Monday, June 30, 2014

This week I learned a lesson about following the promptings of the Holy Ghost. I experienced two instances where I was distinctly prompted to do something. The first time was when we went to see a lady named Lori. She's someone the missionaries used to teach, and we've been knocking on her door ever since I got to Clinton. I was starting to think I'd never get to meet her, but we had a few extra minutes on Thursday so we decided to knock on her door one last time. To my surprise the door opened! We ended up having a really good lesson with her. She started crying at the beginning and told us she knew God kept bringing us back because she was home last time we knocked on her door, but it was a bad day for her so she didn't let us in. Then she said, "I know God is watching over me because you didn't have to keep coming back, but you did anyway." As the lesson went on the thought just kept coming back to me, "You have to invite her to be baptized." I didn't really know what her back story with the past missionaries was, but I did it anyway. She said yes, and we set her with a tentative date. It wasn't until after we left that I found out they'd invited her to be baptized the last time they taught her before she disappeared, and even though she was excited about their message she said no. but I guess since then she's had a change of heart and she's realized how important this is! Pretty cool!

The second experience happened yesterday. Every Sunday we go with the elders to see Brother Patterson, a man in the ward who is in an assisted living center. As my companions and I were driving there we discussed what spiritual message we should share with him and I started flipping through my scriptures to see what I could find. I ended up turning to a quote i'd stuck in there a few years back. I had the thought that that was what we needed to share with him, but it didn't exactly go together with what we'd already planned to teach. So I decided not to say anything. We ended up sharing a thought on prayer, which turned out pretty good, and he asked us if we would come back on Wednesday, which is unusual, because we normally only come on Sundays. He started to cry, and explained that it was the anniversary of the day his daughter had died. I was shocked. The topic I'd considered sharing with him from the quote in my scriptures would have been exactly what he needed to hear. I wish I would have shared it with him when I was first prompted to, but I'm grateful that I have a chance to go back this week and fix the mistake I made. 

 

Sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like I never seem to get any spiritual promptings, but I think the real problem is I'm just not heeding the quiet whisperings of the Spirit enough. The more you listen to those whisperings, the more able you are to recognize them as promptings--which entitles you to receiving more promptings! That's definitely something I want to work at, because I'd much rather leave a lesson feeling grateful for doing what I felt I should do than leaving regretting what I didn't do.