It has been a Miracle Week here in the Hamilton Mill ward. We've certainly worked harder than ever, and the Lord has blessed us for our efforts. We have taught R***** a lot this week. Twice with all of his and his fiance's kids there. He's a good, good man. And he will be an incredible priesthood addition to this ward. We have set a date for his baptism and it is January 25th. A week after he and Lorri get married.
So, ready for some more miracles?
This week we had interviews and we had it at a beautiful waterfall called Amicola Falls. While there a recent convert from a ward next to us gave us 2 referrals. One, a less active seminary teacher friend of hers who now drinks and smokes. Second, her son who lives with her ex-husband who says he wants to be baptized. We visited them and the boy wasn't home but the dad was and he's willing to allow us to come over and teach he and his son.
Another miracle: I survived our 50+ mile week of hilly terrain. I've been so so tired, we really have worked our tails off.
Back to spiritual matters. Saturday we met with an past investigator who was never really dropped, but we just didn't get to him when the ward split. His name is R****, he's retired and lives by himself, but he knows his Bible. He actually teaches Bible study classes on various topics and is super nice. He's kinda open minded; he really likes to just talk about our common beliefs and he actually explained to me a lot of what Baptist churches believe, where they come from and he even offered to take us with him to his Bible study classes. He's a Church of God member, but I think we have a good fellowshipper for him. His name is Brother Smith.
A little background on Brother Smith, he was raised in the RLDS religion, he wasn't super active but eventually he started exploring the church and for a long time really really knew more about our church than most members. Well, guess who his great, great grandfather is? That's right Joseph Smith Jr. Anyway, we're excited to take him over there and to hopefully get Ralph to sincerely read and pray about the Book of Mormon.
Well, we got a referral this week from headquarters and the referral said this: M*** - requested: Missionary visits.... he wants to be baptized. Well, we got in contact with him asap and were able to go over there yesterday. It was truly the most remarkable experience of my mission. M*** has been in the army since he was 18, he's 26 now, and he's grown up around members his entire life. He's grown up a 7th day Adventist and his drunk father came in half-way threw the lesson and tried to get me to "convince" him about why we worship on Sunday and not Saturday. Well, not only was he totally drunk, he was actually proving my point of: by their fruits ye shall know them. Anyway, once he left us alone we continued discussing and come to find out that M*** has his own leather bound quad! I mean this is truly the Lord's elect. Well, needless to say the spirit was strong and he has a baptismal date for October 31st. I know, that's incredible quick, but this man has been searching for truth and is so dedicated to living the religion already that we could not deny that the spirit had us set such an early date.
So a week of miracles and beautiful Georgian pictures. Probably the most incredible week of my mission thus far. Well, last night we got calls about transfers. They were going through all of the other districts in our Zone and then they came to us: Gainsville Distirct: Elder Johnson, Elder Campbell and Elder Davies, you're leaving. What!!! I absolutely love this ward. We have just got the ball rolling, just like we had in Lilburn (3 baptisms, maybe 4 there have either happened or are planned from people we had contacted) and now I'm being ripped from the people who I would bike to the ends of the earth for! Well, I don't know where I'm serving, President has asked me to serve as a District Leader and to be honest family, I'm pretty scared.
My knowledge that the Lord lives today, just as he did in Jerusalem is at the up most assurance that it has ever been. It is him in whom I trust, he is my Savior, our Savior and the Savior of all the spirits who dwelt with God. No doubt in my mind there have been angels pushing my pedals over these mountains. The Lord has blessed me with one angel whom I have missed dearly and thought of often in the short four and half months I've been gone. I can stand still and say with the strings of my heart and conscience that He Lives.
