Dear Family,
Hello, Hello! So transfers are tomorrow and both Sister Reeves and I are staying. YAY! We have way too much going on here for one of us to leave. So we have been teaching this investigator, Deanna, for a long time and she hasn’t really been going anywhere. We have been planning on dropping her for a while because she never reads the Book of Mormon and she always bails when we get her a ride for church. Deanna ordered a Lamb of God DVD almost a year ago and missionaries visited her once, but she missed her return appointment and she never heard from them again. We went and followed up and started teaching her. At first she was attending another church and was planning on being baptized there. But a few weeks ago she decided she had enough of that church and the preacher always preaching about the church being a church of prosperity and condemning people for not putting enough money on the collection plate. And she didn’t like having to pay for his new jag. So this Sunday she came to church with us. And she loved it! She told us she can’t wait for next Sunday and she hasn’t felt that good in a long time. And she was noticeably different, she seemed much happier. And a few months ago we had asked her if she would stop smoking and she told us no way, yesterday she told us she wants to quit and we are going to teach her the stop smoking workshop tomorrow. Deanna has had a rough life, about 10 years ago she had a brain aneurisms, and the hospital didn’t take care of it right and she can barely walk and cannot use her left arm. She also has depression. One time when we were teaching her, I thought “There is no way she’ll be able to make all the changes, it’s too hard for her.” Then I felt the Spirit reprimand me and tell me that the Atonement is for everyone and if she needs to change it is possible. We were going to drop her that day but it didn’t feel right, so I decided that if God didn’t want us to drop her then we better step it up and get her progressing. So we told we would come help her so she could find time to read the Book of Mormon. Yesterday, we went and helped her clean out her closet. Oh by the way, Deanna is a crazy cat lady! She has 8 cats in her tiny two bedroom apartment and she spoils them! (people around here are crazy about cats, I’ve never seen so many cats, it’s disgusting, I’m actually starting to dislike cats!) We had to clean out cat poop and pee in her closet because one cat had decided to quit using the litter box. There is cat hair all over everything. Then we took some boxes with us to donate but we couldn’t drop them off until this morning, so all day yesterday our car reeked like smoke because of those boxes! The things we do for people! We also taught Mara this week. Before we started teaching she told us she believed in Reincarnation because how else would people who never had a chance to hear about Christ be able to hear about Him. Haha. So we taught her the Plan of Salvation. She said she was so surprised by how much sense it made and how true it was. It was so great. It was like something you only hear in stories or see in the movies. She is so Golden. I don’t think she gets the whole committed thing yet though, because she keeps disappearing. She said she was going to be at church and she didn’t come and she never answers her phone or returns messages so we have no idea why. It’s okay we’ll keep with her and eventually she’ll understand the importance of all this. We taught Paula (the lady who collects trolls) and she told us last week that she wants to be baptized. YAY! She wasn’t comfortable setting a date yet though. She is a retired kindergarten teacher, and she knows a lot of the members. And everyone keeps coming up to us and being like “is that Ms. Dolog, are my eyes deceiving me?” or “What is Ms. Dolog doing here?” They are totally amazed when we tell them she is going to be baptized. I guess there are some wild rumors about her. No idea what they are or if they are true, but anyone can change! We had some interesting tracting experiences. We tracted into Carla last Sunday, and gave her a Book of Mormon, and when we went back this Sunday, she had read the whole thing! But when we taught her the Restoration and invited her to be baptized she told us she had already been baptized, and when we asked her if this was God’s church would she join it, she told us she already had her own church. I don’t think she quite understands, but she did say she would pray about the Book of Mormon, so we’ll keep trying. We also tracted into an elderly lady named Clarice. She invited us in and said that her son was a Mormon and 3 of her grandsons have been on missions. We asked if she had ever read the Book of Mormon, and she said yes and she believed it was true, and she said she also believed Joseph Smith was a prophet. We asked her if she would like to be baptized and she said “Well, I would want my grandson to do it.” Haha Wow! Okay! It