It has been an incredible week!
Well Friday we spent almost the whole day helping this russian family move. The husband is handicapped and they don't know anyone but one good brother in our ward met them a week ago and offered to help them move. Naturally we were happy to help too. They lived in such humble circumstances. Really sad stuff but the family was sooo grateful because there is absolutely no way they could have done it without us. We also got to leave a Book of Mormon with them and the wife has been reading in it. She wants to meet with us once they get settled into this new place. It was great to do some physical service for someone who really needed it.
Saturday was incredible! We received a referral from elders in the Frankfurt mission on Thursday and made out an appointment with C who lives in a little village way far away. We couldn't get any members to drive us so we took the train for like 45 mins and then biked an hour to get there. We finally found it and to our surprise there was not just one woman but a family of 4 there who were all anticipating us and excited to hear from us. This woman had been investigating through a friend who was baptized 2 years ago in Frankfurt. For 6 months or so she had been talking with her friend about our faith and had ordered a Book of Mormon and had read in it and the daughter , N, has almost finished it and ya they already knew a ton and belived it was true. So ya we went through the first lesson and they ate it up. The husband, P, too, and he is just a huge tough guy. It all made sense to them and they felt it was right. The wife and oldest daughter both wanted to be baptized. They asked all sorts of questions about what is required and they arranged their schedule to be able to come to church 3 times before the baptismal date. They were unbelievably prepared and so gracious! I honestly couldn't believe it. My comp couldn't either. We were smiling like idiots the rest of the day. I kept trying to convince myself it was a dream. It was REAL LIFE.
Sunday was even more amazing. 10 investigators at church! I felt like a freakin South American missionary! The most we have ever had is 5. This new family weren't planning on coming, who could blame them, finding out about church that is in less than 24 hours, but they decided it was something they wanted to do and to our surprise they showed up! Then our other baptisimal date showed too with her husband and 2 kids! And then an eternal investigator that we can never get to come randomly showed up. Plus a couple other eternals that come pretty often. We had a awesome investigator class all about the restoration, taught by our former branch president and the spirit was way strong. Then sacrament was the primary program and it was wayyy powerful! Both of these families loved it! P was in tears and said he couldn't believe what he had been missing for the past 50 years. C said she feels like she belongs here. The D family loved how family oriented it is and the wife is still excited to be baptized and they said they are definitely coming back to all the members they talked to. AWESOME!!
This week I tried to focus on charity. Mosiah 2:17 is one of my favorites on the subject. " learn wisdom... when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." You help someone, you help God. in the eyes of the atonement it really makes sense too. Jesus suffered for EVERYTHING that we suffer, so naturally when we make someone's burden lighter, we in turn, make Jesus's load lighter as well. We save these people and the Savior, from suffering more than if we were to stand by and watch them struggle. In another light, it's a commandment to love one another. And how do we serve God? You keep His commandments. It's that simple. We help God by helping other people. We can help God answer prayers, by helping people, by being a tool to bring about His work. It just makes sense on every level and it is exponential. When we show charity, others pay it forward and serve as well. Charity never faileth.
Well that's all for this week! Love you all!
Elder Clayton
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