I'm sorry to change up the pace on you from my more humorous weeks, but I wished to share that with you. For all of your love and support, I thank you. You are my most prized posses ions,
I love you,
Elder Davies
Monday, October 12, 2009
October 5, 2009
What a joy it is to write you in light of the recent General Conference. It was a very interesting few days as I spent much of it at members homes eating their food, relaxing on their couch and treasuring the words of the Lord through his prophets and apostles. A little missionary heaven break. Before I get to conference let me give you a little recap of this week:
On Wednesday, we had an incredible lesson with R***** about the Plan of Salvation. We went up to the Atonement and didn't talk about death or anything after that. But it was a very spirit filled lesson. He's really starting to feel comfortable with us and ask us questions.... always a good thing. We hope he had a good experience at conference this weekend and that he felt the spirit strongly.
We then biked about 15 miles to our dinner appointment with a less-active/ part-member home. The husband is an incredible chef and we had some good shrimp scampi. We played UNO with the 11 year old and gained his trust. For some reason he has a bad misconception at what Mormons are all about, he's obviously watched WAY too much t.v. Well, we'll try to clear that up and get him and his mom back to church.
The next day we contacted some former investigators and such. We contacted a lady named M*****, she came to the open house that we had a few weeks ago and we finally got in and talked to her. She's an active Baptist, but funnily enough she has defended our church as not being a cult in her former church. She's great, open-minded and long winded... she talked to us for 2 hours! Even when after an hour we told her we needed to go. Well, she doesn't think she can change but she has said she'll read and pray about the Book of Mormon (little does she know the change that that can make!). We also met a man who had formerly investigated the church, and on the records there was no indication to why he had stopped being visited. So we stopped by, and he came outside and I could just tell that he was miserable. He's going through a divorce right now, has 4 kids under the age of 10... I think and is just so sad. We quickly bore him our testimony about the Book of Mormon. The way it can help change your life and told him we'd come back a different day. Our hope is that we can get the ward in there and have them just wrap their arms around him and help him out! That will be a project we'll be shooting to make happen this week.
As for conference. I was in heaven. I loved every minute of it! Favorite talks include: Elder Scott, Elder Oaks, Elder Ballard and of course: Elder Holland! I loved it all a lot!
Well, family I love you. I'm trying to help a man fill out a job application for a trucking company. Hopefully the Book of Mormon in my hand will be his... wish me luck!
Love,
Elder T. Davies
On Wednesday, we had an incredible lesson with R***** about the Plan of Salvation. We went up to the Atonement and didn't talk about death or anything after that. But it was a very spirit filled lesson. He's really starting to feel comfortable with us and ask us questions.... always a good thing. We hope he had a good experience at conference this weekend and that he felt the spirit strongly.
We then biked about 15 miles to our dinner appointment with a less-active/ part-member home. The husband is an incredible chef and we had some good shrimp scampi. We played UNO with the 11 year old and gained his trust. For some reason he has a bad misconception at what Mormons are all about, he's obviously watched WAY too much t.v. Well, we'll try to clear that up and get him and his mom back to church.
The next day we contacted some former investigators and such. We contacted a lady named M*****, she came to the open house that we had a few weeks ago and we finally got in and talked to her. She's an active Baptist, but funnily enough she has defended our church as not being a cult in her former church. She's great, open-minded and long winded... she talked to us for 2 hours! Even when after an hour we told her we needed to go. Well, she doesn't think she can change but she has said she'll read and pray about the Book of Mormon (little does she know the change that that can make!). We also met a man who had formerly investigated the church, and on the records there was no indication to why he had stopped being visited. So we stopped by, and he came outside and I could just tell that he was miserable. He's going through a divorce right now, has 4 kids under the age of 10... I think and is just so sad. We quickly bore him our testimony about the Book of Mormon. The way it can help change your life and told him we'd come back a different day. Our hope is that we can get the ward in there and have them just wrap their arms around him and help him out! That will be a project we'll be shooting to make happen this week.
As for conference. I was in heaven. I loved every minute of it! Favorite talks include: Elder Scott, Elder Oaks, Elder Ballard and of course: Elder Holland! I loved it all a lot!