seemed a little weird that she hadn’t been baptized yet, but we are going back this week to teach her so we’ll see. Haha, all the funny and weird and miraculous experiences you have on a mission! And all these experiences along with the hard stuff have been an invaluable lesson for me. The things I am learning have blessed me so much. I look back and realized that my testimony was nothing before my mission. I know now that the Gospel has been restored, that the Gospel will solve any problem and answer any question. I know that Joseph Smith was called of God and how blessed we are to have a Prophet today. I love listening to conference and I devour the Ensign every month, the words from the Prophet and Apostles are from God and just bring so much peace and answers. I have seen over and over again that God really does answer prayers. Jesus Christ is our Savior and He showed us the way. From all the things I have seen, I have a strong testimony of being obedient to the commandments. The only reason to disobey is because of selfishness. We give up so many blessings when we disobey and for what? A few minutes of self-gratification. Are those few minutes really worth giving up eternal happiness? Most importantly I have gained a relationship with my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and I have felt their love through the Holy Ghost. As we obey, we have the Spirit more with us, and through the Spirit we get a taste of the eternal joy and happiness God wants to give us. I love being a missionary! And I love all of you!!Have a wonderful week! Hope you all enjoy going back to school!
Love, Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
What an Attitude
Dear Family,
So this last week was a little rough. We hardly saw any of our investigators, they either were out of town or really busy. We did A LOT of tracting and it was unbearably hot this week. The humidity is insane. I’ve never been so sweaty in my life! It’s been in the 90s all week. Everyone has been telling us that we’ve had a mild summer, and now I know what they mean because I guess usually it’s like this all summer. Man, I’m really counting my blessings that it hasn’t been this hot the whole summer. This week was kind of disappointing because our most promising investigators didn’t meet with us. I told you about Mara and Michael, who both were committed for baptism on the first lesson, and we haven’t seen them since. Michael I guess was really busy working and he wasn’t returning our phone calls. Mara just disappeared. We thought she was avoiding us and we were really sad. But then last night we dropped by and found out she took off to New Jersey without any notice because her Grandpa had to have surgery. So Sunday night I was feeling really bummed thinking about all the people we hadn’t seen, thinking that Mara was avoiding us, and that we had spent a whole week tracting and seen very little results. But then today, we found Mara again, we have a full week scheduled, and I started looking at all the potentials we found from tracting and we actually have several. And I felt a little ashamed that I had been so grumpy and discouraged and doubting. It’s the hard stuff that tests your faith, and you successfully pass the test when you keep going with a good attitude and then God blesses you. Thankfully, God still blessed me for keeping going despite my bad attitude. I think part of my bad attitude was because we tracted several rich neighborhoods this week. And what’s up with these rich people anyways, they were kind of rude and they wouldn’t listen to us at all! Some were nice, but others were very cold. So we have officially crossed out all the rich neighborhoods. So last Tuesday, we had about 15 minutes to kill before our next appointment and so we decided to go tracting. Well by the time we found a place to go, parked, and got out of the car, we only had time to knock on one door. We went to an apartment complex and knocked on #2. A guy answered the door, but I couldn’t see him at all because it was dark in the apartment and in the hallway. So I was started into a tracting approach, but it was really awkward because I couldn’t see his face. I asked if he wanted to learn more and he said yeah, let’s step outside. We started talking to him and he was really happy we weren’t Jehovah Witnesses. We told him a little about the Book of Mormon, and he didn’t seem too interested, but he reluctantly took the book. We went back on Friday, and he had read the Book of Mormon and it had really interested him, so he had gotten on the internet and did some research. We had a nice, long talk with him. He is so great! He’s not really into any organized religion, he doesn’t feel it’s for him and he doesn’t really read the Bible, he says it’s missing a lot. He says he thinks about things and wow a lot of what he has figured out is very close to what we believe. He says he goes a lot by how he feels (he won’t