wants to have what I have in my life. With this amazing experience under my belt, it gives me even more of an itch to serve a full-time mission for the Lord. I have always wanted, so badly to serve a mission, but now that I can say that I brought a whole family back to the church, and it was all because I had the spirit with me and I listened to its promptings, I want to do it more and more and have that a daily thing in my life for 18 months.
But what an experience this was, and it has changed alot about me, but I now know that I have helped a family of five come back to Christ and have that happiness in their lives. What a blessing!

1 comment:

Dessa Mae said...

Thanks for sharing that Bridget! Missionary experiences are such a beautiful way to stregthen your testimony and remind you that we are Gods servants and His work can be done through our hands!