Email 81: Brother Schilling + Finding Ward + Sister Wiggins

Received on September 30, 2014

Hey y'all! :)

Probably one of the coolest experiences of my mission here in the first week in Hylebos! So last week when I was on exchange here, we taught a Less-Active man, Bro. Schilling, for the first time in a long time. We taught him the Restoration and it touched his heart. We left him with a reading assignment in the Book of Mormon and set a return appointment. The other Elders taught him once more and then Elder Jeppesen and I got here. Our first sit-down lesson together was with Bro. Schilling and we had a great visit about the Book of Mormon, which I told you about on when I emailed on Thursday. Well, the church tour happened on Friday and it was so powerful. As we sat in the chapel the Spirit touched Bro Schillings heart and we invited him to come back to church. On Sunday, Bro Schilling attended church for the first time in 23 years. He also came to the Mission Devotional that night. IT was one of the greatest days of his life. He was so happy! Not only was it what he needed, but it was exactly what Elder Jeppesen and I needed to experience. I am so grateful God blessed us with that experience in the first week of Elder Jeppesen's mission. It has been an incredible testimony builder for me that the Spirit can change people's hearts in moments.

We have been talking to lots of people, and Elder Jeppesen is still a star! We met one guy, named Steve, and got a return appointment for the next day. We taught him the Restoration and he prayed at the end and felt the Spirit. We directly invited him to be baptized and he committed to be baptized on Oct 31! Another great teaching experience. We have another lesson with him tonight!

Church was fabulous yesterday. We have such an incredible ward. SO many amazing families. It is by FAR the biggest ward I have ever served in and I am just pumped about it. We had a meeting with Bishop Keeney and talked about the vision. He has a great vision and so do we and we combined the two and all of us were just really excited and inspired. We are going to invest a lot of time into the ward members, helping them to feel confident in creating and seizing opportunities to testify and INVITE. There hasn't beena baptism here in 14 months, but we are going to build a FINDING WARD from the ground up! :)

Jennifer Wiggins got baptized in Redondo on Saturday! WE got to go and teach the Restoration to everyone during the service. It was sweet :) I love it when people I love get baptized!

I am looking forward to this next week! Hope you all are too! Love you much :)

Elder Cook