call it the Holy Ghost, but that’s definitely what it is). He seemed way interested and said he wanted to do more research. He said we could come back but he said “not too often.” We tried to set a time but he wouldn’t, he said just whenever his name comes to our mind. Ha ha. (that would be like everyday) He’s different than any one else I’ve met. I really hope he keeps meeting with us. We meet with Tom and Kim. And they are moving!! Bummer. Tom is leaving in about 2 weeks to work in Charleston for the next 4 months (he’s in the painter’s union and can get assigned to work all over). And then they are moving back to Kim’s home town up by Wheeling (which is out of our mission), they aren’t sure when yet. Sad. We had a good lesson with them though. Tom brought up something that has been eating him for about 3 weeks now since we taught the Word of Wisdom, he feels like we are judging him by saying that he has to stop smoking before he can be baptized. So we explained what baptism is and why we must repent before. I think it helped, but he’s still concerned about it. Well then we taught the Law of Chastity. Talk about terrifying, he already has big concerns and now we’re telling them they need to get married! But we really felt we needed to tell them they needed to get married and soon. They seemed to take it okay, but we’ll see when we go back. Kim seemed happier about it, she thanked us afterwards. I think she wants to get married, Tom it just holding it up. And I also think that Kim knows this is true and wants to be baptized, she’s just waiting for Tom. But they did say they wanted missionaries to visit them when they move, and Tom said that someday he would be a Mormon, we’re just holding him up because he smokes! Ha ha. So on Wednesday Sister Reeves and I got asked to talk in church. We weren’t given a topic though, they said just pick something we thought our investigators might need to hear. Oh Man! I have no idea what they need to hear, if I knew we would teach them in our lessons! And the next morning before my personal study I prayed to know what to speak on. I then opened the Book of Mormon to read, really hoping I would find a topic during my reading, I read in 2 Nephi were it talks about the Book of Mormon coming forth. Well after my study I still hadn’t picked a topic. Later that day I was starting to stress about it because I needed to get writing my talk. And it hit me, I should talk about the Book of Mormon! And I realized that my prayer was answered that morning. I was reading in the Book of Mormon about the Book of Mormon! I didn’t recognized my answer. Thankfully God is patient with us and told me again! So the talk went great, I was a little nervous because we both had 20 minutes to fill because all the other people who were supposed to speak bailed. But it went great! And one of our investigators, Lois, came! And we did not expect her to come at all! Because she usually doesn’t come even when she says she will. It was so great!! Anyways that’s my story about how any question you have can be answered by the Book of Mormon. But don’t forget to listen for the promptings of the Spirit! Well there isn’t much else that happened, just a lot of sweaty tracting. We are still praying like crazy for Martha. I can’t believe how sick she is! She throws up every day and has diarrhea all day every day for the last few months. She is wasting away, she’s lost about 10 pounds in the last few months. And she stresses about everything. She stressed about her finances, and then when the church helps her, she stresses about how to repay them and about not liking to ask for help, and how people think she is a lazy bum, and how helpless she is. She has some emotional issues that come from abuse from her ex-husband. (I could strangle that man, that’s not Christlike I know, I should work on it) He made her feel like she was worthless. We are getting her some counseling.Well, love you all tons and tons. Have a safe harvest!! Love, Sister Nicole Polatis
So this last week was a little rough. We hardly saw any of our investigators, they either were out of town or really busy. We did A LOT of tracting and it was unbearably hot this week. The humidity is insane. I’ve never been so sweaty in my life! It’s been in the 90s all week. Everyone has been telling us that we’ve had a mild summer, and now I know what they mean because I guess usually it’s like this all summer. Man, I’m really counting my blessings that it hasn’t been this hot the whole summer. This week was kind of disappointing because our most promising investigators didn’t meet with us. I told you about Mara and Michael, who both were committed for baptism on the first lesson, and we haven’t seen them since. Michael I guess was really busy working and he wasn’t returning our phone calls. Mara just disappeared. We thought she was avoiding us and we were really sad. But then last night we dropped by and found out she took