What an awesome experience it was to see those pictures of Natali's baptism and see you standing next to her. I teared up looking at them and it makes me tear up thinking about it. I'm grateful you got to go and be apart of that experience. What a tender mercy. She is a beautiful person with a beautiful soul. I'm excited for her to come back so she can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is just as important as baptism, and I'm so excited for us to continue to teach her.
Another great week full of learning from tough situations and relying on my Heavenly Father for strength. Our search to teach a family is still underway. We contacted quite a lot this week in a lot of different ways. One day, we did block knocking (going into blocks -aka big cement apartment buildings- and knocking on every door. We knocked 172 doors that day.) The next day, contacting everyone on the streets. One day, contacting people in the park. It was difficult coming away from last week only having had a few lessons from all those days of contacting and talking to literally thousands of people. I'm so grateful for the strength that Heavenly Father gave me to talk to each person and invite them to come unto Christ despite the rejection and disappointment and I'm grateful for the few lessons we did have.
We have met with a family who was a referral from a member in our branch. The family is Catholic, born catholic and determined to die Catholic. However, they are willing to 'stam de vorba' (sit and talk) about the gospel and about what we believe, but they have declared that they refuse to change religions. We've told them we are not there to convince them or to change their religion, just to share what we believe. We are hoping that in doing so, that we won't change their religion or their beliefs, but that the spirit will soften their hearts and bear witness of the truth of the restored gospel. Please pray for this family. They have 3 daughters, 15, 12 and 1. They are all beautiful and, just like everyone else, need the comfort of the gospel in their lives.
Catarina, unfortunately, informed us this week she is moving to Austria. Breaks my heart, but I'm grateful we have missionaries in Austria that I'm hoping will find her or that she will search out. You can pray for her too.
We've all read Luke chapter 15 about the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, but this week, as I studied this story, I read it a little differently than I have in the past. I found the differences and similarities in the stories.
Differences:
The sheep naively wandered off the path.
The coin was lost out of negligence.
And the son willingly rebelled and strayed.
This is the same with many of our less actives. Some have naively wandered off the path, others have been lost out of negligence on the ward member's part, and others have willingly rebelled.
The sheep and the coin were sought after.
The son "came to himself" and returned on his own free will. *note that the father didn't go hunting for him or try forcing him to come back. He patiently waited for him to "come to himself" and return home.
We must seek after those who have either naively wandered or been lost out of negligence and wait with patience for those who knowingly rebelled to "come to [themselves]." Of course we can encourage them to make the right choices and to return -we should always do this- but the important thing is that we show patience and love toward them recognizing they have their own free agency and how they choose to use it shouldn't influence our love for them.
Similarities:
They were all welcomed back and rejoiced after.
I love these stories and all the lessons within them. Less active work is so important. I'm so grateful we have willing branch members here in Arad to help us with our less active rescuing.
Christmas celebrations have already started here. They have shops up all around centru (downtown) and it's adorable. I'm so excited to experience Christmas here and all their traditions.
Family, I love you all very much. I hope all is well on the home front. Looks like you got a lot of snow. Can't say I'm jealous... I love snow, but it's too early for snow. Maybe in December I'll be okay with it.
Sending you all my love and praying you can feel it,
Sora Cook
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| Beautiful Natali with Sora Cook's and Sora Smith's parents at Natali's baptism in SLC. |
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| Kenton, Natali and Kenton's father |
ps... we went to a 'pyramid scheme' presentation this week (for an investigator, we didn't know it was a pyramid scheme trap) and the lady didn't speak english very well... actually, not at all. She kept trying to say "If you're not fast, you're dead." but instead she was saying "If you're not fat, you're dead." It was cute. And really funny.
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