Camden Sisters

We've had a really good, interesting week. We had interviews with President Turner on Wednesday. It was pretty different from interviews with President Holm, but it was good. Sister Turner was there, sitting out with the missionaries who were waiting to be interviewed so we got to talk to her for a bit while we waited. She's funny. When we ran out of things to talk about she started playing church trivia with us, looking up random statistics and asking us questions about how many stakes and temples there were in certain countries. And it was good to talk with President Turner for a little bit, it was mostly a getting to know each other interview. He's very nice, and was very interested to hear about Mom being an English professor, because he was an English major at BYU.

One of our investigators is getting closer to being ready for baptism. In our last lesson she shared with us about her concerns about leaving her church. It was good to talk about because we weren't sure if she understood that's what we were asking her to do, but she totally gets it, now she just has to decide if what we've taught her is true and worth leaving her church for. 

Since we now teach lesson 5 before baptism, which is all the laws and ordinances of the gospel, we decided to teach her about eternal marriage. It was an absolutely amazing lesson. She lost her husband about a year ago and so the lesson was really meaningful to her. And we had a member with us who bore a wonderful testimony about what the temple means to her. The Spirit was so strong in that lesson, it was really sweet. I know that she felt the spirit telling her that what we were sharing was true. 

It was the perfect thing to teach because it helped her to see that there was more that we wanted for her than just to get baptized and become a part of our church. I mean, it's great to be a part of the Savior's church and to learn all the correct doctrine, but all that is really just a means to help us get to the end goal our Heavenly Father has for us, which is to be a part of an eternal family. I love that we know how that can happen, that there is an actual place and an authority we can go to to receive those blessings. And as we told her about that, it was like eternity unfolded in front of us.  I have never felt so close to heaven as I did in that lesson.

We had another really interesting experience that helped me recognize some of the other blessings of being a member of the church. On Saturday night we had an appointment to teach one of our recent converts who lives at the very top of our area, about an hour away. A member had agreed to take us. I guess she had never seen a GPS before, because she was really amazed at Sister Boyson's, at how it would show you exactly where to go and how long till you reached your destination and how fast you were going and all that good stuff. 

Since the member was getting ready to teach a lesson on the gift of the Holy Ghost in Relief Society the next day, she mentioned that the GPS was like having the gift of the Holy Ghost. And it's really true, you constantly know where you are, where you're going and how to get there. Well, we got to their house just fine and had a great lesson with them. But then as we were leaving their house at about 8:15, we hadn't even made out of the driveway when the GPS died. And all of the sudden we were out in the middle of the country, with no idea how to get home and it was getting dark. We could have asked them for directions but we felt pretty confident that we could find our way back on our own. 

And it was really interesting as we went along, because now we were really being guided by the Holy Ghost. And each of us would remember different things along the way that would help us know when to turn, and that we were on the right road. It was a much more stressful ride than the first one, we didn't really have time to talk or enjoy the beautiful country around us, because we had to be completely focused on where we were going and finding the right roads. As I thought about it, I realized that our ride home must be what it's like to not have the gift of the Holy Ghost. We knew our end destination but we had no idea how to get there, and so we had to rely on occasional landmarks and street signs to help us know where to go. And the only reason we could see those landmarks and signs was because of the sunlight, which is like the light of Christ, which every person on the earth has. It was much nicer to have the GPS, there was a lot less worry and a lot less stress, and a lot more time to just enjoy the ride. So I'm grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost, which helps me to have so much more peace and guidance in my life.

Sisters at the Camden courthouse

At the local stockade

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