Sister Van Buskirk: Let the Flame

This week was a good one. Pretty uneventful and long but a good one. Probably the highlight of the week was going to a Baha'i devotional.

For those of you that are not familiar with the Baha'i they essentially believe that all religions are good. Part of their faith is to create spaces for people of all religions to come together and share their beliefs and sing and pray for the community.

So a week or two ago, Sister Garner and I had just walked out of a lesson and were standing on the corner wondering if it would be better to walk or wait for the bus. Then this guy across the street yells, "hey sisters!" We're like what the heck, how does this guy know who we are, no one knows who we are. Anyway, he's Baha'i not Mormon but he lived north of Philly a few years ago and the sister missionaries came to his Baha'i devotionals so he knows stuff. He asked us to come again so we did.

It was so interesting. It was us and the guy Vince, another guy who we found out met with missionaries before, 2 girls that were Baha'i, and another girl that was like doing a report thing on the Baha'i religion or something. But we all sat in a circle and took turns reading scriptures (We read from the Book of Mormon) and they sang a few songs. Our favorite is "Let the Flame" Mostly because it is still stuck in our head. It goes like this:

Let the Flame (let the flame)

Of the Love of God (of the love of God)

Burn Brightly Within (burn brightly within)

Our Radiant Hearts (our radiant hearts)

Vince asked us to sing a hymn at the end. During the hour or so we were sharing, Vince would like move around in his chair and go like, "mmm" "mmmhhm" Sister Garner and I talked about it after and he has that desire to feel the spirit. He wants to feel the spirit so bad he will try and create it himself. He told us he loves the "Mormon hymns" but the reason he loves our hymns is because the spirit fills the room while we sing. Not because they were inspiring words but because they talk about Christ and the spirit will be there to testify that Christ is the Son of God. I don't really know if any of this story makes sense but it was a cool experience for me and kinda the only interesting thing that happened.

Other highlights of the week:

We cleaned our investigator, Syrena's house.

I went to my 3rd funeral on my mission.

Tom finally prayed on his own.

Brother Harris told us his friend Lila wants to get baptized and we talked to her and she really does this time (she's been taught a lot before) so we are going over on Friday to teach her.

We talked to a lot of people yesterday and not one of them rejected our message. #MIRACLES

Lots of Love!
Sister Van Buskirk

Insomnia Cookies