Well we started at 4:30 every morning for the week to see Sheila. Yet some how I was never tired. It was so worth it.
I was on trade off with Elder Van Der Linden when we first saw her at 4:30. What a lesson it was. As you all know I have been working with Sheila for 6 months. She comes to church every week and is a dry Mormon.
Well I have had it. As we were giving the lesson we shared the iconic I will go and do the things which the Lord has commanded. Well I have been commanded to invite others to come unto Christ through baptism. Our lesson with her was so powerful and I was done with having coffee be the problem. I don’t know how we got onto it but basically I said you are getting baptized this Saturday and I will sit with you all day so you don’t drink coffee. To my surprise she loved the idea. But it only gave her a week to get off coffee. We called the AP's and got their advise on what to do. They loved the idea and we got to work. During the day we had lessons but every few hours we came around to have a lesson. She made it through her first full day without coffee but had the biggest head ache.
The second day at 4:30 she was really struggling and we had MLC all day in Brisbane. She put her faith in God though and prayed to him all day for help. We saw her that night and she had gone her 2 full days with no coffee. We talked to President and he was thinking have her go two weeks with out coffee. So the Saturday plan got shut down. Bummer. We were determined to get her off coffee though. So again Wednesday morning 4:30 no coffee. We made it a plan to not spend the whole day but rather a lesson in the morning and one in the evening. So 2 times a day. It seemed to work.
By Thursday she was still having headaches but was all in. She said she would never go back. I was on trade off with Elder Watson that day and we went and got a couple of Mountain Dews for the caffeine and headache. It worked and the headache left and has not come back to this day.
At this point I was just so excited that things were going good. I felt so good waking up early to help her and she was just doing great!! On Friday night at 10:40 we got a call from President McSwain and Elder Sharma had to pack his bags that night and go to the office in the morning. He got transferred. He is an office Elder now.
So at this point I was just still happy for what was happening. I was not expecting anything. In the morning the office elders drove down to a baptism in our zone and picked up Sharma. He went with them and I stayed with Elder Martin and Van Der Linden. I went to a few lessons with them that were just terrible. The people they are teaching just wanted to bash with us. So we made the call to drop them. Bummer. We even had a member with us. After the terrible lessons I got a text from Sheila that read,"I have prayed and asked God what his will is for me. I am getting baptized on Sunday at 8 am." What the heck where did this come from?????
Oh there is so much to say. Adrian dropped his date for Saturday because he is sick so we saw him and his baptism will just be next week. So that was ok. Sheila’s though was just not going to happen.
But some how the Lord’s hand was in this work.
I took over the 2 Elders and their member and we talked with Sheila. Coffee was not a problem anymore. She was going great!!! The problem was when we planned for Saturday President did not want it to happen. So we called him and spoke with him and he said I will interview her and IF she passes then she can. If it was not already crazy now it is about to. This all happened on Saturday. Usually we have weeks to plan and prepare a baptism. Well what the heck, lets just do it in under 12 hours oh and my comp is gone. I am on my own.
With it being the end of transfers President was flat out with interviews and meetings. So he could not interview until the afternoon but Sheila was going to a graduation for her grandson in the afternoon until 10 pm. The plan was to have a Skype interview at 10:30. All was going right to plan until Sheila realized she had to drive and drop everyone off because they were all drunk. She did not get home until midnight. So I was up going back and forth being the middle man to President on where she was and how much longer and the asking Sheila on where she was and how long. It was midnight when the interview finally happened. Geez she passed and we now had to confirm with every one that it was on for 8 am right before 9 am church.
Bishop and the people coming to the baptism were notified during the day but it was not set in stone. So texting them and calling at midnight was a nightmare. (oh it was Halloween too)
The best part about this is you could see the Lord’s hand in making this happen. At every baptism there is always a problem. This one just kept going perfectly. It was dang stressful but it was going!!
