Focus on the Temple

Here is a sampling of the awesome things we did and saw this week:

We were able to deliver supplies to one of the fire evacuation centers and give a young couple and their dog a ride from one center to another. They were so grateful for our service and accepted our gift of a Book of Mormon. We hope God watches over them.

- Once the evacuation order for the fire ended, we went into that part of our area to visit our church family members there. Not one of their homes had been destroyed! Several of them had fire burn right up to their foundation, but the home was spared. We believe that nothing more than protecting angels and great firefighters can take credit for such miracles. The people we visited are so grateful for their blessings and humble. Most only lost the food in their freezers due to no power.

- At one home, the rattlesnakes that live in the hills behind them moved down out of the fire into a small grassy spot between where the fire burned and their yard. When they close their back door, the snakes start and make this loud rattling noise. DO NOT GO BACK THERE!!!

- Instead of visiting people repeatedly and asking them to attend church and become part of our church family, and having them not come out to church, we have received inspiration to focus more on attending the temple. We are in the process of developing lessons that will invite them to set a temple date and prepare for that day. Church attendance will be a natural outcome of such preparation without our begging. As we have prayed and sought revelation as to what should be in these lessons, many times we both come up with the same scripture or story. This is truly an inspired work.

We had this awesome experience this week:

On Saturday, the City of Clearlake held its annual Redbud Parade and carnival. Sister Stewart-Longhurst spotted the posters for the event first and suggested it would be a good place to be at to reach out to people to come unto Christ. We quickly made arrangements with the folks in charge and set up a booth amongst vendors of crafts and jewelry and snow cones and hot dogs. Our District of ten missionaries passed out around 30 Books of Mormons. Most people, as expected, said no to our invitation to take a free book. But they were very polite about it. About one in ten would take one. And about half of those would stop and talk to us about the book. A couple even approached without being greeted and said they had heard about the book and wanted one. Several little kids wanted them too. The Sister Baggett began doing free face painting. This was perfect because no one else in the entire park was doing face painting and every little kid in town wanted their face painted. And while she painted faces, Sister Hall would engage the parents in conversations, which of course eventually would lead to the gospel and Jesus Christ. Elder Winward chalk painted the Plan of Salvation on the pavement in front of the booth, which also drew attention. Several folks came up and told us they were LDS and raised in the church and wanted to talk to us.

By early afternoon, the younger missionaries seemed to have the booth down, so Sister Stewart-Longhurst and I left to secure a huge Bratwurst complete with grilled peppers and onions. And we found a shade tree in the park where we could sit in the dried grass and consume it. This fellow was there with us and started talking to us. Finally, he got up to go get his own Brat and we concluded that was the most polite way ever to get away from Mormon Missionaries. But then he came back and talked to us some more. And the church came up. And he was interested. And he wanted a Book of Mormon. Of course, we had left them all at the booth. (What the heck??). So, we told him to come by our booth. About an hour later he did, and we talked to him some more. He agreed to have us come to his home, so he could learn more.

We LOVE being missionaries!