off to New Jersey without any notice because her Grandpa had to have surgery. So Sunday night I was feeling really bummed thinking about all the people we hadn’t seen, thinking that Mara was avoiding us, and that we had spent a whole week tracting and seen very little results. But then today, we found Mara again, we have a full week scheduled, and I started looking at all the potentials we found from tracting and we actually have several. And I felt a little ashamed that I had been so grumpy and discouraged and doubting. It’s the hard stuff that tests your faith, and you successfully pass the test when you keep going with a good attitude and then God blesses you. Thankfully, God still blessed me for keeping going despite my bad attitude. I think part of my bad attitude was because we tracted several rich neighborhoods this week. And what’s up with these rich people anyways, they were kind of rude and they wouldn’t listen to us at all! Some were nice, but others were very cold. So we have officially crossed out all the rich neighborhoods. So last Tuesday, we had about 15 minutes to kill before our next appointment and so we decided to go tracting. Well by the time we found a place to go, parked, and got out of the car, we only had time to knock on one door. We went to an apartment complex and knocked on #2. A guy answered the door, but I couldn’t see him at all because it was dark in the apartment and in the hallway. So I was started into a tracting approach, but it was really awkward because I couldn’t see his face. I asked if he wanted to learn more and he said yeah, let’s step outside. We started talking to him and he was really happy we weren’t Jehovah Witnesses. We told him a little about the Book of Mormon, and he didn’t seem too interested, but he reluctantly took the book. We went back on Friday, and he had read the Book of Mormon and it had really interested him, so he had gotten on the internet and did some research. We had a nice, long talk with him. He is so great! He’s not really into any organized religion, he doesn’t feel it’s for him and he doesn’t really read the Bible, he says it’s missing a lot. He says he thinks about things and wow a lot of what he has figured out is very close to what we believe. He says he goes a lot by how he feels (he won’t call it the Holy Ghost, but that’s definitely what it is). He seemed way interested and said he wanted to do more research. He said we could come back but he said “not too often.” We tried to set a time but he wouldn’t, he said just whenever his name comes to our mind. Ha ha. (that would be like everyday) He’s different than any one else I’ve met. I really hope he keeps meeting with us. We meet with Tom and Kim. And they are moving!! Bummer. Tom is leaving in about 2 weeks to work in Charleston for the next 4 months (he’s in the painter’s union and can get assigned to work all over). And then they are moving back to Kim’s home town up by Wheeling (which is out of our mission), they aren’t sure when yet. Sad. We had a good lesson with them though. Tom brought up something that has been eating him for about 3 weeks now since we taught the Word of Wisdom, he feels like we are judging him by saying that he has to stop smoking before he can be baptized. So we explained what baptism is and why we must repent before. I think it helped, but he’s still concerned about it. Well then we taught the Law of Chastity. Talk about terrifying, he already has big concerns and now we’re telling them they need to get married! But we really felt we needed to tell them they needed to get married and soon. They seemed to take it okay, but we’ll see when we go back. Kim seemed happier about it, she thanked us afterwards. I think she wants to get married, Tom it just holding it up. And I also think that Kim knows this is true and wants to be baptized, she’s just waiting for Tom. But they did say they wanted missionaries to visit them when they move, and Tom said that someday he would be a Mormon, we’re just holding him up because he smokes! Ha ha. So on Wednesday Sister Reeves and I got asked to talk in church. We weren’t given a topic though, they said just pick something we thought our investigators might need to hear. Oh Man! I have no idea what they need to hear, if I knew we would teach them in our lessons! And the next morning before my personal study I prayed to know what to speak on. I then opened the Book of Mormon to read, really hoping I would find a topic during my reading, I read in 2 Nephi were it talks about the Book of Mormon coming forth. Well after my study I still hadn’t picked a topic. Later that day I was starting to stress about it because I needed to get writing my talk. And it hit me, I should talk about the Book of Mormon! And I realized that my prayer was answered that morning. I was reading in the Book of Mormon about the Book of Mormon! I didn’t recognized my answer. Thankfully God is patient with us and