Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Work Goes On

We had a great week, except for one particular incident. But, as always, the work goes on.

Unfortunately, we have to pass Rita to the Mandarin Elders. Hopefully she makes some progress. She's great but just stuck on a couple of the commandments.


Brandon is amazing! He is going to be baptized on Saturday! It is so wonderful to have someone so excited and ready to join the Church. We're going to be seeing him tonight, so we'll be able to keep that up. He actually went from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day to quitting cold turkey. It shows what the gospel can do with someone who really has faith in it.

Yuni is ALSO getting baptized on Saturday. We finished up teaching the commandments with her, and we were going to schedule it for next week, but she asked if she could just be baptized on Saturday. So, we had her baptismal interview and it all worked out! It is going to be a blast!
We set quite a few baptism dates! Elder Ng-Woon was gone for a couple of days, so President Clark went with me for our appointment with Ethel. We taught her from lesson three, answered her questions, and committed her to be baptized! It was a little surprising that she accepted! I did not have enough faith, but the Lord does work miracles in the hearts of His children as they search sincerely. We had her over at the Clark's after Church on Sunday and helped resolve her concerns. Unfortunately, she's been anti-ed pretty badly over the past few days, so we're working on picking up on it. It should be good. She's still willing to meet.

Church was great because we had a whole bunch of member referrals and surprise investigators turn up! It is good to have the members helping. That is the ONLY way that the work can truly go forth. It was a nice end to the week.

Rhea is a member's helper who has a sister who is also LDS. We met with her on Monday and had a wonderful lesson with her, where she also accepted a baptism date. It has been a blessing to meet some prepared people. Well be able to make the baptism goal for the mission two months on a row! And in Singapore! Well, no credit to us. Heavenly Father was kind enough to place His prepared children in our path.

On the way to Rhea's appointment, we were talking to people on the MRT. Along the way, I noticed staring at us. She got off at the same stop, so I started talking to her as we were going down the escalator. During that short conversation, she talked about how she really wanted to understand Christianity more. She noted that she was a flight attendant, and would be flying off soon, so I suggested that we meet her when she got back. She gave her contact information, and then asked "Can we meet tomorrow?" Was I shocked! I couldn't find any time in our schedule, so I asked if we could just meet her then, to which she said yes! We pushed our appointment to a later time, then sat down, and taught her the first lesson. She absorbed it, stating that she had been having a hard time the last few days, and she felt that we were an answer to her prayers. We set up a time to meet again the next day after rearranging her schedule.

And then it happened. We met with her and a member at the MRT stop by her house, and found a place nearby to sit down. Had all the niceties, then said a prayer. As we were about to say the prayer, I saw a woman walking by staring at us, thought nothing about it. As we finished the prayer, the same woman came up and grabbed our investigators drink, flinging it to the ground. She walked away. It was a pretty big shock. But then, she came back a few seconds later and started screaming at us to leave, that The Book of Mormon was goodness knows what, that we better not utter the name of Christ, and that we should leave. It scared me, well, all of us really bad. We walked away, with her still screaming that we better not smiling or anything. It was a scary experience. We went up to the food court to continue, though I think it was awhile before we could calm down.

The rest of the lesson went amazing still though. She accepted a baptism date, the rest of what we taught, committed to doing her best to follow the Word of Wisdom, and to read and pray. She'll be in London this weekend, so we got her to commit to meeting with the missionaries there, and set up an appointment for her. She is golden, in every sense of the word.

I was talking to some other people about what had happened later on, and two thoughts occurred to me. One, that the adversary was working very hard to shake Pamela, and two, that the Savior really suffered throughout the whole course of the Atonement. She is a great investigator, and I guess the adversary was doing his best to scare her. It was not a pleasant experience. That woman did not have good in her eyes.

The good that came out from it was the lesson that I learned about the Savior's Atonement. For once, I understood in a sense how it must have felt for Him when He walked down the via dolorosa, along with His trial and the accusations yelled at Him. Those people hated Him, and yet He pressed on. I in no way went through anything close to what He had to, but it was a shocking reminder that the Savior died for me, and He had to suffer in a way that we cannot comprehend. I don't think I can fully express in words how I felt, but I am grateful that I am more mindful of it now.

All is well now. As I said at the beginning, the work goes on, and it will.

-Elder Chua

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