"Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven "

June 1, 2015

 

WOW! Tomorrow I hit my 11 month mark of being a missionary! I can't believe how fast the time has flown and wish it would just slow down!!!

This was SUCH an amazing week! We had a pretty rough go last week with our investigators, but we were so blessed for our diligence this week!

A HUGE miracle that we saw this week was Thursday. We had planned to basically tract all day so that we could find new investigators. We parked our car and just set off walking, oyming (which stands for "open your mouth"), and doing everything we could to put ourselves in the situation to have the Lord lead us to the elect. We oymed a ton of people and ended up teaching 8 lessons in one day! 2 of the 4 new investigators that we found that day we set on date for baptism for July 4th. They are really amazing and want to know so badly if this church is true. We had our follow up Book Of Mormon lesson with them last night and they are progressing so well! It was such a miracle to be able to teach literally all day and to find those that are prepared to receive the gospel. Afterwards, we oymed a lady named Blanca that was just walking through the trailer park we were in. We asked her to do the survey, and although she was hesitant, she did it. We got to talking more with her and she just broke down and told us everything. She said she was so lost in life and was looking for direction. When we shared a little bit about the plan of salvation with her and explained our purpose here on earth, she told us that she could start to feel a little bit of peace for the first time. She has 2 sons (4 months and 9 years) and she is struggling to escape from the grasp of her ex boyfriend who is now in jail. It was such a crazy experience to see that she had directly prayed us there. We have a return appointment with her on Wednesday at the church to teach a lesson. She is so excited to be able to escape for even just a moment in order to meet us this Wednesday and learn more.

Progressing investigators:

 

About 2 weeks ago we oymed two ladies in a parking lot- Veronica and Reina. They were on a walk and we did the survey and taught the first half of lesson 1. Reina ended up giving us her contact information and was interesting in hearing more. We set up a return appointment, but she ended up cancelling the day of. We tried for the next two weeks to get into contact with her but just couldn't see her. Well, on Friday night, we finally decided to go by her house one more time. We knocked and she was home! She let us in and we chatted and caught up for a while. She is so sweet and really loves to get to know us and hear about how we are doing as well. We transitioned into the first lesson and taught the Restoration. We reaaally stressed the importance of the restoration of priesthood authority. We asked Reina if she thought it would be important to have the priesthood authority of God here on the earth today and she responded by saying, "Well... I know that all of the other churches I've attended in the past do not have the true authority. There was a period in my life where I was truly searching for the truth, but never found it." WOW. Needless to say we JUMPED on that opportunity. I testified so powerfully that I KNOW that today we have the authority of God on the earth and that the TRUE church that Christ established is here as well. We transitioned into the baptismal invite and invited Reina to be baptized on July 4th. She said yes! We continued throughout the rest of the lesson and she had so many wonderful questions about the Book Of Mormon and couldn't wait to receive her own copy. She was so anxious to get one that we explained it a little more and then gave her one and committed her to read in the introduction and the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith. We repeatedly just testified to her of the truthfulness of our message and guaranteed that it was exactly what she had been searching for in her life. We promised her that as she prayed and read in the BOM every day, visited with us, and came to church, that she WILL receive an answer that THIS is the true church. It was such an amazing experience to see someone truly "searching for the truth but not knowing where to find it."

Last week we had 1 person on date and now have 6 set for June and July. We also received a referral from the elders of two more that are on date that we hope to contact this week to add to our investigator pool. :)

 

Bonfire with the Larsen family

I have been focusing the past couple of days on truly striving to view others through the eyes of Christ. I know that as I have focused on aligning my will with God's this week, we have seen COUNTLESS miracles. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary at this time while the Lord's work is hastening so quickly! It is the greatest blessing in my life! I am so very grateful for all of your support and prayers. It makes all the difference to know I have an ARMY of support behind me. I love receiving emails and letters with your testimonies. It only strengthens mine even more. Thank you times a million! Make it a great week!

Love, Hermana Pierce

 

 

 

 

 

 

PIC: So since the end of March our mission has been doing a sacrifice of only drinking water and fasting through lunch every Saturday. Well... The sacrifice ended yesterday (the last day of May) so naturally, the first thing Sister Tycksen and I did this morning when we woke up was EAT CEREAL. It was the most amazing moment of my life and needless to say, I had forgotten what milk tasted like :)

"SACRIFICE BRINGS FORTH THE BLESSINGS OF HEAVEN!"