told me again! So the talk went great, I was a little nervous because we both had 20 minutes to fill because all the other people who were supposed to speak bailed. But it went great! And one of our investigators, Lois, came! And we did not expect her to come at all! Because she usually doesn’t come even when she says she will. It was so great!! Anyways that’s my story about how any question you have can be answered by the Book of Mormon. But don’t forget to listen for the promptings of the Spirit! Well there isn’t much else that happened, just a lot of sweaty tracting. We are still praying like crazy for Martha. I can’t believe how sick she is! She throws up every day and has diarrhea all day every day for the last few months. She is wasting away, she’s lost about 10 pounds in the last few months. And she stresses about everything. She stressed about her finances, and then when the church helps her, she stresses about how to repay them and about not liking to ask for help, and how people think she is a lazy bum, and how helpless she is. She has some emotional issues that come from abuse from her ex-husband. (I could strangle that man, that’s not Christlike I know, I should work on it) He made her feel like she was worthless. We are getting her some counseling.Well, love you all tons and tons. Have a safe harvest!! Love, Sister Nicole Polatis
Monday, August 17, 2009
A Great Work
Dear Family,
So we had a really good week. We had 4 people at church!! YAY! That’s the most I’ve ever had at church! It was so great!
Story time: Mara Collins grew up Catholic, but never felt quite right there. The more she learned about the Catholic religion the more she realized it was not for her. She researched a lot of different religions and went to a lot of different churches. She never could really find what she was looking for. She even tried Wicca, but found she didn’t like the lack of structure. She felt like something was missing and soon determined that she lacked a relationship with Jesus Christ. Then one day, she came across an article on Joseph Smith. His story intrigued her and she went to mormon.org to learn more, there she ordered a copy of the Book of Mormon and requested missionaries to bring it to her and teach her more. Enter us (the missionaries). We had a wonderful lesson with Mara. She is very interested in Joseph Smith and asked a lot of questions about him. She seemed to really like what we told her. And she said that when she comes to know that this is true then she would definitely be baptized. She has a baptismal date of September 6th!!
Okay, so last week you might remember me telling you about Michael, he also was a referral for a Book of Mormon, we taught him, and set him for baptism on September 6th during the first lesson. Both of these people, so prepared, we find them (well they found us) at about the same time, and they live like a couple blocks away from each other. Crazy! God works in mysterious ways. I’m just so grateful He is apart of this work because we could not do it without him.
Martha is still super sick, but she is still as determined as ever to be baptized. She is doing everything she can to come to church, but she still hasn’t made it yet. It almost seems like she gets sicker on Sundays. Either God has His reasons, or the adversary is working really hard to keep her away.
We had an amazing lesson with Dennis, he’s the one who suffers from insomnia. One of the members came with us and bore powerful testimony of how the Atonement helped him battle his depression. He said that he had been feeling so guilty for some things he had done in the past, and he was trying to make up for them by suffering himself for it. Then he realized that he couldn’t be his own savior and Christ had already suffered from him. And one day he just had this vision of handing his burden and guilt to the Savior and he said he literally felt lighter and at peace. He told Dennis that his insomnia is probably coming from so mental or emotional issue, that he needs to let go and let Christ take it from him. The Spirit was so strong there and Dennis looked very touched. It was amazing to me the power of the Atonement and how far reaching its effects are. We have taught a lot of people lately about how if they will come unto Christ then He can heal us and help us. But the key is we have to come, His hand is outstretched and now we need to take it.
We finally were able to see Tom and Kim again. We had a great lesson on obedience. The more I’m on my mission the more my testimony grows that as soon as we do anything to follow God, then He just opens up the heavens and pours out the blessings. Tom and Kim had so many great things happen to them when they first started meeting with us and started reading the Book of Mormon. Well they haven’t been reading for about a month now, and they both said in our lesson that they can see a difference and they really need to start reading again.
