Let the Holy Spirit Guide!

Dumela once again!

This week for me was a huge testimony builder.

To start off though ...............drumroll........... I'm training
again!!! Sister Vea and I are co-training a sister who just got here
from the MTC. Her name is Sister Hirwa. She was born in Rwanda but she
grew up in South Africa. I love her so much already. She is really
powerful. She is amazing at really listening to what people say and
then tying in her response to the gospel. She is very confident and
very excited to be working. And she sings all the time. Its great.
Instead of just talking when we walk around, a lot of the times we all
just sing hymns together. It makes me really happy. When I first met
her I thought she looked really familiar but I couldn't figure out why.
But the next day I figured it out. She's in one of my all time
favorite Mormon messages! I'd seen it earlier on mission and I think I
might have even seen it before I came out. Id always wanted to meet
her because I could just tell how powerful her testimony was. And now
we are companions! Here is a link to the video :

http://www.mormonchannel.org/youth-videos?v=912421119001

She wrote the poem and she is the one reading it. Pretty amazing huh?
I definitely feel blessed to be able to train her with Sister Vea.

Other than that the week was really incredible. Its not so much that
anything extraordinarily spectacular happened but we just had a lot of
little tender mercies and moments where we could really feel the
spirit guiding us. In Botswana the mission president challenged us to,
every night, record in our planners at least one way that we were led
by the Holy Ghost. Every single day this week the entire notes section
of the day was filled with moments where we could feel the spirit
guide.

One of my favorites was on Saturday. So on Saturday morning in
personal study I had the feeling that I should study the Atonement. I
didn't really know why though because we hadn't planned on talking about
that with any of the people we were seeing that day. But I decided to
go ahead and study it. Later that day we had an appointment with a
less active family. We had planned on talking with them about keeping
the commandments but when we got in there and started the lesson I
knew that we were supposed to talk about the Atonement. But it didn't
make sense because the night before we had prayed as a companionship
and together we had gotten the answer that we were supposed to teach
them about keeping the commandments. But I decided to start the lesson
with the Atonement. The whole time I felt good about it. You could
tell that the message was touching their hearts and the spirit was
strong. But I also kept feeling like we needed to tie it in somehow
with keeping the commandments. But I couldn't think of how to do it.
After we had discussed the Atonement for a few minutes, Sister Hirwa
shared John 14:15 and talked about how if we want to show Christ that
we are grateful for His sacrifice for us we will keep his
commandments. It was perfect. I think that if we had taught that
lesson any other way it definitely would not have such a big impact on
them. And the reason we were able to teach it is because each of us
followed the promptings we received from the Holy Ghost.  And then to
top it off, they came to church the next day!

Another cool moment we had was with some little girls we are teaching.
Remember the picture I sent of the girls making the mud phones? Well
we go over to their house and read Book of Mormon stories with them a
couple times a week. Matilda is 9 and Yvette is 8 but they couldn't
read. So we have been having them read with us. What we do is one of
us will read a line and we have them follow along and repeat it back.
We have only been doing this for a couple weeks but they are already
learning so fast! Its amazing! They are already able to read almost
all of the small words like "the, and, this, them, he, what...etc."
just by sight and they are able to sound out a lot of bigger words. We
still have to prompt them a lot but they are to the point where
instead of us reading and they repeat, they are reading and we are
just helping with big words! Its been so cool to see their progress.

Michelo is doing great, too. George has been in South Africa doing
business for the past week but Michelo is on fire! We went over and
taught her about the plan of salvation and the questions she had were
so thoughtful! We call them the "preach my gospel" questions. She was
asking, almost word for word, the questions at the beginning of the
PMG chapter that the lesson is about to answer. Then she just
understood everything perfectly! And she was even able to relate it
back to us in her own words. At the end of the lesson the spirit was
really strong and Sister Hirwa was able to put her on date to be
baptized on 30 March! Then she came to church on Sunday. Keep in mind
that this is only the 2nd time she has visited the church. So a lady
that is staying in the motel across the street decided to visit the
church because it was Sunday morning and it was close by. So Michelo
just took her under her wing like a pro! She showed her around the
church, she answered all her questions; it was like she'd ben a member
for years! Then in sunday school we were using verses from the Book of
Mormon. The lady who was visiting asked Michelo what the Book of
Mormon was. I was expecting her to ask us as the missionaries to
explain it to her. But I was wrong! She just took over! She told her
that it was another testament of Jesus Christ and how it was written
by prophets in another part of the world from the one who wrote in the
Bible. Then she told her how the prophet named Mormon put the writings
of all the other prophets together and gave it to his son who sealed
the records and buried them. She then explained how 2000 years later a
young prophet named Joseph Smith was directed by and angel of the Lord
where to find the records and he was able to translate them by the
power of God. All without any help at all from the missionaries!!!
Then the visiting lady started asking other questions like "How did
the prophets know about God" and "How did they get to the other side
of the world?". Then we really thought we would have to step in. But I
was wrong again!! Michelo answered every single one of her questions
completely perfectly!!!!! I was in complete shock! It was amazing!!!!!
We didn't teach her any of that stuff! She'd just read and prayed on
her own and was then able to bear testimony of it to someone else! Its
those kinds of moments on mission when you feel like you actually are
making some sort of a difference. I just can't get over how incredible
she is.

I had a pretty funny thing happen to me too. It probably shouldn't have
been funny but I couldn't keep myself from laughing. So on Wednesday we
went to a funeral for a member in another branch. I didn't' know who he
was but they asked us to come to show support. So we just sat in the
back to let people who actually knew him be close. About half way
through the service a really drunk man came in and sat right in front
of us. About every 30 seconds he turned around and gave us a really
weird look. At one point I dropped the pen I was holding so I bent
down to get it but I couldn't find where it went so I was leaned over
for a little while. It just so happened that while I was down the man
turned around again. He saw that I was leaning over and he semi-yelled
"What are you doing?? Are you sleeping? Don't you know that this is a
funeral?? You don't sleep at funerals! Are you not Christian???" Then
he gave us one more odd look and he stormed out. Lets just say that it
was slightly more than a little bit disruptive and I felt quite
embarrassed. But it was also really quite hilarious. I just felt
really bad that it happened at a funeral...awkward.

My favorite scripture of the week is 2 Nephi chapter 2. All of it. I've
read the chapter quite a few times before and to me, it has always
been mostly just about the fall of Adam and Eve and how it relates to
agency and opposition. But when I read it this time I found that it is
also largely about how the fall relates to the atonement. So I would
encourage you to read that with the Atonement in mind. I really really
enjoyed it.

Well I hope you all have a great week. Stay happy and share the
happiness with others!

Love, Sister Gehring