July 22, 2013

What a miraculous week this has been here in Victoria. What a blessing it is to serve the Lord in this capacity! I thank all those who email or write letters to me, you have no idea what that means to me. Support from back home is amazing!

Just a quick shout out to Derek and Kaila - congratulations this week on the marriage! It will have already happened by next week, so you get an early one :) Kaila, welcome to the family! You both are so wonderful!! I love you!

I won't have time to write about all the incredible things that happened, so I picked a couple I will write about. I first want to start with this past Saturday. President Tilleman has promised each of us if we work hard enough, that we can get a new investigator in the Gospel every single day. That is saying a lot for BC, as many people are pretty secular. A new investigator is when you teach a principle, have an opening and closing prayer, and set a return appointment. So we find some tracting, on the street, things like that. But they must be willing to meet again - that's the tricky part! Anyway, we took this promise to heart. Saturday, we said we will get a new investigator everyday, because we are going to work our absolute hardest! So we got to work. We talked to well over 200 people that day. At 5:00pm, we parked our car and prayed to Heavenly Father and let him know we wouldn't go back to it until He told us to. So we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked. After about 3 and a half hours, we had talked to many people, but still no investigator. My faith wavered a bit, I must admit. We only had about an hour left. We went down a side street, and prayed diligently, asking Heavenly Father where our new investigator was. We discussed, and then prayed again. And again. Finally, we decided we needed to go see a woman about 15 minutes away who we had found about a week ago. She is the daughter of Sister Lopez, the recent convert in the ward. Not doubting the Spirit, we drove there and knocked on her door. She was very nice, but not very accepting to us teaching her a message that night. I listened to the Spirit, and He told me that she was to be our new investigator that night. So when she was about to close the door, I asked "Do you speak Spanish?". She looked confused, but answered yes. I began speaking Spanish to her and asked her if we could just say a prayer on her doorstep really quickly. She smiled, and invited us to come up and teach her more. We taught her about the Book of Mormon, and left her with a copy which she gladly accepted. I prayed in Spanish (something I wouldn't have been able to do if Uncle Troy and Jeramy hadn't mentioned some phrases for me a couple years ago - the Spirit really does bring things to your remembrance!). She then invited us to come back on Tuesday. There it was - at 8:45 at night, 15 minutes before we have to go in, the Lord blessed us with the fruits of our labors. We had worked hard that day. We worked through sweat, tears, and even some blood (I cut my finger while slicing a cucumber :) But as we put our faith in God, He blessed us, just as He promised He would. God does not give open ended promises.

I felt our faith as a companionship increase miraculously. The next day, Sunday, we determined the same thing. We told Heavenly Father that we desperately wanted another person who we could bring closer to Jesus Christ. We worked and worked and worked, and with about 30 minutes left before time to go home, we prayed. We pleaded with Heavenly Father to tell us who needed to be taught that night. After the prayer, Sister Hobbs said "Anna". She is a young mom who we tracted into a couple weeks ago. Well, we stopped by Anna, and of course Heavenly Father blessed us even when we didn't even deserve it. We taught her all about Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon on her doorstep. We prayed, and will be seeing her on Wednesday. We both walked away with tears in our eyes, very humbled to know how much God was aware of us. We don't want investigators for statistics. We care because those are Heavenly Father's children who are one step closer to the saving ordinances of Jesus Christ. What an absolute blessing that is. We are continuing our goal, even though today we will only have 2 hours to proselyte. But we can do it with the Lord's help.

With God, all things are possible. He WANTS us to succeed in bringing people unto Him. He did not send us out here to fail. With His help, we may reap the fruits of our labors. I love what Bishop Bartel has told me many times - God is a 4th watch God. We have witnessed this multiple times this past week. We worked until we couldn't do anymore, and then handed it over to the Lord. And He took care of everything.

Saturday while we were walking around for many hours, we were getting pretty tired. We were singing hymns while going between people and houses, to keep our Spirits up. Just when we had received every rejection in the book, we look up and there are the Victoria YSA Elders driving by. They honked, smiled, and waved. To you this may seem but a small thing. But I cannot tell you the joy it brought to Sister Hobbs and I. Speaking all day to people who did not necessarily even believe in Jesus Christ, we looked up and saw these two young men with an incredible light about them. It is a light that you cannot describe unless you have seen it. When you see a group of faithful Latter-Day Saints, they have the light. These Elders had that light, and it lifted us up to the skies. We had energy to last us all night, thanks to their simple act of waving and smiling. That was certainly a tender mercy of the Lord.

This week's challenge is simple - invite somebody over in the next couple of weeks to have dinner with the missionaries, whether it be a less active, nonmember, or a random person you see on the street. Get them in the presence of the wonderful missionaries. Allow them to feel that Spirit. And please tell me when you do it! What a wonderful miracle that will be! Don't take away their agency by not giving them the opportunity to choose for themselves. And everybody likes food. So win win :)

This Church is true. I wouldn't go to another country and speak to hundreds of people I don't know to preach something that was false. A man yesterday began going off about how Joseph Smith was a fraud and worked for Satan. With tears in my eyes, I bore testimony that He was and is a Prophet, and that through Him we have more scripture today, both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. That made the man pretty upset, so we walked away. But I looked at Sister Hobbs, and bore my testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ and of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Savior died for the sins of the world, allowing us access to the Father. Joseph Smith dies as a martyr, standing up for the scripture that he knew to be true. May each of us stand ready, and be able to say we would do the same if asked. For these are the last days, and the Lord needs His most valiant servants to help Him move this work forward. For it will not cease, until He states, "The work is done". This church is true!

I love you all!

Sister Biggs