Going Out With a Bang

Blessings blessings blessings!!!

 

Well the last full week of my mission is upon me.  I can't believe it's gone so fast.  I'm really looking forward to going home and seeing everybody again, but we've had some amazing things happen this week, and it makes it sad to leave.  Transfers are always hard, it always seems like the best things happen right before you go.  I still don't know why that is.  But anyways, this week has been great.  The greatest news from this week is that we set a baptismal date with Norita for the 5th of November, 4 days before I leave Karratha!  My whole mission I have prayed that I would be able to baptise somebody that we found on our own efforts, (since all the best baptisms come from member referrals), but I really wanted to find somebody, bring them to church, fellowship them, and see them get baptised.  And we have done exactly that with Norita.  We taught her twice this week and the first time we taught her, we invited her to be baptised, but she told us that she wanted to take some time to think about it and she wanted to finish reading the Book of Mormon before she made any big decisions like that.  So we just encouraged her to pray and just ask God if this is what she needed to do.  She had already received one answer to her prayers though.  Last Sunday she was praying for direction in life and what path she should take, and within about 5 minutes, the branch sister missionaries knocked on her door.  She recognised that as an answer to her prayer right away.  She seems very in tune to the spirit.  Turns out that the reason she didn't come to church last week was because she was waiting for her ride to get there, but her ride was late, and since she wasn't there by 10:00, she figured she wasn't coming.  Then when her ride did get there, I guess she had turned on some music and didn't hear her knocking at the door.  But anyways, back to the story.  So the second time we taught her this week, she came out, sat down, and the first thing she said to us, was, "I thought about what you guys asked me, and I want to be baptised." Woo!  Thank goodness for answered prayers!  I'm glad that I'll be able to be "going out with a bang" as they say.  But I really love this branch, I'd be going out with a bang with or without a baptism.  And I better not jinx it, that baptismal interview hasn't quite happened yet, but we have faith.  Norita is potentially the most solid investigator I've ever had.  It's amazing.  I think the best part about all of this is that it lets me know that the Lord still has things planned for the last 2 weeks of my mission.  He still has experiences He wants me to have, people He wants me to meet, and lives He wants me to touch.  It's not over until it's over.  Also when I found out that I was going to be staying in Karratha for my last transfer, I was pretty gutted because I wanted to go to Perth and be around other missionaries and go to zone conferences and things like that.  However, that wasn't the Lord's will.  Within a month, we have found, taught, and baptised (assuming all goes well this week) Norita, who I would have never had the opportunity to teach had I gone to Perth.  It's true that the Lord knows us and our situation better than we do.  He knows what's best for us.  I've very grateful for this lesson and many more valuable lessons that I've learned on my mission. 

 

Another amazing thing that happened this week that makes it sad to leave is this referral that we received from the mission office.  All referrals come via text message nowadays so we had to call up the office and get the details on this referral.  Sister Nielsen in the office said that the referral was given from the Kwinana Elders who got the referral from an investigator family they were teaching.  Seeing as how there was a high possibility of me knowing the family that gave the referral, we went straight over to visit him.  His name is Anton Voosyen.  He wasn't home when we went around but his wife was and I asked her how she had met the missionaries or how she knew them and she said it was from her sister-in-law's house Adell Erwee!!  Turns out that Anton Voosyen is Adell's brother!  If you don't remember from my past emails, Elder Shobbrook and I tracted into the Erwee's about a year ago now.  Well apparently they're still be taught by the missionaries and now they have even referred their family to hear the missionary lessons.  When I told Anton's wife (Natania) that I knew the Erwees and that I was the first missionary to teach them, she invited us over for dinner on Tuesday!  I wish so bad that I could stay and teach them.  What a gold referral!  Isn't it amazing the way the Lord works!  There's no earthly way that any of that is a coincidence.  God gave us this referral just in time for me to make the connection with them, plant the seed, and then leave, but set it up for missionaries in the future.  Man, I'm so pumped right now.  I love missionary work.  

 

We had the funeral that I mentioned two weeks ago this past Saturday.  It was held in our chapel and we had about 150 people in our humble little chapel.  It was a very sad experience.  Very touching though.  I had the responsibility given to me of reading out the eulogies of the family.  when we went to the grave site there were probably about 350 people there.  This girl was very loved, and is going to be severely missed.   

 

Well, only one email remaining after this one.  Probably won't have much to say next week except to talk about how great the baptism was and how excited I am to see each of you again!

 

Love yas!

 

Elder Tanner