Okay so first off, some background on our two investigators.
Stanisław: Met the church somehow about 20 years ago as he was looking for things he realized needed to be in the true church. Upon his searching he stumbled across our church. He then continued to read just about anything about our church that he could get his hands on; he can read English but doesn’t speak it. He has known the church is true for a very long time now, but has been waiting on his wife, Wiesława, to come to the same realization before he gets baptized. He has recently decided that he has waited far too long and started meeting with the missionaries just before I came to the Office. Then Holidays hit and we didn’t meet with them for a couple weeks. He told us that he still wants to get baptized along with his wife, and he will make sure she is ready for the missionary lessons before we actually start meeting again in the New Year. He also told us that he would very much like to be able to go to the temple with her on the next Temple trip at the beginning of March to do Baptisms for the Dead there, which is really cool.
Wiesława: She is married to Stanisław and was born Catholic (like pretty much everyone else in the country) She recognized that there were some things missing from the Catholic church and eventually converted to the Green Witnesses (Pentecostal). All of their children are very against them joining the church. She reads a lot of the church material with her husband and now also feels that our church is the true church and is ready to get baptized now. She worries a lot and asks a lot of questions about what will happen to people who don’t accept the gospel here on earth.
So now for the story part.
Almost 2 weeks ago we had a meeting set up with Stanisław and Wiesława. We went into the meeting with the goal to get them to pretty much teach us the Restoration through us asking questions. We got to the meeting and were very pleased to see that they both had come (Wiesława had been very reluctant to meet with missionaries before this). We sat down and got to know them a little bit better and then Elder Darowski asked Stanisław the question, “So how did you meet the church?” He then jumped right into a 20 summary of why this church must be true and that the Restoration had to occur, based entirely on reasoning and logic! We were completely shocked. We were kind of just expecting something like “I was reading on the internet one day and discovered this church and then wanted to know more” or something to that effect. We knew he was ready, and that he knew a lot, but he still pretty much blew us away on that one. During his summary Wiesława had just been sitting there listening, so we were a little worried that perhaps she wasn’t as ready and was just here because she knew that her husband wanted her there. Until she started talking about deep church history along with him, and clarifying things he said. One of the things they brought up was how they noticed that the probable reasoning behind Christ being so blunt about all the other churches being false was because at the time he was talking to a 14 year old boy, you kind of have to be blunt and say it very plainly. I personally had never thought about that, but it makes total sense. Anyways, this just shows how carefully they have studied not only the Book of Mormon, but also Doctrine and Covenants! Which is amazing.
As we were talking about that stuff, a member (her name is Oksana) knocked on the door and peeked her head in saying “Czy mogę?” which means something like “May I?” so we nodded and she came in, we thought maybe she had forgotten something in the room, but then she sat down in a chair on the other side. I told her that she was welcome to join us if she would like. She said that she would love to; she hadn’t been on a lesson with the missionaries since her baptism about a year and a half ago. She launched right into a bit of her conversion story and her history, testifying along the way. It was amazing, especially for never having been on a lesson before and also not having had missionaries explain before what she should do to help. It ends up that she was born catholic as well and then eventually joined the Green Witnesses (Pentecostals)!!! Just like Wiesława! It was really cool to see the effect that had on her. We ended the lesson on that high note and had Wiesława pray at the end, we are focusing really hard on having investigators pray on the first lesson, and since it was one of her first (not sure if she did actually ever meet with the missionaries before) we were excited when she did. We set up with them for the same time next week and parted ways feeling very excited. Oksana later told us that she had a very strong impression that she needed to be in there and tell her story and that she felt almost pulled to the room we were in.
Our next meeting with them was also very good, we went over the Plan of Salvation which was really good because even though they both already knew it, we were really only meeting so that they can actually have all the lessons from missionaries before being baptized. Wiesława also told us that she would like to hear it from the missionaries and how we explain it rather than having them teach us this time. So we went through a great Plan of Salvation (it was the most balanced lesson, as far as taking turns teaching goes, between us missionaries). After we finished with the Plan of Salvation and answered questions they had about that, they asked us some questions about cultural stuff in the church, like do we still celebrate things like New Years and Christmas, we told them something along the lines of “Of course, but we skip some parts like drinking alcohol and the more reckless parts of some parties.” Then they asked some questions about Missionaries and who is expected to go on missions and how it is decided where we will go. So when you ask a missionary about how it is decided where we go, you never get a short answer. We explained that we submit information about ourselves and then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve prays about where we should serve and then we get a letter telling us. They were surprised to hear that I took 5 years of Japanese and didn’t go to Japan. I simply told them that I am where I need to be and while they do ask about languages you know, it doesn’t play a very large part in where you will serve. Simply put they now know how it is decided, and who decides. At the end of the lesson we asked them if they would like to set a specific date to be baptized and told them that the Temple trip they want to go on will start on the 28th of February so a good date would be the 19th of Feb. They thought about it and decided that that was good. So unless something happens and they move it closer or further away, the Office Elders will be having 2 baptisms at the end of February! Very exciting for them and for us.
Well, I hope that everyone is doing well. I have been pretty busy lately getting things formatted and able to fit in the new Mission Newsletter that will be going out by mail to all the missionaries. We are keeping busy here in the Office and still somehow find the time to get out and teach occasionally
Thanks for reading this week!
-Starszy Taylor
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