To make it even better, the elder that found her was going home the day she was getting baptize. So we called him at 1 am and he got permission to come down in the morning and baptize her. How cool is that!!
Oh my goodness it was the most beautiful baptism I have ever seen. She was so ready and when she came up out of the water all the stupid stress that I was going though was gone. Geez was I stressed out!! I hate planning!!!
Sheila was glowing. I have never seen her smile so big. It was so amazing to see how happy she was. The spirit was so so strong and it was the coolest thing that will ever happen. The joy, love, emotions... Everything was just perfect.
I got to confirm her a member and give her the Holy Ghost. I did not even know what to say but I testify that the spirit was telling me what to say. The words just came. I usually think of some things to say before but when I tried this time I just could not. I felt to just trust the spirit. I can’t even remember what I said but boy do I remember what I felt. Sheila was so happy and you could see the spirit in her.
I so testify that this is GOD’s work. These are his children and he will prepare a way for them back to him. I also testify that God likes a roller coaster ride. It was nuts. But it was God’s will for this to happen.
So that took up a big chunk of our week but does not even scratch the surface of what we did!!
So yeah big new. New transfer and new comp and guess what. He was my zone leader when I was in Charters. Elder Winter is his name. He is from Perth but lived in Highland, Utah and went to Lone Peak junior year. Guess what too. He was in my English class!! He was the Aussie kid that was never there.
Lets just say I already love him so much and we are going to work so hard!!
This work gets so frustrating too. This week I was ready to give up. We were deep cleaning and Adrian texted and canceled. We had prepared everything. Talks, program and bishop but it did not happen.
To me the hardest part is not that it did not happen but that we did so much for it and planned and had things going and it did not happen. The stress of will it work, did we do enough... It is driving me crazy. Especially with Sheila’s thing. It was so spur of the moment and crazy. I am so glad this week is over and done.
We had MLC and got the news that we were getting new AP's. I called it too. Right now the two that we have are both going home together so we were going to get two new ones. I just knew it would be Elder Puglsely from up North. He was my district leader. What an elder. MLC is just so great. The things we discuss and the inspiration we got was amazing. For the month of October we got 59 convert baptisms. That is a mission record!!
I almost forgot. We had Halloween this week too. We got recruited to set up all the chairs and tables. It was no biggie. The only problem was they were expecting a lot of people to come so we had to move it from inside to outside in the parking lot. Ben Hannet is the biggest radio guy here and is a member and he announced it on his radio. We were expecting a few people to come but no one could have predicted what happened.
We had over 2,000 people there. I will quote my stake president. "You can tell the non-members from the members because of what they are not wearing." The costumes were not terrible but not the most modest. We had the funnest night interacting with everybody. We had heaps of elders there from the Zone and would rotate from being at the missionary table to walking around talking and interacting. We got so many contacts and so many people said, “We love the Mormons.” It was the coolest activity I have ever seen. One of the best parts was the music. They had massive speakers set around and we got to listen to real music. I brought my camera but it got passed around to so many people. Hence all the photos of everybody.
The Gold Coast stake has some of the best members who are trying so hard to be member missionaries. It was just a huge success.
I am really excited to be staying another transfer to be with the members and yoke with them to see the work take off. It has been amazing to see it start to go and I am so excited to have Elder Winter as my comp. We are going to smash the work and have heaps of fun.
I know that this church is true. Look at what happened this week. I could not have done it if God had not been there helping. The Book of Mormon is the same way. It just is impossible to do it without God. It is so true and Joseph Smith is a true prophet!! I love this church. I know it is true and I know that God is running his work in the mission field. If it is his will and we are willing to follow it, it will happen. It might be at midnight with the most stress you have ever felt but it will happen if it is the Lord’s will. I know this to be true.
I told you this week would have a lot more than last week. Lets hope it happens again this week. Love you. Have a good one.
Love,
Elder Cahoon
Halloween Party
Sheila's baptism
Spencer with new companion Elder Winter
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