{"id":5098,"date":"2013-02-11T06:36:41","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T13:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pierfamily.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/11\/president-anderson-shares-missionary-experiences\/"},"modified":"2019-08-21T14:29:56","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T21:29:56","slug":"president-anderson-shares-missionary-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pierfamily.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/11\/president-anderson-shares-missionary-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"President Anderson shares Missionary Experiences…"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Anderson’s letter to the missionaries included a personal experience he and his family had over the last month.<\/p>\n

“For this reason I refer to you not just as Elders and Sisters, but also as my Sons and Daughters. We had a grandson who passed away this last week that caused us to reflect and ponder the great Plan of Happiness. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers, they have been a tremendous comfort for us. The 23 days he was alive were days that I learned enormous things concerning God\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s ways and God\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s plan for us. I took every day and tried to understand \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153What does Everett (our grandson) want us to learn today?\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d Sure enough, it would come as a principle that I needed to be strengthened with, or an attribute that I needed to improve. I know when God gives us hard things to bear, he is trying to help us gain experience\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u00a6\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d (D&C 122:9).<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0He wants us to learn and grow from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I learned that Everett was in a small percentage; probably less than 1%, who have this condition, live as long as he did. He taught me the importance of defying all odds and to never give up until God calls me home. I am so grateful for that opportunity that God has given me another day to learn, another day to grow, another day to understand, another day to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You, like Helaman\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by following the Spirit and knowing who is praying you there:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153we had just arrived to the area we had prayed about earlier and couldn’t decided which side of the street to knock so we decided to pray about it, after we finished we felt we should knock on the north side and on the second door we knocked this man opened, we told him who we were and he said \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcI know I had a dream you would be coming today\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 I couldn’t believe it so we left him with the blessing and invited him to be baptized which his response was \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcof course I prayed you here\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 he is now preparing for the 17th! Later that day it was getting kind of late but we didn’t have anything else to do so we decided to harvest the area we knocked a couple doors with little to no success when all of the sudden we see this young couple holding a little light so we again identify who we are and they get super happy and lead us back to their house. As we get in the house they show us what the light says \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dclet your light so shine\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 they said that they went out that night with their light to find followers of Christ and that a true follower of Christ would find them because of the light so we left the blessing and they are both preparing to be baptized!\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0You, like Helaman\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by using the Spirit and with love and boldness likening the scriptures to \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153pull\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d them to Christ:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153David is the husband of a recent convert. A couple weeks ago he came to church with his family. Since then we hadn’t been able to talk to him about baptism because he was never home when we set up a time to go see him. On Friday night we stopped by to check up on their family\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s scripture reading. When we pulled up David was outside smoking a cigarette. We said a short prayer and jumped out of the car. As I walked up to David I felt the Spirit super strong and said \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcDavid, you know who we are, We are representatives of Jesus Christ. I know he has sent us here to invite you to be baptized.\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 He said \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcI have already been baptized.\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 I said \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcI know that you can be baptized again to be washed clean from your sins and to be filled with the strength of the Lord.\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 I turned to 3 Ne 27:20. I asked him how he felt. He said that he felt good and knew that the Lord was telling him to be baptized. I then asked him if he had the desire to quit smoking and drinking. He said yes but he didn’t know how that would be possible. I turned to Ether 12 where the brother of Jared moves the mountain Zerin. We read the scripture and then we turned to Moroni 7:33. It was amazing to see that as we likened the scriptures to him (his mountain being smoking and drinking) that faith in Jesus Christ would enable him to make the changes (repentance!) that he wants to in his life!! We called our district leader and he came down and interviewed him that night. He was baptized on Sunday and his son Lindon baptized him (he got the priesthood that day!)! It was so amazing!! This family is going to the temple!!!\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0You, like Helaman\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by helping the members in retention and in turn they embrace our investigators with love:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153These past few weeks we have been asking the leaders what we can do to help the branch and they said, \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcWe want the recent converts back.\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 While working with the branch mission leader we have brought 4 recent converts back to church consistently for the past 3 weeks who hadn’t been to church in about 3 months. When the members saw these members come to church and bear their testimonies the spirit of missionary work increased and the trust in the members really became stronger. Yesterday we had an investigator come to church who we had met on the street who asked if we were Jehovah\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s witnesses. We kindly said, \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcnope, we’re Mormons!\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 Want to come to church on Sunday?\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 He looked at the card and said, \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u02dcI’ll be there.\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122 And he came! He went up to bear his testimony of how the Lord lead us to him because he’s trying to change his life around. The members surrounded him and were hugging him and he told us, “I love this place!” I know that this work can only be done with the help of the members!\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You, like Helaman\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by talking and inviting everyone:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u00a6we were out with a member, Marvin, waiting for out investigator to meet us and the ice cream truck man pulled up and Marvin decided he wanted ice cream and went over to the ice cream truck. Then he called us over to get some ice cream too so we were talking to the young man giving us the ice cream and out of nowhere he started asking us about the church and said he’s interested and wants to come!… So we gave him our card and got his information then we headed out. Then we didn’t really think much of it, but decided to send a text to all of our potentials inviting them to sacrament and Josh, this ice cream truck guy, was the only one that texted back…so we called him and set up an appointment to meet with him, called our branch mission leader to come with us and had an incredible lesson with him! He is preparing for baptism and knows that this is the step to changing his life. It’s so funny how even something small like talking to the ice cream truck guy can lead to a new and awesome investigator.\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0You missionaries, like my grandson, are defying all odds and all percentages. Just by being here on a mission you are a small percentage of this world compared to the world\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s population. You are only one one thousandth of a percent (one out of one thousand people) who have made a choice to come out into all mankind and are set apart and ordained \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153Representatives of Jesus Christ\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d.<\/span><\/p>\n

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