This week was a roller coaster ride!
So I'll just get right into the meat and potatoes of it. There's an investigator couple named Ryan and Angelika. They are a young couple from New Zealand with 3 young kids. Angelika was raised by non member parents, but her grandmother was a member of the church and took her to church regularly as a child. She was never baptized and since then has had a hard life and she and Ryan were "not very close to God" as she said it. Some time last month, they both realized that the way they were living was not getting them anywhere. They felt lost and meaningless. So Angelika decided to go to church for the first time in years. She thought that Ryan would not be interested at all, but after one week, they were both going together. Then after two, they were bringing the kids along. Pretty soon, we were meeting with them. These two are amazing. They are seeing and feeling the Gospel working in their lives and they are putting the effort into it. They are reading the Book of Mormon and Praying as a family daily. They are coming to church every week. They already knew about the temple sealing, and told us that was their goal. They now have a picture of the Melbourne temple on their wall, with words that say "Family is forever". We invited them to be baptized, and they were super excited and said yes! We knew they were living together out of wedlock (just like every couple in this country), so we explained about the Law of Chastity and how they would need to be married before the baptism. Ryan was all for it, but Angelika looked a little hesitant. They told us they'd talk about it and get back to us. The next day, guess what? They told us they were getting married and baptized on the 27th of May! Wooooooot! Could anybody possibly be this converted???
Well, nothing is perfect, so the day after that, we went to visit, and Ryan was the only one home. He explained to us that he and Angelika were both addicted to a few things, and they had decided to stop cold turkey that day, and the withdrawals brought out tempers and they had had a huge argument. As we were sitting talking, Angelika came back home, and she was fuming. She was so angry at him, and Ryan asked us politely to leave, while they began yelling at eachother. As we were leaving we heard some harsh things of how they no longer want to be married. Well, we were heartbroken.
but...... MIRACLE TIME!!!!!!!!!! Sunday Morning Session of General Conference comes up, and the whole family came! They came to both sessions and we went to visit afterwards. They apologized for how they argued in front of us, and explained that they still very much want to be married, baptized, and eventually sealed. They really connected with some of the talks in Conference, and they felt the Spirit so strong. We contacted the Bishop immediately and set up a time for them to talk to him about marrying them!
God has been helping them so much. He will continue to help them as they fight against their addictions, continue to repent and come unto Christ. It is amazing for us to be able to be a part of their journey. Their wedding and Baptism will be on June 3rd. Their sealing will be a year later.
So that's my week! General Conference was awesome by the way. Holy Goodness I loved it.
Have a great week!
Elder Chappell
(us with Ryan and Angelika, with their kids, Rhyze, and Rhavenblue. Their middle one, Rhavaybreeze, is not in the picture)
No comments:
Post a Comment