Jose

Jose M. is a young man. About 25 years old. Evangelical. A great worker and a searcher of truth. 

We met him after we had been rejected by one of our other appointments. We didn't have another appointment for 30 more minutes, so we decided to knock doors in the same area. There aren't very many Hispanics in the area that we were knocking, so we weren't expecting to hear people speaking Spanish, but as we approached a certain apartment we heard a Hispanic mother talking to her son. We changed directions and went to knock on her door. She answered and we introduced ourselves. She seemed fairly interested, but said that she didn't have time right at that moment, but she welcomed us to come back the following Sunday (since she is only free on Sundays). 

One week later, we were knocking on the same door expecting to meet with the mother that we had talked to before. Instead of the young mother, Rosa, opening the door, her cousin, Jose greeted us. We all sat down, and we began to teach the lesson of the Restoration of the Gospel. Due to the amount of questions that they had for us we didn't get very far into the lesson. We scheduled an appointment for the following Sunday and planned to finish teaching about the Restoration. 

The following Sunday was yesterday. Yesterday we went back to visit Jose and Rosa with determination to finish the Restoration. They have very deep Evangelical roots and very probing questions about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As we taught the Restoration, their questions changed from "Do you believe in the end of the world?" and "Wasn't Jesus Christ crucified by the Jews? If so, is that why the Jewish people don't believe in Christ?" to "Do we have a prophet that lives on the earth today?" and "How can we know of the truth?". Something was changing in him. As we taught a principle, he would turn to Rosa and testify of what we were saying. 

Towards the end of the lesson, and in answer to his questions, we knelt down in prayer and invited him to pray about The Book of Mormon right there. He was a little reluctant to do so. He didn't believe that he would get a personal answer if it wasn't a personal prayer, but nevertheless, he prayed. His prayer was so sincere. You could tell he was a little nervous, but when he asked the specific question if The Book of Mormon is true, the Spirit flooded into the room. He finished his prayer and we sat in silence for a few moments before asking him how he felt. He looked at us completely astonished and said, "I feel....something really different in my heart. I feel so much peace." He immediately turned to his cousin and said, "Can you feel that???" He was so excited! We explained that it was the Spirit. All of a sudden, it all clicked with him. He KNEW that everything we taught was true. Then HE asked US when we could come back! 

Jose has now accepted baptism and is gaining a testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I love being a missionary.

Hermana Childs 

Hermana Weinstock and I love being missionaries

The "Juan" True Way

 Juan way, haha get it? I love Spanglish. This is a real street in Princeton N.J.

Springtime in Princeton N.J.

I met with Sister Bagley, the Branch Presidents wife, on Sunday at Stake Conference and she told me that she had talked to you. She really is so wonderful. I hope that you get to meet her one day. Her whole family gives their all to help us. It's amazing. We depend on them so much and they always pull through for us. I haven't received your package yet. Maybe today or tomorrow.

You asked about the people we teach so here is a little about those we are currently teaching. Right now, we have a 23 year old young man from Mexico, who has plans to be baptized on May 4. He is so prepared. I have learned to just love him so much. He means so much to me. He has so much faith and is willing to follow through with all of the commitments that we give him, however, Satan is working very hard with him and his family and the people that he lives with here. He is separated from him family, they are still in Mexico.  BUT he is prepared. I have so much faith in him. I'll send you a picture when he gets baptized. 

A 28 year old mom of 2 autistic twins, she works at a restaurant (that's how we met her. a member took us out to lunch and she was our waitress. We gave her a pass-a-long card and now here we are). She has a baptism date for this Sunday, but we are going to have to push it back. We haven't been able to teach all of the lessons yet. She is extremely prepared as well. She really wants to be baptized. 

A  40 year old man, from Guatemala, he is the brother of a member, and he has been taught for a really long time. The only thing that is stopping him from getting baptized is going to church. He works every day except Thursdays, so we have been praying so hard that he can have Sundays off and come to church. 

A 21 year old man, from Costa Rica, and he lives with a member family. Now he is taking the lessons with us. He just needs to come to church one more time before he is baptized. 

Another 40 year old man, from Guatemala. He has a very difficult life. Please pray for him. He drinks a lot and has an awful living situation. 

A  9 year old girl, born in America, but her family is Mexican. She had a baptism date for the 20th of this month, but last minute her mom decided that she couldn't be baptized because "being baptized in two churches is really bad" (she was baptized as an infant in the catholic church). We are just waiting for her mom to say yes. 

