One of the blessings we have is to be able to read the weekly letter from President Anderson that not only provides guidance and encouragement as to how we can improve as missionaries in helping others come unto Christ, but where he shares a few of the amazing stories he receives each week from missionaries.
I was very happy to read this first story because I had a feeling yesterday that the way to help members understand how powerful Harvesting truly is was to have them go out for an hour or two and share the experience. Once they had this experience they would be more willing to go harvesting again, go back when the missionaries taught the people, and become friends with the investigators before they were baptized.
“We harvested a few houses with a member… she was horrified that we do what we do, (invite people to be baptized after a short prayer in their homes). I said, ‘I have been doing this a year and a half and trust me it works, it proves its self time and time again.’ She reluctantly stood in the back ground on each blessing in awe. We met a family of 4 and invited them to be baptized and come to church. The dad, said that he would ask his wife, and they would see, we testified and invited them to church and left. We went back the next day and confirmed church, and they walked into the sacrament meeting the day after. We went up to the member who harvested with us and we said, “does that family look familiar”? She was shocked and said, ‘Sisters! It really does work!’.”
“Both my companion and I carry copies of the Book of Mormon while we harvest and at almost every blessing we give them a copy of the Book of Mormon. We harvested into Guillermo and he was very receptive to let us in. We walked in his house, his wife, who was on the phone at the time, looked at us and then yelled at him and told him to kick us out. We went outside with him and he apologized and said her father had just passed away last night. We explained that death is not the end and how families can be together forever. As we were teaching the Plan of Salvation, the door slowly opened and his wife came out. She didn’t say a word but as we testified to her that she would live with her father again, you could see her heart melt and peace envelope her. We left them with a blessing and she was smiling. We invited them to be baptized for the 11th of November and they both accepted. We left a Book of Mormon with them and committed them to read Alma 40 as a family. This really helped me remember how real the Plan of Salvation is. It’s incredible to be a representative of Jesus Christ!”