Well, family I love you. I'm trying to help a man fill out a job application for a trucking company. Hopefully the Book of Mormon in my hand will be his... wish me luck!
Love,
Elder T. Davies
September 28, 2009
First off, I apologize for my understatement last week. I guess we've been having record rains and parts of Atlanta (the interstate on the west side being one of them) are flooding like crazy. Rest assured, we're safe here in Hall/Northern Gwinett county. It's kinda funny, the flooding seems to be mostly just outside our mission boundaries. Which is unfortunate, because we haven't been able to help with the clean-up. However I know that there were several hundred members from some of the surrounding stakes (Sugar Hill, which is mine, included). From what I hear the clean-up was not very well organized and our ward members only ran into one man who would absolutely not let 'Mormons' on his property...even to help him clean out his flooded house. The other interesting report is that there were a fair amount of Jehovah's Witnesses there too! I think that's great, in fact, the other day Elder Christensen and I shared a bathroom with a Jehovah's Witness, he was very nice and very friendly to us.
So.... on to this week's events. We had a very good week. We've identified several part-member families who we'll be trying to get in, serve and gain the trust of in the following week. We're hoping to get them back to church, or at least find a friend in the ward for them. No new investigators this week, but we're finding a lot of Potential Investigators. For some reason all of the Potential Investigators seem to be younger kids. I'm talking that with Part-member families and such there's like 4 or 5 11 year olds that we may have as investigators, it's kinda cool, I'm really learning how to teach simply. (Ask Jordan about John Taylor quote in Ch. 10 of PMG... I'm striving for "true intelligence" as my name-sake has defined it). One such 11 year old is from a Less-Active/Part-Member family. He was super super cold to us when we first met him and wouldn't even really come out and say a prayer with us. So we brought it up in District Meeting and the idea was suggested that we go over and have like a family home evening/game night! We suggested the idea to him and he was super excited, I have to make sure to buy UNO today, he really wanted it. Now the trick is to: 1) Get his mom and his brothers and sisters and HIM to church. 2) Get her to stop smoking and 3) Get the dad to be home so we can teach him too!
R***** S***** is the man who showed up to church on Sunday last week. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. He accepted everything (I'm not completely sure how much he understood) and has even accepted to be baptized as he comes to know that these things are true! We tried to set a date for the second or third weekend in October but we ran into a catch. The lady/member who we thought was his wife is actually is fiance. So, they have to get married before we can actually baptize him and they're not planning on that until January! So we're hoping that either he'll have a spiritual experience at Conference that will convince him to move it up sooner OR he'll move out and live with his mother who's just down the street. Either way, it is in the Lord's hands and that's how it should be!
I really love this ward, and we're starting to get them more PMG and more involved. One great man in our ward has brought this man and his girlfriend to church!
PAUSE! I just had an incredible experience. So while I've been sitting here typing the guy right across from me has been staring at me. I figured, we'll he doesn't like Mormons and nothing's new. Well, he just came over, asked me what church I was from and asked me if we attend other churches. I told him "Of course we do" Well, he invited me to his church which is a United Methodist Church and I, knowing beforehand that he was going to at least ask me something, had pulled out an Article of Faith pass along card and handed it to him, he said he'd look for me at church. I'm super excited if it doesn't conflict with our time at all and it's a great Building Bridges experience. Something that we're stressing in the ward is to 'Build Bridges' we're reminding people that it's not about converting people, it's about inviting people. It doesn't matter if they come as long as you sincerely and thoughtfully pray and think of people that you can invite to any church function. Anyway, his name was Reverend Scott, he's retired now, and they have a woman pastor. They aren't meeting until Oct. 25th so I'll let you know on the 26th how it went. I'm excited... and a bit nervous.
Back to the story. This couple who's been coming to church has been going through some really rough times. He lost his job and they lost their house and they've been living out of a tent in the woods. Some guys from the ward have been finding odd-jobs around the house that they can pay him for doing. We're hoping that maybe we can teach him sometime this week. We'll see.
