Wednesday, July 9, 2014

BAPTISMS, REFERRALS AND ELDER BALLARD

June 2, 2014

My Dearest Family,

James!!! How come you don't write me anymore!!! Have you forgotten me?!?!  In case you have, my name is Sister Mikayla Pillar. I'm your older sister! I am currently serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints in the Los Angeles California mission. I speak Spanish to people. Do you remember me?!?! ;)

I hope this email finds you in great spirits! Mom, I'm just going to tell you again how proud I am of you and sharing the Book of Mormon. That book changes lives. Way to go!

Best news of this week: ELDER BALLARD CAME AND SPOKE TO US!!! Literally the best thing ever. I received so much revelation and was amazed with the fact that I was in the presence of an apostle of God. You could feel it. And the whole meeting was so sweet. It felt like a grandfather giving advice to his missionaries. I was truly grateful for that sweet spirit that was there.

In all honesty, this week started off rough. Things were just not happening in the area like I had been hoping they would. The potentials we thought would turn into great investigators started to disappear. Then after some prayers we decided to give our one baptismal date to the Elders. The investigator had asked before if men could teach him, and we finally decided that he would progress with the Elders. So we handed him over.

Well the Lord loves us. And so I think after a hard few days, we started to see his hand in the work.

1) Lets rewind to the YSA days, where I taught an investigator named A…a few times. He had tried to come one Sunday while I was there, but got into a car accident on the way. After I left, I later learned that he had been reading the Book of Mormon and was all the way into 2 Nephi. Saturday he was baptized. The service was great. He bore his testimony at the end, and it was literally one of the sweetest things I have ever heard. I'm so proud of him.

2) We met with our Bishop and all the missionaries this week. I have decided that he is one of the coolest people ever, and I'm really excited for the work that is taking place in Hermosa Liahona.

3) So we were at church on Sunday. Our ward mission leader comes up to us and is all excited about a referral that he has for us. He says the people are at church and he would like to introduce us to them.

Well this man walks up to us, and I was thinking to myself, "He looks so familiar. Why??"

The man has a smile on his face and is like "We have met before. Remember? You gave us the card."

Come to find out, Sister Diaz and I had street contacted this man and his wife our first week in the transfer, which was over a month ago. They had told us their daughter was a member and sometimes they went to church with her. The husband speaks English so we had assumed they were going to the English ward and being taught by the missionaries there.

Well, they want to come to the Spanish ward. And you know what that means!? Hopefully we will have some new investigators. We have been praying for weeks to have two baptisms in our area in the month of June. So maybe this is the answer to our prayers!

4) Please refer to the second paragraph in this letter, once again, one of the coolest experiences of my life.

5) After the meeting with Elder Ballard, we returned to our area to go to a baptism for J…, an investigator that had been taught by the Elders in our ward. E…, one of our investigators, was going to be there and we had invited our other investigator R… It was almost five and R… wasn't there. We called her, and we think she had forgotten about it. She said she would come. R… is older and doesn't have a car. She walks to the church building when she has come for church activities before. And I personally didn’t think about it again. I didn't really think she could make it on time.

So you know those times in movies where its literally down to the wire and you don't think they are going to make it, but then end up getting there without a moment to spare. I never thought that happened in real life. But it does.

During the baptism talk Sister Diaz was all of a sudden like "We need to go to the front and see if R… is there." It was awkward timing, but I felt like she might be right. She was having a prompting. As we walked out in the hallway, J… was standing up to walk to the font. My heart was racing. I was thinking, "We are going to miss it." We ran to the foyer. No R…. Sister Diaz ran outside and out of nowhere, R… popped up. Both of us were amazed. The poor woman had walked as fast as she could to make it in time for the baptism. We quickly (very quickly) walked back to the room where the baptism was talking place. Literally, she walked in the room, sat down, and J… was then baptized. I didn't even see it because I was a few feet behind her. But I was just stoked that she had been there to see it.

She stayed for the rest of the service and then we had a great lesson with her afterwards with our Bishop. Remember, he is literally the coolest person ever!

Anyways I was super stoked and hope that R… will decide for herself to be baptized some day.

That's what's happening in the great city of Lawndale these days.

One of the things that was focused on during our time with Elder Ballard was listening and teaching with the Spirit and walking with faith. Elder Ballard told us to brush off fear and open our mouths. So I extend the same invitation to you. Will you brush off fear and open your mouths this week? Pray for a missionary opportunity. And trust in the Lord to use you as a tool to hasten his work. People are prepared. Trust in that. And trust that you can make a difference. I will be following up with you all and hope to hear about the experiences. I too will be praying for ya!

This work is real. It’s the Lord's work. The Lord still speaks to prophets today.

Love you all,

Hermana Mik Pillar

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