This has been an incredible week! I am loving being in New Bern and Elder Collier is absolutely incredible! He has been out for 17 months and is from Washington State. He and I are getting along extremely well. I am excited to learn form Elder Collier this transfer.
New Bern is beautiful. There are huge bridges and a smaller city area. There are statues of bears all over the place because Bern in German is Bear. Im going to try and take a picture with them all. The ward is fantastic! Everyone is so loving and friendly. The missionaries are pretty integrated into the ward fabric. I can tell we are going to know the members quite well before we leave.
We have had so much success this last week and we don't know were it is coming from. We only taught 5 lessons, which is a big jump from the 20+ in Kinston, but that in know way represents the quality of work we did.
One of the lessons was with a new investigator who was invited to investigate by a friend. The spirit was powerful during the lesson and we noticed our phraseology and teaching styles completely change so we could teach in a way he understood. Another person we are working with called the Bishop. Once again we noticed the Lord's hand in His work that we get to help Him with. Another time, we were prompted to stay in an area and tracked. Later a member saw us and talked to us for about 10 min. The spirit was definitely present and we each came away from that meeting edified and with stronger faith. Early in the week we gave a priesthood blessing to an older lady. She and the rest of her present family were astounded how we expressed that God was pleased with her note taking during church. Unknown to us, she had been the ward historian and was one of the oldest and first members in the area. The spirit was definitely present. One night we prayed and asked God who we needed to stop by. Almost instantly we had people come to mind and every one of them were home. Divine guidance is real! During church we were able to participate in the Primary. After church we heard a child ask her mother when they could have the missionaries come over. The spirit was still present.
Stemming from Elder Oaks talk this last conference, our Stake vision for member missionary work is to have every member pray with real intent. Because we are the ones who bring this vision to the members we decided to live it our selves. We made our transfer focus: Because we love Christ, we humbly submit our will to His by praying with real intent and acting on the first answer we receive. The only thing I can contribute our success too is God. He has been answering our prayers. There is no shortage of promptings when we humbly seek our Heavenly Father's council. Each prayer we give we give God our commitment to act if he will tell us what to do. He loves us because we are His children and he wants us to return home to live with Him. He wishes to guide us through our lives. I have learned from experience that praying with real intent brings blessings.
I know this church is Christ church.
I love ya'll,
Elder Shill
P.S. I forgot my camera again... but I do have pictures,
P.P.S The mission bought some new cars and now we are driving a brand new 2017 Malibu. It has Wifi :) ... but we dont have anything to connect to it...
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