Why Is Everyone Here Named John??
I have 2 spiritual stories from this week, and both have to do with someone named John haha!
The first John is John Dave! Yesterday we extended a baptismal invitation to him! John Dave is 20 years old and his cousin just got baptized a couple weeks ago. We have only taught him like 2 times because of the typhoon and such, but he has been coming to church every week for the past month! In our lesson yesterday, he basically taught us. A few weeks before, our Sunday school lesson in church was the same as our lesson yesterday so he was so excited to learn it again and he had so much to say and so many questions. He was literally grinning ear to ear for our entire lesson. Then, we extended a baptismal invitation to him and he said “Yes! Yes, Sister! Yes!” with the biggest grin on his face.
Second John is John Paul! This week we had one of the most spiritual lessons I've ever had. We found John Paul about a month ago, he is 58 years old and has been a Catholic all of his life. He always compares our teachings to what his beliefs are, and he sometimes takes notes on our lessons. He tells us that he wants to believe us and he knows what we're saying is true, but he's been a Catholic for so long that he has a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact his lifelong beliefs are being questioned. He is very open with us and tells us that he has been to prison before and he's had a rough past life, but he wants to change. He always opens up to us and tells us about his life, and then he turns to Sister Domingo and says “did she understand?” And then he tells her to translate for me so I can know what he said. I have a hard time understanding this man because he has no teeth and a lisp so it makes it veryy difficult to pick out what he says. The cool thing though is that even though I don't understand the majority of what he says, I can still feel the spirit. Nothing in particular happened, but the spirit during our lesson on Thursday was SO STRONG. I could feel the desire John Paul had to change and the truthfulness of our message to him. At the end of our lesson I was able to bear my most sincere testimony to John Paul. I always try to bear sincere testimonies at our lessons, but a lot of times I just have to recite some memorized Tagalog lines. I bore my testimony to him of the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I've always known the Atonement was real, I knew it was for everyone, I knew everyone had a chance to change and become better. But I have never felt how REAL that truth is until I was testifying of it to John Paul that night. John Paul has been to prison. He drinks. He smokes. He has been abusive. He has done so much bad. But Christ doesn't care. John Paul has found light in his life and he wants to change. Jesus Christ atoned for HIM, and for all of us. There is no person too far gone from the saving power of the atonement. The spirit in that moment was more than I have ever felt before and I have no doubt about the truthfulness of this gospel. I KNOW the atonement of Jesus Christ is real and it is truly the greatest gift ever.
God is so good and I love being a missionary so so much!
-Sister Eades
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