So another story. We are teaching this guy named David, he is the fiancée of a member in our ward, Sasha. He is mostly taking the lessons because she asked him too, but I think there is a little more to it than that. He hasn’t had a very good experience with religion in the past. When his dad got sick, his preacher told him that if he would pray, he would get better. Well his dad died, so he was very turned off to religion. Plus the same preacher told him was going to heck for dating a Mormon. So we’ve had a lot of blocks to get past. And lately David seems complacent; nothing we say or do really seems to spark anything in him. He said he would be baptized and we probably could baptize him, but he would just do it to do it and probably wouldn’t be very active. So we have been praying to know what to do to give him a little push and see that this is important. Well we got a call the day we were supposed to teach him saying that something happened and he wasn’t going to take the lessons. Well turned out his jeep didn’t pass inspection and one of the tire blew out, and he and Sasha had prayed that morning that it would pass. So he was mad and said God doesn’t answer prayers and was done with religion. Well when he calmed down, he told Sasha that maybe this was God telling him that the jeep wasn’t supposed to pass and that maybe he should sell it because it had lots of problems any ways. He said he would take the lessons again. And he came to church on Sunday! (Although that was mostly because Sasha was speaking) We are hoping this is God answering our prayers to give him a little kick in the pants.
So this week in our mission, we met all of the mission goals! Which we have been working on these goals for about 3 months and we meet them! And from the sounds of it around the mission, things are really picking up. Our area is doing amazing. And Sister Arnott told me that Teays Valley is on fire, and when I was there the area was really struggling. God is really helping us, its amazing to see. The last few weeks I have really felt God’s helping hand, things have been working out miraculously well. I’m so grateful to be part of the Lord’s great work. One of the members who came with us to a lesson, said that the reason he is part of this Church is so that God can use him. He said that in this Church we get to help build up God’s Kingdom. Wow! What better thing to be a part of than God’s plan for the “immortality and eternal life of man!” “Shall we not go forth in such great a work.”
Love you all have a fabulous week. Happy Harvest!!
Sister Nicole Polatis
So we had a really good week. We had 4 people at church!! YAY! That’s the most I’ve ever had at church! It was so great!
Story time: Mara Collins grew up Catholic, but never felt quite right there. The more she learned about the Catholic religion the more she realized it was not for her. She researched a lot of different religions and went to a lot of different churches. She never could really find what she was looking for. She even tried Wicca, but found she didn’t like the lack of structure. She felt like something was missing and soon determined that she lacked a relationship with Jesus Christ. Then one day, she came across an article on Joseph Smith. His story intrigued her and she went to mormon.org to learn more, there she ordered a copy of the Book of Mormon and requested missionaries to bring it to her and teach her more. Enter us (the missionaries). We had a wonderful lesson with Mara. She is very interested in Joseph Smith and asked a lot of questions about him. She seemed to really like what we told her. And she said that when she comes to know that this is true then she would definitely be baptized. She has a baptismal date of September 6th!!
Okay, so last week you might remember me telling you about Michael, he also was a referral for a Book of Mormon, we taught him, and set him for baptism on September 6th during the first lesson. Both of these people, so prepared, we find them (well they found us) at about the same time, and they live like a couple blocks away from each other. Crazy! God works in mysterious ways. I’m just so grateful He is apart of this work because we could not do it without him.
Martha is still super sick, but she is still as determined as ever to be baptized. She is doing everything she can to come to church, but she still hasn’t made it yet. It almost seems like she gets sicker on Sundays. Either God has His reasons, or the adversary is working really hard to keep her away.
We had an amazing lesson with Dennis, he’s the one who suffers from insomnia. One of the members came with us and bore powerful testimony of how the Atonement helped him battle his depression. He said that he had been feeling so guilty for some things he had done in the past, and he was trying to make up for them by suffering himself for it. Then he realized that he couldn’t be his own savior and Christ had already suffered from him. And one day he just had this vision of handing his burden and guilt to the Savior and he said he literally felt lighter and at peace. He told Dennis that his insomnia is probably coming from so mental or emotional issue, that he needs to let go and let Christ take it from him. The Spirit was so strong there and Dennis looked very touched. It was amazing to me the power of the Atonement and how far reaching its effects are. We have taught a lot of people lately about how if they will come unto Christ then He can heal us and help us. But the key is we have to come, His hand is outstretched and now we need to take it.
