From: Elder Austin Ipson, columbus, OH
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 10:22 AM
Conference was amazing. So many powerful messages pointed right to us. I would target certain talks, but that would be futile. Why? 4 out of the 5 sessions I watched in Spanish. I'll put it this way... I can have a quick conversation about Tacos, however I can't understand the Medical terms of Elder Nelson when he is giving the specifics on the human body! That being said, when I was listening I had to rely on the Spirit to fill in the gaps. The Spirit enlightened me, and helped me to understand more fully of what I can do better as a missionary.
The highlight of the whole conference wasn't the talks given. Rather, it was seeing Horacio and his soon to be 12 year old Bryan show up to Priesthood Session! Both Elder Jacobson and I were ecstatic! The best part is he stayed awake the whole time! We were grateful for the talks that were given that very simply put how the Priesthood works, and how we can be better holders of the Priesthood. Due to Horacio's work schedule he hasn't been able to make it back to receive the Priesthood, but you can see his doing the best he can at this time to be a great member.
As a side note: Elder Bednar made mention that you need to let people be agents unto themselves, not merely objects to be acted upon. This was a point that he made to us while he was here. So when we heard that, all four missionaries in the Priesthood session all just looked at one another and chuckled, because we've heard that spheal before! It's like we had a conference preview!
In-between sessions we hit the pavement and went finding. We didn't come up with anyth8ing, but I'm sure the Lord was trying to see how dilligent we really were. After Conference we had a few lessons set up. One with a less-active we've been trying to contact for quite some time. Her name is Samarra Navarro. Sister to the Branch President. Samarra and an old friend have been thinking of coming back to church. While we were out and about Samarra gave us a call and asked us to come by and share something about how the church was started. We taught both Samarra and her friend Brittany the first lesson. Both are better at speaking and reading in English. So that's how we taught. It was then I realized, I don't know Spanish or English! However, the lesson was powerful. We were able to teach both of them of Joseph Smith, his role, and how he restored the Church of Jesus Christ again on the earth. The Spirit was strong, through the whole lesson. We left them with 3 Nephi 11 to read. Knowing that chapter could surely invite the Spirit to testify to them, that it's time to come back!
Our following lesson we taught a man named Ivan. We had taught him once before, but we weren't able to complete the lesson. This time we were ready, and he wanted to learn. So T can study this... We shared bullet points from Chapter 10 the How to begin Teaching, so he remembered why we are there. We told him that as he acted on the invitations we'd give him, he would come to know this is true. It was intent to listen, but when we said that he seemed intrigued. We taught him that as he learned, it would be by the Spirit, and we explained how it worked. We had taught a bit about the Holy Ghost in our past visit, and as we talked about it he quoted Galatians 5:22 a scripture we had used previously to teach about the Holy Ghost. The stage was set for him to have a truly miraculous experience!
We went through the first lesson, and taught about God our Heavenly Father, how he gives us families, prophets, to lead and guide us. He gave us magnificent comments. We were being edified as we taught! We proceed to the Ministry of Christ, how he established the church, and gave his Priesthood to the Apostles. He opened to the Bible and upheld our testimony of Christ's ministry! We taught that this church fell, and how the people were in darkness for a time.
We gave the story of Joseph Smith. Before we began he gave us some of the knowledge that he had of him. All he lacked was the knowledge of the first vision. That is what we shared with him. It fell upon me to share those eloquent words. As I repeated the words a smile came across Ivan's face. When I finished, he started laughing... Uncontrollably saying," Yo te creo" (I believe you). How he said it came across rather oddly, as though he were mocking us. We didn't know what to do. However the Spirit testified to both Elder Jacobson and I, to wait. That is what we did. The two minutes of him laughing seemed like an Eternity! However, when he finally looked up at us, we saw, tears. We knew that this laughter was not a mocking laughter! It was of Joy!
He told us that he has only felt that happy on one other occasion. That was 7 years ago. He knew by that powerful feeling that the Holy Ghost was testifying of the truthfulness of the prophet Joseph Smith. We then invited him to be baptized the 13th of May. He replied that he would fast and pray to know that this is right. He committed to reading the Book of Mormon, to know of it's truthfulness.
The work is good, the gospel is great. We can truly see God's hand in the work. Migration is hot, but God is helping us find, his lost sheep.
I love you all so much. I hope you were all edified by conference. (I hope you didn't fall asleep during conference). I hope to hear from you all soon.
Para Siempre,
Elder Ipson
The Great Ohio Columbus Mission
The Harvester, April 2013
11 years ago