An Evangelical man, we met him in an appointment with another potential investigator. Turns out the other person we were going to talk to doesn't really have interest, but he is very interested. He is super friendly and has TONS of questions. It's actually really hard to focus on a lesson because he has so many questions :) haha. It's awesome. He has SO much potential. 

A family: They are a miracle. We had their name as a reference, so we knocked on their door on Sunday, but they wouldn't open it all the way. The mom came to the door and said "who sent you here?" We explained who we were and that we had their name as a reference from several months ago. Surprisingly they let us in and we began teaching a lesson. Immediately there was such a love that was felt between us. They offered to feed us, so we had dinner (a second dinner for us- learn this: if you eat with them...they will love you...so we did and it worked) and they seemed to be interested. They are very firm in their catholic beliefs, but right before we left, we asked if we could come back. They were so excited! They invited us back over the next Sunday and to their son's birthday party. We have plans to go and help, and hopefully find some new investigators. We love them so much!!! 

We teach a lot of less actives too. One of them actually came to church last Sunday! It was amazing! We had been trying to get him to church for YEARS. In one of the lessons we said, "So...hermano....we will see you at church this Sunday." He wouldn't commit. We called him everyday and read a scripture to him and then said "we'll see you at church this Sunday". He still wouldn't commit. All the way until Saturday night he said that he wasn't coming. Sunday morning we called him and he said "When is my ride coming. I've laid out my clothes and I'll be waiting when they get here". He came! It is very difficult for him to stay all 3 hours because his body is breaking down (he was a drug and alcohol addict), but he stayed all 3 hours. After church he said, "well....I came. You can't bother me about coming any more. I won't be coming back for a really long time." But in my mind I was thinking "well, if we got you here once, we can get you here again", so I told him "that's ok, we'll take this one step at a time. We'll see you next month". Once again, the process has begun. He'll deny that he is coming, but I have faith that he'll come again. This time we have a whole month to work with ;) 

I hope that helps give you a picture of what my life is like out here. It's the best life ever. I can't see myself doing anything else. 

Yesterday, I met with Elder Perry. He came to our All-Mission-Conference and shook everyone's hand. When he shook mine, he said, "Sister Childs....are you from the Salt Lake area?" I replied saying, "yes". He said, "That name sounds very familiar. I think I know some Childs in that area". I have not forgotten the time when we were having dinner next to him in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I have remembered that ever since it happened. I'm sure he has forgotten, but I haven't :)

I'll be sure to send pictures next week in front of Princeton :) 

I love you!!!!! 

Hermana Childs

To Consecrate: "To dedicate, to make holy, or to become righteous"

The month of consecration goes on, and I can feel myself growing closer to my Savior. It's amazing. I have given every ounce of myself to this work, and I have gotten lost. Lost in this work. Lost in thinking about others. Lost in the joy of finding the prepared and then preparing the prepared for baptism. And as I have lost myself, I have found greater joy than I have ever experienced in my life. 

Hermana Weinstock and I set a goal to contact 70 people this week. This goal has been really hard in this area because we drive a lot, but this week......WE CONTACTED 75 PEOPLE! We contacted 25 of those in one day and because we achieved this goal, we have 12 new investigators and 7 potentials. The miracles don't stop there! Every single one of those 12 new investigators and 7 potential investigators have been prepared. They are all SO excited to hear the message of the gospel. 

I know that these blessings have come from obedience and consecrating myself to the Lord. Only when we are obedient can the Lord bless us, but when we consecrate ourselves to Him, He will work miracles in our lives. 

In September 2005, Elder Stephen B. Ovenson said, "In the long run, offering ourselves for sacred uses might simply mean maintaining a consistent attitude of meek willingness to offer all we are capable of giving at any given time while we help those about us do the same. Consecration seems to be a day-to-day process of dedication, humility, refinement, and purification as we follow the example of the most consecrated person of all time". 

By consecrating myself to this work, I have become a missionary. A true missionary. I am not just someone doing missionary things, but I am a disciple of my Savior. 

I would encourage you all to put the Lord first, all the time. Consecrate yourself to the Lord. Just try it. He will not let you down.

Hermana Childs  

Conference, Companion, Consecration

What a week! My last day with Hermana Jordan was last Monday, and we had SO. MUCH. FUN. We really became best friends. What a huge blessing to have her in my life. 

