One of my favorites is about an inactive member, Sister Johnson.
She was baptized in 1993 and was forced to move to Sarnia in 2001, at which time she had been less active for a couple of years.
Out of the blue, we get this phone call; she wanted to come back to church. (By this time she had been less active for 17 years.)
We were shocked! We set up a time to visit with her and started to teach her. She had forgotten a lot of the lessons and a lot of the church's beliefs. As we continued meeting and she came to church she found out she knew people in the ward already. They were able to fellowship her, invite her to activities, and organize rides for her to get to those activities without us even initiating it!
Now she is becoming active in the church, overcoming her word of wisdom problems, and focusing on preparing to go to the Temple!
This built my testimony that when we are obedient we can truly see the miracles that happen.
This story is about: AJ (Ashley Justin) Hibbs.
My companion and I were both new to the area and had no idea where to start, and so on, so we decided to pray and seek inspiration. Once doing so we felt prompted to look at the less actives in our area. We decided to walk to this one less active family and on the way we felt prompted to knock on the doors just a couple of blocks from our apartment.
As we did so, it was disappointment after disappointment, until we knocked on AJ's door. We taught him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon, invited him to read and pray about it on the spot, and he accepted. We set up an appointment with him for a couple of days later.
As time went on we began teaching him, and members started to fellowship him and guide him in the right direction.
After we taught him for about three months he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Kyeong Tae Kim is from Korea. He came to Canada to work. During this time, he didn’t speak very much English. He started to come to the ESL (English as a Second Language) program that the church has. During this time, he started to meet with missionaries. He had no previous knowledge of the Saviour or anything. By the time I had gotten to the area he was being taught.
During one lesson we decided to extend the invitation to be baptized. He refused, to our surprise since we were positive he was ready. As we spoke a little about his concerns, he expressed that he really wanted to get baptized, but the language barrier was an issue. We set him with a date for two weeks later and started to make plans for him to be taught more often.
It was around Christmas time and he was on his own, no family around, etc. They were all back in Korea. We had spoken to a sister in the branch who spoke Korean and her family invited him to a Christmas gathering with the family. He was so excited about this. It was the first time that he wasn’t spending Christmas alone but with members of Christ’s family.
Two weeks later he was baptized, even though there were a few bumps along the way.
Afterward he bore an amazing testimony of the Saviour and The Book of Mormon and how he had felt the love of those around him.
This built my testimony that he was prepared and if we hadn’t followed the prompting, would he have been baptized when he was? I don’t know.
Another experience: Kaitlin McGuire
She and her family had gone to Utah to visit family. While they were there her mother got baptized and had received the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
They walked into church the next Sunday after they got home and Kaitlin wanted to be baptized just like her mother. We started the lessons but she knew all of it already. She would teach us with just the topic name! It was amazing. She wanted myself, my companion and the YW president to be at her baptism, so she made it the Sunday that we were all leaving so we could all see her get baptized.
In “Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service” we are taught that “Faith leads to action, including repentance, obedience, and dedicated service. When you have faith in Jesus Christ, you trust the Lord enough to follow His commandments—even when you do not completely understand the reasons for them. You accomplish what the Lord wants you to accomplish. You help bring about good in your own life and the lives of others. You are able to do miracles according to the Lord’s will. Your faith will be manifest through diligence and work.”
President Thomas S. Monson, in an October 2000 general conference address, said: “…faith precedes the miracle. It has ever been so and shall ever be. It was not raining when Noah was commanded to build an ark. There was no visible ram in the thicket when Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Two heavenly personages were not yet seen when Joseph knelt and prayed. First came the test of faith—and then the miracle.” (The Call to Serve,” Ensign, Nov. 2000, 48–49).
