This week was an especially blessed
one because I had the opportunity to be in the presence of an apostle of
the Lord! Elder Ballard came to visit our mission again. I was blessed
to have just entered the field last year and hear from him, and it was
neat to shake his hand again, and take in all he had to say with 13
months of missionary service to learn from. He shared many wonderful
things (and I am so sad I forgot my notes because I won't say it as
well) and I just wanted to share a few. One thing he mentioned that
changed my life, as we talked about the hastening of the work and the
younger missionaries coming to serve and being asked to do so much (for
example in our mission: open Mandarin and Arabic speaking work!)...he
said, "One thing I know with certainty, is that the God the Father, and
the Lord Jesus Christ have never been afraid of the youth. In fact, when
something needs to be done, they almost always call upon the youth."
Wow! So true! Think of Joseph Smith, Captain Moroni, Mary...and now the
young and valiant to be missionaries! That is so amazing to me and
helped me to feel a great sense of love and trust from the Lord. Another
things he shared with us was having in our minds that "I am here
because my Father sent me." I am here to do the will of the Father in
His way. He exhorted us to not try to do this work on our own...to Pray,
pray, pray, ask specifically, and then go and do. He said whether we
have 2 weeks left or 2 years left, we can choose today to turn all of
our time here over to the Lord and dedicate it to Him. He said there is
more we could be doing. He challenged us to truly try to talk to
everyone. He shared a sweet experience of the sharing the gospel with
their cabin host on a cruise they just went on for holiday and also with
a waiter that served dinner to his family a few nights ago...he
basically taught us that it didn't matter that he didn't commit them to
meet with the missionaries or to be baptized, etc...but that in the next
life, that when he sees the waiter and the host again, they won't have
the opportunity to say, "I saw you, I poured water for your family that
night, and you never told me." ...Or "I brought your family warm towels
and came to your door for a week while you were on a cruise...and you
never told me..." ...that was profound. How many people do we let pass
us by? We should seek every opportunity! Sharing our testimonies and
inviting others to come unto Christ is not a scary deal!!! It should be
easy and we should love sharing with the love that has made us who and
what we are today...the love of the Savior. He said many more wonderful
things that I can maybe share next week when I don't forget my notes = )
What was most amazing was that at the end of the meeting we sang our
mission song. There was a powerful spirit in the room and our President
stood and said, "With the great spirit that is here, after the closing
prayer, Elder Ballard has asked that we do not linger, that we just
quietly exit and go to work." After the prayer, no one spoke. Not even
the piano played....while about 300 of God's royal army, His front
liners, His humble servants, exited the building and set out to do the
work of salvation. A sacred moment and spirit I will never forget.
I had a crazy neat experience that same day. We were scheduled
for only 2 hours at the temple at the end of the day and in those few
minutes, I came across the piano player for Diamond Rio, who was leaving
the temple with a group of family and friends. I had literally just
told my companion the story of how I sang as a 9 year old in front of
100,000 people at the Fabulous Phoenix Fourth of July in 1995 and sang
"Broadway Baby" between Diamond Rio and Patti Loveless. She had asked
when I knew I wanted to perform and that was one of the experiences I
shared....when he said he was the piano player I literally was
flabbergasted! I said, "Wait....you're kidding....oh my goodness! This
is going to sound crazy! And I am sure you don't remember me, but..." I
helped him recall the place and he lit up with memories of that being
one of their biggest and greatest gigs! I told him I sang in between the
bands and that I didn't get to meet them, but I had a picture of me in
front of their Diamond Rio truck backstage! He asked if I had continued
singing and I was able to tell him happily that I had and about some of
the things I had done. I met his son, who is a singer/songwriter who
wrote and sang a song called "Letter Home" that many of the sisters here
love and often cry to because it is from the perspective of a lost or
less-active friend who gets a letter from his friend on a mission that
saves him. I told him how that song has touched so many hearts,
including mine and why it was so personal to me because of one I love
home that I pray my letters touch. We all wiped away a few tears. They
thanked me for the work and sacrifices I make to do what I do every day
as a missionary. We exchanged some info and he said to look for them in a
few months when they tour "The Work" in California. I know that
Heavenly Father is putting people in my path for a reason...not to
mention I know it is not a coincidence that just 2 weeks ago I took Mark
Mabry on a tour at the Battalion (creator of the projects"Reflections
of Christ" and "Another Testament"). Who knows what lies ahead or what
Heaven;y Father has in store, but just as Zamira says in the last line
of the tour..."Funny thing, we found what we were looking for, where we
least expected it!" = ) I have a good feeling about it.
Becca's Baptism on Saturday was so wonderful and so beautiful. A
baptism has never gone so smoothly and we actually had our mission
president and his counselor attend! Which made us super nervous! I
ACTUALLY played the piano for the baptism because they didn't have
anyone in the branch really to play. I haven't had to do that my whole
mission. I practice at the battalion once in a while but I do much
better playing for myself than for people. I was shaking SO much! I
literally thought my heart stopped beating during the opening song. I
had to play "For the Beauty of the Earth" (one of the very first hymns I
could ever play) and "Love at Home" (which I had never played). I
survived...I almost crashed and burned during the closing song but made
it through with quite a few mess ups...I should stick to singing. My
companion gave a beautiful talk about missionary work (per request of
Becca because she is so amazing!) and she was shaking before she went up
and already crying...but she spoke such beautiful words through the
power of the spirit that were, as our mission president put it, "Spot
on." She invited all in attendance to think of all those in their life
that they love, and to share with them the things that they love most,
the gospel and their testimonies of the Savior. Becca had asked Sister
Mulipola to sing "I Am A Child of God" in Samoan and she is deathly
afraid of singing in public so I offered to sing with her and jokingly
said, "You sing it in Samoan and I will sing it in Mandarin or German!"