We had transfer conference this week and I received a new companion. Everyone, meet Hermana Weinstock. 

Sister Weinstock, my 2nd companion in New Jersey

She is a cross country runner from Anaheim, California who loves to have fun, work hard, and talk only in Spanish. Could I have asked for a better companion? I don't think so!

We hit it off right away and have been working super hard since we became companions on Tuesday. 

Together we have seen so many miracles. It has been amazing!!! They just kept coming one after another this week!

On Thursdays we have 'car fast day' which simply means that all of the missionaries aren't allowed to use their car for the whole day. The alternative options are either walk, or call members to drive you. Our area is huge, so we usually have members take us around (this is great because we can have another witness of the restored gospel with us). But this last Thursday was crazy. We just had transfers, I had completely forgotten about car fast day until Wednesday afternoon, and we had no rides set up. We prayed and called the members, but either they wouldn't pick up or none of them could help us out. We had 4 appointments and couldn't cancel: Thursday was the only day that we could meet with these investigators. Thursday morning during our companionship study we prayed that someone would return our calls or would answer and be able to help us. We finished companionship study at 10 and still had language study and lunch before we had an appointment at 1. We called every single family in our ward directory, but still nothing. We said one last prayer and then put our full faith in Heavenly Father. At the very last minute we found a member in a other ward who could take us to our first appointment, but wouldn't be able to drive us anywhere else. We accepted the offer. We went to the appointment, it went amazing, and then after the appointment we were once again car-less. We didn't know what else to do other than start walking and calling again. Our next appointment was 7 miles away and we weren't going to be able to make it, but we had only walked about .2 miles before we got a call from the branch president's wife. She said she heard that we needed a ride and that she wouldn't be able to stay with us or drive us anywhere else, but that she could pick us up and take us to our next appointment. Our prayers were answered. She drove us to the city we needed to be in where we had a couple of appointments. We walked to and from each of those appointments, each of them going really well, but soon it was 8:15pm and we were still without a ride back home. We tried calling all of the members again, but no one answered. We had no idea what do to. We wanted to be obedient and be home by 9:00pm, but we also had done everything possible to teach God's children, so we offered another prayer and told Heavenly Father that there wasn't anything else that we could do, and told Him that we really needed His help. Within a few minutes of ending the prayer, one of the members called us back and told us to text her the address and that she would come pick us up. I wanted to cry. Prayers ARE answered.

Then on Saturday, we saw 2 more miracles. For the past two weeks, we have been struggling getting references and finding new investigators, so as we were beginning our companionship study, we specifically prayed that we would be able to receive new references and that they would be lead to us. Just after the prayer, and within the first 5 minutes of our companionship study, our phone rang. It was a number that we didn't recognize. We answered and the voice on the other line said, "Hello, I was going through my phone and deleting numbers that I didn't need or know, but I didn't have a contact name for this number, so I felt like I should call and find out who it was before I deleted it". We were shocked! We explained that we were the missionaries and that we would love to meet with him. We set up an appointment and then he hung up. I was looking through the list of contacts that we had and I found his name. He is a contact of Hermana Jordan from months ago. They didn't get any response out of him, but Heavenly Father has directed his path towards the missionaries once again and we will be teaching him this Wednesday. 

Then, just after we finished companionship study and were on our way to the Saturday Morning session of Conference, the same thing happened with one of our investigators! We didn't recognized the number, but answered it and she stated her name. At first the name didn't click, but as I remembered all of the contacts that Hermana Jordan and I had called last week, I remembered who she was. We had called her 5-6 times and had left messages, but she had never called back. We thought that she didn't want to meet with us and we were about to give up, but she called us back and we will be teaching her this Saturday.  

It is amazing what will happen when we apply our WHOLE selves. We have to show Heavenly Father how far we are willing to go. Sometimes, we have to step out of our comfort zone and really stretch ourselves, but God will NEVER leave us hanging. He is just waiting for you to try a little harder, to test your faith little more, so that He can give you more than you thought you would receive. 

This month our mission will be "consecrating ourselves" to the Lord. We started with a fast this last Sunday and have covenanted to give every ounce of everything that we have to the Lord. I know that as we do so, we are showing God how much we love Him, and in turn He will bless us more than we can imagine. I'm so excited to see the blessings from it! 

I love being a missionary. I love my companion. I love conference. I love MY Savior. I love this gospel. 

Hermana Childs