Prayer and Testimony

The following is a story about promptings from the spirit, prayer, and testimony in missionary work that I received today from my brother, Elder John Smith, who is serving in the Canada Montreal Mission.

“When I first showed up in this area 2 weeks ago I was blessed to have the opportunity to work with an investigator who had just accepted the baptismal commitment just a couple of days before my arrival.  His baptismal date is for July 18th and things are looking incredible.  His name is Hector and he is originally from Mexico, but has lived here for 3 years or so.  He has already acquired a testimony of the truthfulness of our message and continually tells us how he wants to share the spirit he has felt with everyone else.  He is sincere and humble and it is the greatest blessing to be able to work with someone who has such a thirst for the truth as this man does.

We went over to his place to teach him the lesson of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,  which is essentially the 4th article of faith in greater detail.  When we showed up Hectors girlfriend asked if she could sit in and listen, to which we replied of course.  They both sat through the entire lesson and the spirit was very strongly manifested throughout the course of the visit.  At the end of the lesson my companion asked Melanie (the girlfriend) if she would like to be baptized as well.  She said yes and then she proceeded to tell us of an experience she had.

Throughout the course of Hector’s investigation Melanie has been skeptical of the whole thing.  When Hector agreed to be baptized and to make the necessary changes to join the church Melanie was frustrated and told Hector that we were just brain washing him, and that we worship Joseph Smith and what not.  Hector countered her attacks by bearing his testimony to her and telling her that if she really wanted to know if all of this was true that she needed to ask God.

She took his advice and prayed that night about all of these things and she said that she felt the holy spirit enter into her soul.  She said she felt goose bumps.  And so with that experience and our invitation to baptism she could not deny what needed to be done.  She almost didn’t tell us about this experience of hers, and she probably wouldn’t have done it then if we had not invited her to be baptized.  Luckily my companion acted upon that prompting because I was not planning on inviting her at that time, although I did have the thought come to my head briefly.  Next time I will pay more attention to the spirit’s promptings.”

What a wonderful story of two men, Hector and the missionary, feeling the promptings of the Holy Spirit and bearing testimony.  And as a consequence, a humble prayer was answered and another testimony was gained of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.