I love you all, just as I love Joshua's council to the children of Israel right before he passes away... "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." By the way did you know his father was a Nun? (Okay, so not really, but that was his name... pretty cool huh!)
With greatest love that binds my heartstrings,
Elder Taylor Davies
So.... on to this week's events. We had a very good week. We've identified several part-member families who we'll be trying to get in, serve and gain the trust of in the following week. We're hoping to get them back to church, or at least find a friend in the ward for them. No new investigators this week, but we're finding a lot of Potential Investigators. For some reason all of the Potential Investigators seem to be younger kids. I'm talking that with Part-member families and such there's like 4 or 5 11 year olds that we may have as investigators, it's kinda cool, I'm really learning how to teach simply. (Ask Jordan about John Taylor quote in Ch. 10 of PMG... I'm striving for "true intelligence" as my name-sake has defined it). One such 11 year old is from a Less-Active/Part-Member family. He was super super cold to us when we first met him and wouldn't even really come out and say a prayer with us. So we brought it up in District Meeting and the idea was suggested that we go over and have like a family home evening/game night! We suggested the idea to him and he was super excited, I have to make sure to buy UNO today, he really wanted it. Now the trick is to: 1) Get his mom and his brothers and sisters and HIM to church. 2) Get her to stop smoking and 3) Get the dad to be home so we can teach him too!
R***** S***** is the man who showed up to church on Sunday last week. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. He accepted everything (I'm not completely sure how much he understood) and has even accepted to be baptized as he comes to know that these things are true! We tried to set a date for the second or third weekend in October but we ran into a catch. The lady/member who we thought was his wife is actually is fiance. So, they have to get married before we can actually baptize him and they're not planning on that until January! So we're hoping that either he'll have a spiritual experience at Conference that will convince him to move it up sooner OR he'll move out and live with his mother who's just down the street. Either way, it is in the Lord's hands and that's how it should be!
I really love this ward, and we're starting to get them more PMG and more involved. One great man in our ward has brought this man and his girlfriend to church!
PAUSE! I just had an incredible experience. So while I've been sitting here typing the guy right across from me has been staring at me. I figured, we'll he doesn't like Mormons and nothing's new. Well, he just came over, asked me what church I was from and asked me if we attend other churches. I told him "Of course we do" Well, he invited me to his church which is a United Methodist Church and I, knowing beforehand that he was going to at least ask me something, had pulled out an Article of Faith pass along card and handed it to him, he said he'd look for me at church. I'm super excited if it doesn't conflict with our time at all and it's a great Building Bridges experience. Something that we're stressing in the ward is to 'Build Bridges' we're reminding people that it's not about converting people, it's about inviting people. It doesn't matter if they come as long as you sincerely and thoughtfully pray and think of people that you can invite to any church function. Anyway, his name was Reverend Scott, he's retired now, and they have a woman pastor. They aren't meeting until Oct. 25th so I'll let you know on the 26th how it went. I'm excited... and a bit nervous.
Back to the story. This couple who's been coming to church has been going through some really rough times. He lost his job and they lost their house and they've been living out of a tent in the woods. Some guys from the ward have been finding odd-jobs around the house that they can pay him for doing. We're hoping that maybe we can teach him sometime this week. We'll see.
I love you all, just as I love Joshua's council to the children of Israel right before he passes away... "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." By the way did you know his father was a Nun? (Okay, so not really, but that was his name... pretty cool huh!)
With greatest love that binds my heartstrings,
Elder Taylor Davies
September 21, 2009
Well, it's been wet here in Georgia, very wet! But the Lord has continued to bless us with miracles. We haven't been almost hit by any cars or fallen into thorny bushes. But we've had some of the best authentic Southern food I've had thus far. I've had fried okra twice! Cornbread twice, Country fried steak, and chicken and dumplings. Along with a Giada Delorentes meal at a members house. It was like the pot roast pasta... so good! Work was good, I continue to love reading the scriptures and even the Old Testament is making a little bit of sense to me. We have a new investigator who came to church with his wife and he's a super nice guy! We're really connecting with this ward and they're starting to trust us with bringing people to church and the bishop really trusts us, which will just help the work progress like crazy! I know I shouldn't say this, because saying so will curse me but, I really hope I get to stay in this ward with this companion for at least one more transfer, I wouldn't even mind until Christmas to be honest! There's great work going on here.
