Mission Miracle from Elder Zachary Bunting

February 23, 2009

After church we went back to someone in the blocks that had told us we could come back on Saturday. Her name is Mirela, and it was seriously probably the second best first lesson of my mission, other than the one with Robert and Felicia (in Bacau). Every time we brought up a point that was clearly new to her, such as the need for prophets, the falling away of the church, or finding out the truth, she would stop and think about it really hard, then say, "you're right" and proceed to explain her thought process. She said that we caught her at the right time, because if we had come 3 or 4 weeks earlier, she would have rejected us, saying that she's Orthodox. However, in the meantime she said that she has thought about it and wondered if there really isn't something more, that the fact that she was born in a certain church doesn't mean you have to remain in it. She knows she can ask God and receive answers. To me, one of the coolest parts of the lesson, which I realized afterward, was that after explaining the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, I don't know why, but I had her read John 10:16, and then I read to her 3 Nephi 15:17,21. A couple minutes later she said, "You know I was wondering why these things happened in America, because I had always heard about everything being in Jerusalem. I didn't really like it, but then you read that about Christ's sheep. You're right, I mean we're all His sheep (her own realization, not what I had said), so why would the truth only be in America, or only Jerusalem, or only Romania?" Like I said, I don't know why I read those verses, but now I know it was to help her understand God's love for all of His children. I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost, who teaches so much better than I can.