Week 56: Just Serve

I hope everyone enjoyed Halloween last week! Don't get too many cavities with all the candy haha. 

So, the nonmember family that we were notified about through the referral system, the Varieur's; we picked up the mom and dad as new investigators and we taught them the Restoration on Wednesday morning. The Spirit was there, the lesson went smoothly. Later that day we taught our other new investigator Carrie (the lady that's been a friend of a member in our ward for a while now) the Plan of Salvation. She had some really confusing questions and deep doctrinal questions about the Spirit World and the Resurrection and Judgement, but we were able to resolve her concerns she had. 

On Saturday afternoon we were asked by the sister missionaries in Wrightwood if we could come and help an older Korean lady move out of her house. So Elder Wedel and I drove up there, and boy there was a TON of stuff that was in that house! Her name is Krista and she is not a member of the Church, but a member of the Wrightwood ward was told by a friend that Krista need help moving out of her house because she had to be out by Tuesday this week, so that member contacted the sister missionaries, who in turn asked us to help them with the moving. Anyways, Krista was diagnosed with cancer some time ago and has undergone chemotherapy, and so she is not physically capable of doing all the moving by herself in time before Tuesday. She was a fashion/interior designer before she was diagnosed, so she had A LOT of nice women's clothing and accessories, as well and very expensive lotions and topical creams. One cream that she has is used by the Queen of England! And she has a lot of kitchen equipment (very expensive kitchen knives and glassware), even though she told us she is not very good at cooking haha. She even gave a $6,000 German kitchen knife set to the Wrightwood ward mission leader (he is a chef) for 50 cents! Talk about a good deal! So we packed up her clothing and belongings until 9:00 at night or so, by which time we had to go home for curfew. But we weren't even close to being finished with the packaging and moving! So Elder Wedel and I contemplated about coming back on Sunday to help finish packing up her belonging. He told me an experience he had about helping someone on the Sabbath, and basically what he was saying was "We can either do the right thing and go to church, or we can do the right thing and serve someone." That was a really powerful statement. And if you think about it, Jesus Christ healed a person on the Sabbath, and that is what helped me decide to help this lady. So we went to sacrament meeting in the morning to partake of the sacrament, then we immediately went up to Wrightwood to help with the packing. And it was worth it! We gave Krista a Book of Mormon in Korean that we just happened to have in our truck, and she was more than happy to have missionaries come see her at her new home. So we are going to send her in as a referral for the missionaries that are serving where she is moving. And Krista said I am good-looking and look like Matt Damon! I've never heard that one before haha. 

Sunday we taught the Varieur's again, but this time we brought a member with us, and the lesson was AWESOME! Overall, the week went well.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Ruiz