Families Can Be Together Forever

I’ll explain that really quick. So every time someone starts speaking from the pulpit at church they say (Everyone brothers and sisters everybody good morning!) And then everyone responds (morning!) It’s pretty entertaining I’m gonna be honest Haha!

So this week definitely had an overall theme, as you can tell from the subject line it was “Families Can Be Together Forever”, and we had some very tender moments come from this.

Moment #1:
There is a cute older lady (about 78) in our ward who was baptized exactly a year ago. When we were planning what we wanted to share with her, I felt prompted to ask her if she had been to the temple yet. So, fast forward to the actual lesson. We are asking her about how she found the church and missionaries and all that. She told us about how missionaries knocked on her door and she turned them away, but they left the address of the church and invited her to come by. Three years later, her mother passed away and she was was really sad! She remembered the missionaries and decided to go check out the church. Her biggest desire was that she always wanted to be, “my mother’s daughter”. She repeated “my mother’s daughter” over and over again. At this point I felt prompted to ask if she knew how she could be with her mother forever? She said yes, and I asked her if she had been to the temple for her mother yet. Turns out she hasn’t ever been to the temple. We shared with her all about temples and she began to cry as she hugged us and said she was so excited to be “her mother’s daughter” for forever. In the next three weeks she will be going to the temple for the first time and she is so excited!

Moment #2:
We were sitting in a Seven to do language study when we started talking to the lady next to us. Not before long, we were talking about God and prayers and then sharing the first lesson and Restoration in the middle of a Seven. When we were finishing we asked her if we could meet another time to share more about how we can be with our families forever. Her eyes lit up and she smiled so big and said yes! She then proceeded to sit next to us in the Seven reading the Book of Mormon while we were doing language study haha it was awesome!

Moment #3:
We had a different visit with a member who lives with 4 sisters and her mom, none of the rest of her family are members of the church. (Which I didn’t know going into this member visit.) We were talking about gathering the lost sheep and asked her who she could help gather. She began to tell us about her family and how she wanted them to know the truth. We testified that she could be with her family forever and that God knows the way for this to become possible. We invited her to say a prayer right then and ask for Heavenly Father’s help. As she was saying her prayer she began to cry as she expressed her desire to Heavenly Father for an eternal family. It was so spiritually powerful, and I know Heavenly Father will help her find the way!

Moment #4:
We have been trying for weeks to meet with a specific less active from our ward, and she finally decided to invite us over for Sunday dinner with her husband and little girl. We walked into this appointment not knowing what to expect because I had never met either of them, but it turned out to be something incredible! First off he is a professional chef, so the food was amazing! But even better was what happened after eating! We shared with them a video about eternal families and the husband and wife looked at each other, smiled, and said, “This is our dream.” We asked them what they felt they needed to do in order to start preparing to go to the temple as a family. They said that they needed to start coming to church every week. We also encouraged them to start by doing the simple things. Every day have family prayer and scripture study. We then were able to help them start doing the “Come Follow Me” program. It was very tender working with a family who has their eyes set on the temple so they can be together forever!

I know that families can be together forever! I know that through temples we can have this blessing, and I am so grateful for that! I am so blessed to know this and have the amazing family that I do have!

One other quick sidenote!
Hong JM is getting baptized on SATURDAY!!! I am so happy for her!!!!!

Funny things that happened this week:
1. A member walks into church and goes, “I know all missionaries like these” haha we just kinda looked at her and then she plopped down this really big bag of Reeses’ Peanut Butter cups Haha let’s just say that they taste SO GOOD!! Hahaha

2. We went and ate hot pot with a member this week and it was so spicy that I was literally sitting there crying and sweating while eating it hahaha but it still tasted really good!

That’s about it from me! I hope you all have a great week and tell your family how much you love them!

I love all so so so much!!!

安姐妹