This has been a
great week! We saw a couple pretty amazing little miracles getting back
in touch with old investigators! One day I was contacting another set of
Elders from a nearby area about someone we had referred to them and he
was having a hard time, so they suggested we give him a call to see if
he would respond. I hadn't remembered his name exactly, so they told me
the name and I hung up and called the name I had heard. To my surprise
it was the wrong person! I had accidentally called an old potential
investigator we had met once before who was kind of hard hearted and
usually just argued with missionaries. It was awkward cause I didn't
even mean to call him, but I felt like I might as well shoot for an
appointment. He agreed and we met this week. He talked a lot about how
he used to just argue with missionaries, but he has changed and soften
some and would like to look into our church again with a more open mind!
Wow!!
Also,
we were calling a bunch of numbers we had received to set up
appointments and my companion randomly felt like he needed to call a guy
who was a miracle find on the street a couple months ago who just kind
of disappeared and never answered since. He answered for the first time
in maybe 6 or 7 weeks and he just so happened to be at a cafe in the
area and wanted to meet right away. We were just about to head home for
dinner, so we met him and his friend, had dinner with him, and he came
to English class that night. He says he is really interested in our
church and wants to come learn! Miracle!
Also, we
were just heading home and asked a man at a stop-light for directions of
which bus to get on and he was so excited to help a couple foreigners
find their way (like every other Korean here. They are so funny. They
absolutely love helping Americans find directions cause they assume we
are probably hopelessly lost). So he took us to the bus stop and then
said "Yeah, I've met missionaries before. My name is 조만진." When I heard
the name, I realized it was a man that some other Elders had referred to
us a while back, but his contact changed and we couldn't get a hold of
him. He even had my name and number in his phone! So we set up an
appointment and will meet him this week! Crazy. God works miracles!
One of the other miracles to me this week was Matt.
13. I read this chapter and learned a lot from a couple of the stories
of Christ. The first is when Christ fed the 5000. This is just after
Christ heard news of the beheading of John and he went into the desert,
at least to some degree, I'm sure, grieving the death of His beloved
cousin. Regardless, he takes the time to heal the multitudes that follow
Him, and when his disciples have assumed they have done all that they
could and are about to send the people home, Christ stops them and
beckons them to "give them to eat." The disciples, recognizing obvious
insufficiency, acknowledge "we have here but 2 loaves and 5 fishes."
Then Christ in His wisdom, just asks them to "bring them hither unto
me," proceeding to feed 5000. Christ has given a similar call for us to
feed His sheep to which we probably often reply with a similar excuse of
our lack and imperfections. But if Christ can feed 5000 with 2 loves
and 5 fishes, He can feed His sheep through imperfect servants. We just
need to trust and follow the call to gather our best efforts and our
love of God and bring them unto Him. Christ can.
I was also
impressed with the story of Peter on the water and how he really did
walk on water, but began to sink as he diverted his focus from Christ to
crisis. We just need to trust that truly "the winds and the waves shall
obey His will" and humbly obey the follow command - "Peace, Be still."
Fear not, have faith. We are imperfect, but we have a perfect God who
sent His perfect Son, who completed the perfect atonement for us. Christ
can. I know that He lives and that He is our loving, merciful, perfect
Savior!
Have a wonderful week!
Love, Elder Tolman
