In response to a request for examples of less-active Melchizedek Priesthood holders being rescued.
We were trained in late October 2017 by Elder Blunck on rescuing less-active Melchizedek Priesthood holders. Sadly, it’s been slow getting off the ground, though all the wards and branches are giving it attention and are moving forward.
We are now going into ward conferences and we’ve specifically requested that our home ministering visits (stake presidency matches up with our counterparts in each bishopric) are scheduled with less-active MP holders.
My wife, Vivienne, and I hold our FHE on Sunday evening together (we’re empty nesters). Then, when possible, we go on visits each Monday night to homes where we know there probably won’t be a FHE—homes of less-actives, elderly living alone or those who may be seriously ill. We’ve had many wonderful experiences.
In one of our November visits, we went to the home of Matt and Brandie Sims. They were in our ward when they joined the Church in 2002. They were a wonderful young family of 3 children, full of energy and love for the gospel. Within a year of their baptism, they were sealed in the temple and seemed to be on their way to a wonderful life of faithfulness in the Church. But soon the world crept in, sports started taking a bigger role in their lives, they got offended by a church leader, they moved to another city for a short time, and when they moved back there had been a boundary change and now they were “lost” in their new ward.
Despite “routine” efforts to reach out to them by those in their new ward, including VT and HT, their lives had become too busy outside the Church. They had lost interest in becoming involved and they had convinced themselves they didn’t need the Church and gospel to be happy. In 2015, Brandie had come in to ask for help with her marriage. Despite our efforts to help, she wasn’t sufficiently humble enough to accept counsel; to draw close to the Lord through Church activity and gospel living.
I’m ashamed it took so long to make an appointment for Vivienne and I to visit the Sims, but they started coming to my mind. I knew I needed to act. It was a wonderful visit allowing them to share some of their heartaches and even an acknowledgement that they still knew the Church was true. While I did most of the asking of questions, Vivienne slowly turned her attention to their 8-year-old daughter, seated near her mother and quite bored with the conversation. As our discussion went into an hour or more (finishing with: “We love you and need you.”), little Zoie slid a little closer to Vivienne inch-by-inch until by the end of the evening she was snuggled up against her and they were looking at a family picture album together. Zoie was feeling the Spirit, thanks to Vivienne’s tenderness and goodness, and was being drawn to Vivienne because of it.
Just last week (Jan 7) I “happened" to attend Fast and Testimony meeting in the Sims’ ward. I was stunned and thrilled to see the Sims family sitting near the back of the chapel, I noticed they were among the first to arrive. The bishop explained that they had been coming regularly now for the past several weeks unbeknownst to me.
But it got better.
Near the end of the testimonies, Matt came to the pulpit and bore his testimony that despite their inactivity for the past 8 years, the Lord has been tugging at his heart; that the past week was a "roller-coaster of emotions” that resulted in him being prompted to take his wife to the temple. They walked the gardens together one evening. Then Matt, still at the pulpit, looked at his wife in the audience and announced: “I want my wife to know I love her and I want us to go again this time inside the temple together.”
Needless to say the joy I felt was incomparable and couldn’t wait to tell Vivienne, in our monthly family testimony meeting, of the miracle i had witnessed that very day; a miracle she had been a part of. We never know with whom the Lord is working and how a brief, unpretentious visit can suddenly pull the curtain on the Lord’s miraculous doings.
I hope this is helpful.
Crismon Lewis
President, Mount Hood Oregon Stake
503-667-5843
P.S. Maybe this also helps demonstrate how a sister can make such a difference in these ministering visits.
No comments:
Post a Comment