We finally were able to see Tom and Kim again. We had a great lesson on obedience. The more I’m on my mission the more my testimony grows that as soon as we do anything to follow God, then He just opens up the heavens and pours out the blessings. Tom and Kim had so many great things happen to them when they first started meeting with us and started reading the Book of Mormon. Well they haven’t been reading for about a month now, and they both said in our lesson that they can see a difference and they really need to start reading again.
So another story. We are teaching this guy named David, he is the fiancée of a member in our ward, Sasha. He is mostly taking the lessons because she asked him too, but I think there is a little more to it than that. He hasn’t had a very good experience with religion in the past. When his dad got sick, his preacher told him that if he would pray, he would get better. Well his dad died, so he was very turned off to religion. Plus the same preacher told him was going to heck for dating a Mormon. So we’ve had a lot of blocks to get past. And lately David seems complacent; nothing we say or do really seems to spark anything in him. He said he would be baptized and we probably could baptize him, but he would just do it to do it and probably wouldn’t be very active. So we have been praying to know what to do to give him a little push and see that this is important. Well we got a call the day we were supposed to teach him saying that something happened and he wasn’t going to take the lessons. Well turned out his jeep didn’t pass inspection and one of the tire blew out, and he and Sasha had prayed that morning that it would pass. So he was mad and said God doesn’t answer prayers and was done with religion. Well when he calmed down, he told Sasha that maybe this was God telling him that the jeep wasn’t supposed to pass and that maybe he should sell it because it had lots of problems any ways. He said he would take the lessons again. And he came to church on Sunday! (Although that was mostly because Sasha was speaking) We are hoping this is God answering our prayers to give him a little kick in the pants.
So this week in our mission, we met all of the mission goals! Which we have been working on these goals for about 3 months and we meet them! And from the sounds of it around the mission, things are really picking up. Our area is doing amazing. And Sister Arnott told me that Teays Valley is on fire, and when I was there the area was really struggling. God is really helping us, its amazing to see. The last few weeks I have really felt God’s helping hand, things have been working out miraculously well. I’m so grateful to be part of the Lord’s great work. One of the members who came with us to a lesson, said that the reason he is part of this Church is so that God can use him. He said that in this Church we get to help build up God’s Kingdom. Wow! What better thing to be a part of than God’s plan for the “immortality and eternal life of man!” “Shall we not go forth in such great a work.”
Love you all have a fabulous week. Happy Harvest!!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Faith before Miracles
Dear Family,
We had an AMAZING week!!! God's hand was definitely involved! Wow! I'm definitely seeing how when we have the faith to obey God, to follow the mission rules, to focus on the work, to work diligently even when it's hard and hopeless, then we will see the miracles. Faith always comes first. And sometimes God just sends you some tender mercies like He did this week! So we have goals for the mission, and this last week in District Meeting we talked about how each companionship needs to set goals to reach so they can do their part in meeting the mission goals. So we went home and set our goals. Now of course we always have goals, but these ones were different they were the absolute minimum of what we needed to reach. Well on Sunday during church I was looking at our goals and thinking wow we have meet all of them except baptismal dates, we needed one more, but I was like well there is no way we'll get one because we aren't meeting with any of our investigators who are ready for a date. Well guess what, when you do everything in your power, God will make up the rest. We got a baptismal date handed to us!! Okay so let me go back to the beginning. So on Friday we got a media referral for a kid named Michael Kingston, from his friend, Christian Collins who is a member and was up at a youth conference in Kirtland and filled out a referral card. He requested a Book of Mormon. So on Saturday we dropped by to give him the Book of Mormon and asked if he wanted to be taught, he said yes and said he was actually coming to church with Christian on Sunday. So we set up a time to teach him after church. Oh Michael is 17. So after church we have a great lesson with him, he already believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true, and we set him to be baptized on September 6th. And it is all because Christian talked to him about the church. He already knows a lot and already knows it is true because of a wonderful friend who wasn't afraid to share his faith!!!