Love,
Elder Davies
Love,
Elder Davies
September 14, 2009
I'm loving my bike, kinda. Its fulfilling but also harder to get up in the morning. Wednesday night we rode to the church (about 5 miles away) and it was drizzling when we left, but we were moving pretty quick, just because I knew it would get worse... and it did! By the time we were a mile away from the church it was a complete Georgia downpour! I couldn't see anything and rode by faith for the next mile, just hoping to live to see our new church building. I was singing hymns whenever I wasn't out of breath. We arrived at the church completely soaked and lo and behold, they canceled the mutual activity of going out and passing out invitations to the Open House, so we taught a lesson about Christlike attributes, choosing NOW what kind of person you want to be and making NON-NEGOTIABLES that will help you get there... so maybe some of it I stole from mom, but it ended up being a good experience for all.
Well, Thursday night, we rode home from the church after a long day of giving our invitations and I was riding in back because I still didn't have a light for the front of my bike. Well, Elder Christensen was about 50 feet in front when we were coming to a T intersection. A car was coming to a stop sign about 30 feet in front of him, it seemed to be slowing down, but then I saw him swerving his handlebars so to shine his light in their eye and then he hit on his brakes as they pulled out feet in front of him. To my great enjoyment, he raised his fist and shouted 'You SON OF PERDITION"
They stopped and apologized, the lady driving said she didn't see him and I was trying to hard to contain my laughter that I didn't get much in. Well, needless to say I was joking around with him the rest of the way home, so proud that he actually said it (we'd been joking around about doing that if something like that ever happened... it's from a J. Golden Kimball talk... Oh by the way, I love talks on CD) when we were just about home. Now, I've been told that karma isn't necessarily a point of the gospel, but after that night, I've gained a testimony. We were cutting through some parking lots and going up this little dirt path about 8 feet long and at a 60 degree angle, so I was building up some speed to get up it quick and it style, just like I've always done. I let Elder Christensen go first and then took my ascent, well, like I said it was dark and I didn't have a light yet, as I was about halfway up I hit a tree root and immediately was stopped and as I was there, just hanging in mid-air I fell to my right into a thorny bush. I laid there for a few seconds and then realized my foot was caught under the bike so I calmly called to Elder Christensen "Hey, Elder, I would get myself out of here, but my bike's on my foot, could you lift if up for me?" He did so I brushed off the thorns and couldn't help but think that what goes around comes around.
Moral of the Story: Love your bike or it will find ways to love you!
Well, we had an Open House for our new ward building and it was great. I actually had to sing a Prelude of Nearer My God to Thee, and it was a good success. There were abut 30-40 non-members who showed up and we were able to talk to a few people who may become investigators of the church. One lady was a former baptist who stood up for us to her Sunday School teacher and said "Have you ever read the Book of Mormon? Then how can you judge it?" I'm pretty sure she falls under the elect category, but it is harder to get older people to change... so we'll see. That night we had a fireside with Dale and Nancy Murphy, it was sooooooo cool. He's a super nice guy and he reminds me of Uncle Dave Checketts in a ton of ways.
On Sunday, Sister Harlow, our ward organist and former member of MOTAB sang a solo and it was absolutely gorgeous. Then after church we had the baptism of Nathan Harris. It was a great experience and we hope to strengthen that family in the gospel.
