Converting Columbus: May 27th, 2014

Hello everyone!!!

The work is absolutely on fire here in good ol' Fairborn!! I don't know what happened but things kind of exploded this week!!!

Update

We had 9 new people come to church and every single one of them absolutely loved it! Most of them have already invited themselves back for next week.

So first off is Patty and Dave-They have been meeting with us for a few weeks now and Sunday was their first week at church. Patty absolutely loved it! They are middle aged and they don't have a lot of friends so she loved meeting all the new people. She said she felt so peaceful and comfortable that she will be going to church every Sunday from now on. Yesterday she said that she wants to get baptized soon so hopefully in the next few weeks! Dave has to quit smoking but we will get him there and he will hopefully follow shortly after Patty! I love them so much! They are so ready and accept everything we teach them wholeheartedly!!

Next is Erick-He is a 32 year old he is absolutely incredible! He is an amazing dad and he truly has a desire to be a good person. We met with him on Tuesday and gave him a Book of Mormon and 3 days later he had already 15 chapters and was absolutely loving it. We are helping him to understand the Spirit and God's presence in his life. I love teaching him because he will have a question and we will start to answer it and we can tell it's clicking for him because he gets this little smirk/smile on his face and he is just amazed by all the answers we have for him.

We got him to pray for the first time after church and it was so simple and beautiful. He was 1 1/2 hours late for church because things were just trying to get his kids ready and everything but Sister Jensen and I just couldn't lose hope that he was coming. He walked in halfway through Sunday school and I almost cried because I was so happy! We later found out that during priesthood he commented and said that when everything seems to be working against (him coming to church) it must mean that you are doing something right and you can't let it win! He brought all of his kids to the memorial day picnic yesterday and they all had a blast! I am so excited because Erick is so ready and loves everything that we teach him and share with him! The only trick is that he is living with his girlfriend so we just have to get them married and then we are good to go!! :)

Next up is John and Nicole- They are super interesting. They have 2 little boys and they are super nice and friendly but both of them smoke and drink a lot and they love to cuss. We honestly didn't think we would get super far with them because it's hard to get them to focus. But last week we watched the Restoration DVD with them while eating dinner and it was super spiritual. They both liked being able to see it and said they were able to relate to Joseph Smith and the questions that he had.

They came to church on Sunday for the first time and absolutely loved it! It was kind of a miracle because John does not like organized religion at all and Nicole doesn't like church because she had bad experienced growing up. But they liked it and said they are going to try to come back next week before we even said anything about it. We are meeting with them tonight to have a bonfire and read a chapter from the Book of Mormon and talk about it so we will see how it goes! :)

Next up is Midge and Victor-they are a cute little old couple both in their 70's. They aren't quite as solid as the rest of the people but they came to church and really enjoyed it. They thanked us for getting them there and they said it was different but a good different. They like us coming by so we will see if we can get them to progress a little bit!

Tracy- I wrote about her last week. She's the one that has ADD and is bipolar. We met with her last week but it was a bit of a mess because we met with her at a park to avoid her pot smoking roommates. And in the middle of our lesson, a huge storm came through and their was a tornado warning so we had to run to our car and drive to dinner before the storm hit hard. It was crazy because there was like 3-4 feet of flooding in some parts of Fairborn from that storm but fortunately we were safe. Tracy wasn't able to make it to church but we are meeting with her on Wednesday and will make sure she gets there this Sunday! :)

Last but not least is Elizabeth and JR-We knocked on Elizabeth's door on Friday and she was super nice and talked with us for about 20 minutes. She said we could go back the next day so we did and her fiancee was home as well. It happened to be his birthday giving us the perfect excuse to wish him a happy birthday and get to know him as well. Pretty soon both of them were listening to us teach them about the Book of Mormon. They both are excited to read and really want to meet with us! We have an appointment with them tomorrow and we are going to teach them the restoration and get them to church this Sunday!! I love them both and I am very excited to see where this goes!

We have a few other people we are working with but these are the main ones right now and they sure are keeping us mighty busy! I love it so much though, it is a great problem to have! It has been super cool because Sister Jensen and I have talked a lot about why the work suddenly took off so much and things have been so good and we concluded with the fact that we just had unwavering faith.

With everyone that we meet and everyone that we are teaching, we have complete faith in their desire to learn and them actually doing what they say they will. If they say they will come to church, we expect it and do everything in our power to make it happen. We are kind and loving to everyone and give everything we have to each and every person we meet. We have full confidence in the message that we share and the power that the spirit can have on those that are ready and we put the rest in the Lord's hands and just trust that everything will work out! It is truly incredible to see the difference in the work, in our area, in our companionship and even in myself as we have filled ourselves with faith, hope, confidence, diligence and joy in everything that we do and everywhere we go!!

This work truly is amazing and the Lord is in it every step of the way. There are so many miracles right and left, we just have to look for them!! I know this church is true and I love seeing what an incredible difference it can make in so many people's lives. The light and happiness that the gospel brings is truly remarkable and one of a kind to members of Christ's true church once again on the Earth!! I love this work and I love this Gospel!! :)

I hope everything is going well and I can't wait to talk to you all next week!! :)

Happy Memorial Day!! :)

Love always, Sister Britni Johnson