Sister Patterson said, "That's a great idea! Becca's family are German
immigrants! She would love that!" So we kept it a surprise and when I
started singing the second verse in German, Becca's face lit up and she
and her mother (her parents and brother are not members and was a
miracle they came!) began to cry. It brought a sweet and tender spirit.
Afterwards she couldn't even talk to me about it without crying. She was
so grateful. When Becca stood in the font with her boyfriend who had
just been able to exercise the priesthood again...and as he said the
prayer or the ordinance...she cried...I have never seen that...and I was
overwhelmed with the feeling of the spirit that was in the room. What a
gift it was to witness. I have never seen someone so happy, and so
grateful to be able to be baptized. She is truly incredible.
I just want to share with you an amazing miracle and lesson
learned in following promptings and using the Lord's time wisely. Just
yesterday our Zone Meeting ended earlier than we planned, and we had
just reviewed and talked about applying all we learned from Elder
Ballard. As we were leaving I felt this internal battle begin...knowing
the easy thing we could do... we hadn't had lunch and it was hot so we
could have stopped by a place to grab a bite and a cool drink, then go
meet up with our recent convert so she could finish filling out her
baptismal record, share a little message with her, then go to our
appointment. These things are all fine yes...but I felt almost compelled
to go somewhere and try to find a new investigator for us...yes we
could eat sometime...but didn't need to then and we had 45 minutes of
precious, unplanned opportunity....(we were invited to lunch twice and I
kept thinking about the Sonic around the corner) it was almost like
Satan was tempting the weaker part of me, and the natural man...I asked
Sister Patterson what she wanted to do and she had wanted to go to a
neighbor that our 1st counselor had said we could stop by a while ago
who was having a hard time....she lived just across the street from
where we were...then we decided we could go see our recent convert. I
said OK and we went and actually got the door slammed in our face...that
was pleasant...but at least we have a report for our members! The whole
time I was thinking, "Sister Riggs, you know what you should do...you
should find someone...put your faith in the Lord...you should just go to
the Trolley Station by the shopping center and street contact." I
continued to think (because I truly felt an opposing force trying to get
me to do everything but street contact) that the Lord really had
someone waiting for us at the Trolley Station. When we got in the car I
turned to Sister Patterson and said, "I keep feeling like we should go
to the trolley station and try to find someone, and we could just have
Becca come meet us at the church and fill out her baptismal record while
we are in our other lesson, because we'll be meeting with her Wednesday
anyway, so she really doesn't need a lesson today." She said, "OK!
Let's do it then!" So we went...as we pulled up there were a few people
here and there, we parked and Sister Patterson said a beautiful prayer
of faith that we would find someone in the 15 minutes we had. We then
armed ourselves with copies of The Book of Mormon and pass along
cards....I turned around and almost immediately honed in on a young
woman sitting on a rock and holding her bike up...I turned to Sister
Patterson and said, "I want to talk to this girl over here!" We met
Ondraya and were immediately greeted with kindness. We just struck up a
conversation about where she was coming from and going and found out she
works at an Equestrian Ranch and so I immediately had more things to
talk about her with horses and such....through our conversation she was
very interested in who we were and what we do as missionaries and she
wanted to know our stories. She as raised Catholic and mentioned losing
her mom very young. We were able to testify to her of forever families,
of God's love and plan for her and of her incredible individual
worth...I even related the gospel and the commandments to horse training
and reigns! Ha ha...the spirit helped on that one because I didn't
understand everything I was saying as I was saying it but it made sense
to her! ...A horse can be put in an arena and run free and be fine,
sure...but when it succumbs to training, to being broken, to following
the rules and letting the rider lead and guide it...it learns, it
progresses, and becomes a champion! Rewarded with carrots and apples,
and even grand ribbons....it reaches it's full potential = ) Even more
so, he horse becomes one with the rider, and both do great things as a
team! Just like our Heavenly Father and us! Kind of incredible = )
Anyway, we added her as a new investigator and will be meeting with her
again on Thursday. We said a prayer with her, and sadly, as we said
"Amen" her trolley pulled away!!! We felt so awful, we took her into
Jamba Juice to get her a treat to make up for it, ha ha...she was so
nice about it....we continued to talk and she said that she completely
believed it was not an accident that she met us. i confirmed that
thought with her and told her we had some other things we could have
done, but felt prompted to come here, and now we knew why...Heavenly
Father wanted you to hear this. She texted us later and said she was
excited for us to come by and wanted to make us dinner too. Unreal? Yep,
it sure seems so! The sad thing is, she is moving to Washington State
for school in 2 and 1/2 weeks....we are very sad we won't get to teach
her for very long, but I know that is not the point...there will be
missionaries in Spokane that will be so grateful to teach someone who is
so prepared, and the point is, Heavenly Father needed her to be found,
and to begin her journey. I was so thankful for the promptings we both
received. Had we not gone to the neighbor Sister Patterson felt to
visit, had we had lunch with the member family that so kindly offered us
to join them, basically had we done anything else but follow the
promptings we received that we knew in our hearts would be the best way
to use the Lord's time He had given us, the timing to meet Ondraya would
not have worked out...and who knows when or if she would have come
across missionaries again. WOW! What a miracle! Prayer and faith (and
personal sacrifice/hard work)) truly do precede the greatest miracles!
I love this work....and I can't wait for all that is yet to come in it!
Love you all!!!! I'd love to hear about the miracles you experience as you talk to those Heavenly Father puts in your path!!!
Your Favorite Sister Missionary,
Sister Riggs
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| Becca's Baptism Day! |
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| Me and Sister Patterson |
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| Me and Becca = ) |