Love,
Elder Davies
Well, Thursday night, we rode home from the church after a long day of giving our invitations and I was riding in back because I still didn't have a light for the front of my bike. Well, Elder Christensen was about 50 feet in front when we were coming to a T intersection. A car was coming to a stop sign about 30 feet in front of him, it seemed to be slowing down, but then I saw him swerving his handlebars so to shine his light in their eye and then he hit on his brakes as they pulled out feet in front of him. To my great enjoyment, he raised his fist and shouted 'You SON OF PERDITION"
They stopped and apologized, the lady driving said she didn't see him and I was trying to hard to contain my laughter that I didn't get much in. Well, needless to say I was joking around with him the rest of the way home, so proud that he actually said it (we'd been joking around about doing that if something like that ever happened... it's from a J. Golden Kimball talk... Oh by the way, I love talks on CD) when we were just about home. Now, I've been told that karma isn't necessarily a point of the gospel, but after that night, I've gained a testimony. We were cutting through some parking lots and going up this little dirt path about 8 feet long and at a 60 degree angle, so I was building up some speed to get up it quick and it style, just like I've always done. I let Elder Christensen go first and then took my ascent, well, like I said it was dark and I didn't have a light yet, as I was about halfway up I hit a tree root and immediately was stopped and as I was there, just hanging in mid-air I fell to my right into a thorny bush. I laid there for a few seconds and then realized my foot was caught under the bike so I calmly called to Elder Christensen "Hey, Elder, I would get myself out of here, but my bike's on my foot, could you lift if up for me?" He did so I brushed off the thorns and couldn't help but think that what goes around comes around.
Moral of the Story: Love your bike or it will find ways to love you!
Well, we had an Open House for our new ward building and it was great. I actually had to sing a Prelude of Nearer My God to Thee, and it was a good success. There were abut 30-40 non-members who showed up and we were able to talk to a few people who may become investigators of the church. One lady was a former baptist who stood up for us to her Sunday School teacher and said "Have you ever read the Book of Mormon? Then how can you judge it?" I'm pretty sure she falls under the elect category, but it is harder to get older people to change... so we'll see. That night we had a fireside with Dale and Nancy Murphy, it was sooooooo cool. He's a super nice guy and he reminds me of Uncle Dave Checketts in a ton of ways.
On Sunday, Sister Harlow, our ward organist and former member of MOTAB sang a solo and it was absolutely gorgeous. Then after church we had the baptism of Nathan Harris. It was a great experience and we hope to strengthen that family in the gospel.
Love,
Elder Davies
September 8, 2009
Elder Hunsaker is now over in Roswell and my new companion is Elder Christensen. He's been out 10 months, but graduated in 2006, and is from Cedar Hills, UT. He's a great missionary, very kind and in touch with the spirit. I love him AND like him, I think we'll have a productive transfer. Well, we got two new Spanish Elders in our apartment and they now have our car! That's right, I'm finally on bike, hence a sore bum. Because the Spanish have more room to cover they have our car and we are working up a sweat on the narrow Georgia shoulder. I actually do love my bike though, it's hard in the morning to get motivated to jump on, but it does feel good at night to come home and feel the burn of your legs knowing you've had a good days work. Thursday and Friday we didn't do too much biking, but Saturday, we biked a good 25 miler day... I was pooped. I know Georgia is pretty flat, but my legs would say otherwise.
We had some great dinners this week, and were fed twice on Sunday. But I am still always hungry, probably from all the biking. My new thing is grilled cheese sandwiches and Nesquick.
Well, I love you all so so much. I love this work and pray every day that the Lord will continue to do what he sees fit to refine me, smooth out the rough edges and help make me an even better servant. I just want to please my father.
With love,
Elder Georgia Davies
We had some great dinners this week, and were fed twice on Sunday. But I am still always hungry, probably from all the biking. My new thing is grilled cheese sandwiches and Nesquick.
Well, I love you all so so much. I love this work and pray every day that the Lord will continue to do what he sees fit to refine me, smooth out the rough edges and help make me an even better servant. I just want to please my father.
With love,
Elder Georgia Davies
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