Monday, September 9, 2013

The TEMPLE, BURCH FAMILY, and MERCEDES

Sept. 3, 2013


Another week has come and gone. My goodness, time is flying. I was reminded yesterday, by Sister Rackham, that I hit 8 months in the mission. Can you believe it?! Well, this week was wonderful! Probably one of the greatest weeks in the mission thus far.

     Most everything that happened this week that I'm going to talk about happened last Friday. We got to go to the temple! :) Sister Rackham and I got to do a session together, and then after we went to the baptistry and got to be there with 5 of the recent converts in our ward. It was the best day ever! I cannot describe the feelings I had as we all got to be in the temple together. TRUE JOY! Although I haven't been here for any of their baptisms in the last year, I have come close to many of them because we visit them on a regular basis. One of the couples (Carl and Ernestine) that have been recently baptized, brought a family name. Sister Rackham and I held Ernestine's hand, as she watched her husband enter the water to be baptized for her son who committed suicide two years ago. She cried the entire hour and kept saying, "My baby's free." It was definitely a tender mercy to be able to witness such an incredible day. My testimony of the temple has grown immensely from the sweet experiences I've been able to have in the temple throughout the mission. I truly know, in a way that I haven't before, that the temple is the Lord's house. That it is there so that we can receive all the blessings our Father in Heaven has in store for us. How blessed we are to live in a time where the gospel is restored and temples dot the earth!

     After the temple, we went over to the Burch’s and had such a powerful lesson with them about the importance of praying and reading the scriptures. John has had many health problems in his life and is a walking miracle. He has expressed to us that he knows that it's only through God that he has been healed. We used these experiences and talked about how the process of physically and spiritually healing can be the same. We talked about how prayer and scripture study are our spiritual "medicine" and showed a Mormon Message (btw thanks for those , I use them all the time!) about how the atonement can heal us. I love starting our lessons with a Mormon message because it brings the spirit in strong right away. At the end of the lesson, they committed to praying and reading 10 minutes in the Book of Mormon together everyday. We will see how it goes. We see them tomorrow for a lesson and dinner. We're having brats and corn on the cob! Totally Wisconsinites and I love it :) I really do love these two though and I know that with time their hearts will soften and they'll be ready to come back. We've already seen them come so far.

     Another incredible thing that happened on Friday..... Mercedes is getting baptized!!!! I don't know if I've ever mentioned her before. She lives with a family in our ward and we've always been good friends with her, but it wasn't until last week that we started officially teaching her. She has come so far in this past week. In our lesson on Friday, we were talking about the spirit and she said she had felt it in the room, but never in herself. We invited her to pray that night for the spirit to tell her that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon is true. As we asked, tears started to stream down her face, and she said, "I think I already know it's true. I've been searching for truth for so long and it's been right here in front of me this entire year." She then said that she was feeling so hot inside (aka a burning in the bosom) and from this time since, she said this feeling hasn't really left her. SHE IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SEPTEMBER 21ST! I seriously love this girl! She just graduated high school and is such a hoot! It has been incredible to see how much she has grown this past week and a half. The Lord never ceases to amaze me! Miracles still happen!
     Well, sorry I feel like this email was so long. I read Ashy's and Kaleb's email each week and think, man, they must hate having to read the novels I write every week! haha I sure do love you guys! Keep being missionaries! I love it! LOVE YOU! XOXOXO

CON MUCHO AMOR,
                            tu Hermanita Jorgensen (numero uno)


1. BEST DAY EVER! Us, the ward, and some of our recent converts after they did baptisms!

2. Sister Rackham and I :)

3. This is Betty! She got baptized like three days before I got transferred here. We've spent a lot of time with her. She's so sweet. She's from Sudan and is 22. She's study here at William Jewell. I love this girl!



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