President Anderson’s Letter – December 1, 2013 – Gratitude

Show gratitude when we experience miracles as we open our mouths:

“We were heading down a busy street when far in a distance we saw this man walking towards us and we were riding towards him and you know that feeling you get. Should I contact him or just go around him, maybe he thinks we’re weird or something. So before we passed him I stopped and talked to him. Well little did I know that he would later come to our thanksgiving dinner at the church, and come to church the next day to witness the sacrament and now has a baptismal date for this next Sunday. I’m [grateful] that we really are led to those that are seeking for his true Gospel.”

Show gratitude when others are led to us to open our mouths:

 â€œAs we were riding our bikes to an appointment, and on the way we passed a couple sitting on a bench. They each had a beer in their hands and didn’t look like the type of contact with the most potential, because of the influence of ‘spirits’. Just as we were about to pass them by the women jumped to her feet and said ‘wait stop, please say a prayer with us!’ So we, like good missionaries stopped and asked her what it was that she would like us to prayer for. She explained that she and her boyfriend were homeless and had nowhere to go. She wanted God’s help. She also explained that some time ago, two sister missionaries had knocked on her door, when she was living at her mother’s home, and had prayed with her and everything in her life had gotten better.  She wanted that same blessing now. So we shared a short but powerful prayer, and invited her to come to church and to be baptized. She accepted without hesitation. Right there we invited her to begin to repent by throwing away her beer, which was about half full. Again without hesitation she literally threw it to the ground. Yesterday they came to church and felt the Spirit, and as we invited them to be baptized after the Sacrament meeting, they both accepted without hesitation.”

Show gratitude in opening our mouths, the miracles will follow:

“I felt inspired to go see a man we had street contacted … he opened the door, and welcomed us right in, his wife and 3 girls had just moved here this week from Venezuela! They are an incredible family, already with light in their eyes. We invited them to church…and they walked there the next day! President, I thought that was the miracle this week. But it didn’t end there. As Sacrament meeting started, 2 people we had street contacted/ OYMd (we have a goal to OYM absolutely EVERYONE after Zone Conference!) that morning before church, walked in at different times. One of them was doing her laundry across the street, and ended up staying for all 3 hours, and the other was an incredible woman we ran after while she was crossing street. We scared her, but she came back to the curb with us and although she was just returning from a night shift she came too. All 3 hours. She had been getting mormon.org messages on her phone, tried to block them, but it didn’t work and they kept coming. Taking it as a sign, she called her kids in Honduras and told them to go to the Mormon Church because she liked their messages. She had stood at our Church doors multiple times and would think ‘and if I went in there?’ Well, she came too… After we gathered all 7 of them by the baptismal font (trying again to implement what you had taught us), taught them about the baptismal covenant, and invited them to be baptized. A couple members saw us and walked up to listen, and I invited them to share their testimonies of baptism. The spirit was immense and they all accepted baptism!”



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