We got another media referral and we are teaching her on Friday. We had so many members come out with us, it was so great! We had a great lesson with several of our investigators. Some of them are progressing slowly, but they are progressing!! YAY! I LOVE Fairmont, this is the busiest I have ever been. And we actually have good legitimate investigators, not some old people looking for company, or someone who wants to bash with us, or someone who just can't say no, so they let us come in. These are people truly prepared and searching for truth.
On Sunday, we had a wonderful testimony meeting. The Spirit of God like a fire is burning! Totally how I would describe it. So many members got up and bore powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, that Joseph Smith is a prophet, we have a prophet today, this is the only true church, and how they know it. Exactly what our investigators who were there needed to hear. Those members don't know it, but each of them added to the wonderful Spirit that was there either by their testimony or by their reverence. And as such they were part of this great work in touching someone's heart. I could have hugged all of them!
Well this is going to be short. Attached is a picture of me and Sister Reeves. I love you all. Have fun and safe harvest, it's strange but I'm kind of missing it right now.
Love ya bunches and bunches, Sister Nicole Polatis
We had an AMAZING week!!! God's hand was definitely involved! Wow! I'm definitely seeing how when we have the faith to obey God, to follow the mission rules, to focus on the work, to work diligently even when it's hard and hopeless, then we will see the miracles. Faith always comes first. And sometimes God just sends you some tender mercies like He did this week! So we have goals for the mission, and this last week in District Meeting we talked about how each companionship needs to set goals to reach so they can do their part in meeting the mission goals. So we went home and set our goals. Now of course we always have goals, but these ones were different they were the absolute minimum of what we needed to reach. Well on Sunday during church I was looking at our goals and thinking wow we have meet all of them except baptismal dates, we needed one more, but I was like well there is no way we'll get one because we aren't meeting with any of our investigators who are ready for a date. Well guess what, when you do everything in your power, God will make up the rest. We got a baptismal date handed to us!! Okay so let me go back to the beginning. So on Friday we got a media referral for a kid named Michael Kingston, from his friend, Christian Collins who is a member and was up at a youth conference in Kirtland and filled out a referral card. He requested a Book of Mormon. So on Saturday we dropped by to give him the Book of Mormon and asked if he wanted to be taught, he said yes and said he was actually coming to church with Christian on Sunday. So we set up a time to teach him after church. Oh Michael is 17. So after church we have a great lesson with him, he already believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true, and we set him to be baptized on September 6th. And it is all because Christian talked to him about the church. He already knows a lot and already knows it is true because of a wonderful friend who wasn't afraid to share his faith!!!
We got another media referral and we are teaching her on Friday. We had so many members come out with us, it was so great! We had a great lesson with several of our investigators. Some of them are progressing slowly, but they are progressing!! YAY! I LOVE Fairmont, this is the busiest I have ever been. And we actually have good legitimate investigators, not some old people looking for company, or someone who wants to bash with us, or someone who just can't say no, so they let us come in. These are people truly prepared and searching for truth.
On Sunday, we had a wonderful testimony meeting. The Spirit of God like a fire is burning! Totally how I would describe it. So many members got up and bore powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, that Joseph Smith is a prophet, we have a prophet today, this is the only true church, and how they know it. Exactly what our investigators who were there needed to hear. Those members don't know it, but each of them added to the wonderful Spirit that was there either by their testimony or by their reverence. And as such they were part of this great work in touching someone's heart. I could have hugged all of them!
Well this is going to be short. Attached is a picture of me and Sister Reeves. I love you all. Have fun and safe harvest, it's strange but I'm kind of missing it right now.
Love ya bunches and bunches, Sister Nicole Polatis
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