Hello everyone!
What a crazy week this has been! We've been working hard, doing lots of finding, and meeting a little of bizarre people...but it's been fun :) There are so many stories to share! But before I get to those, I have great news! PATRICK is getting BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY!! :) I am SO excited for him. He's a little nervous about it and slightly concerned about keeping the commandments after he's baptized, but so are most people and he really is just so ready. He's also way excited for the baptism and the blessings that come with that (mainly the gift of the Holy Ghost). It's so great! We went over with the elders to teach him this week (it was so fun...it'd been awhile since I'd last taught him) and he was there with his girlfriend, Camilla, and so we taught the first lesson and it went so well. We invited her to be baptized as well, and she said she would if she received her answer, which is just perfect. We told her that that's how we wanted her to do it; we don't want anyone to get baptized if they don't know it's true. Then Patrick says "And I know it's true. So I'm going to get baptized." It was so exciting :) But then at the end we asked fi they had any questions and Patrick says "Yes, I just have one. Sister Lindsey, can you please explain the Law of Chastity to Camilla so that she understands what we can and can't do?" Just slightly unexpected. And I still don't know all the vocab for that lesson at all...I'm pretty sure when we taught it to Patrick I just sat there while Sister Pearson and Soeur Belanger explained it and then the second time the elders were there and took over...so it was an experience. But it was...I just love Patrick :) I'm SO excited for him!
Then probably the highlight of the week was zone conference. I LOVE zone conference and interviews :) This one was especially good...instead of talking mostly about us working harder and finding more people all the trainings focused on following the Spirit more. As we learn to follow the Spirit, to testify powerfully with the Spirit there, we'll be able to find more success and joy in our work. The people we talk to will better be able to feel the importance and the truth of the message we share and have the desire to come unto Christ instead of feeling like we're pushing them to come unto Christ. It was really interesting, and I really enjoyed it. I just love President and Sister McKinnon :)
For other news, the week was pretty interesting. We went finding on Tuesday for most of the day and we met this one older man drinking a beer who talked with us for awhile and said that everything we said made sense. We kept explaining, kept teaching, he kept agreeing (as well as laughing and teasing us about the fact that we don't have boyfriends waiting for us so he might just try to make a move...awkward) and then at the end we asked him if we could come back and he said no, which was a little unexpected. So we asked if he knew anyone else who might be interested and he gave us the name, number, and address of one of his friends. So we went by and met him on Saturday after service and he was interesting to say the least. He was a nice guy, but completely drunk when we passed by and told us he'd be itnerested in learning more about the Book of Mormon but not reading it because it doesn't have enough pictures and has too many words. Now this man is probably in his 50s, but we told him that we had a children's Book of Mormon that we could bring him with pictures and simpler words and he said that'd be great. So we set up an appointment for tomorrow and we'll be taking it to him then. It was interesting. Then we asked if he knew anyone else who might be interested and he gave us the name of another one of his friends who we passed by yesterday. He wasn't interested at all really, but it led to another interesting experience.
So yesterday when we went to pass by the referral we didn't see a car in his driveway so we decided to walk around the block and knowck a couple of doors and by the time we got done with the street, hopefully he'd be back. We were going to start at this one house but then I decided to start at a different part of the street instead. We knocked on the first door, they weren't interested. The second door was slightly more interested, but not really. Then as we were walking to the 3rd house, a man from across the street called out and asked if we were Mormons. We said yes and he said "Well, if you've got a few minutes, I'd love to talk to you." So we went over there thinking he was one of the golden investigator that you hear about and we ended up talking to him for almost an hour and a half and it was awful. SUCH a waste of time. Turns out he's a Batpist preacher with his own church that he started and he just wanted to convince us that if we REALLY study the Bible, like REALLY study it, we find that the doctrine that it preaches is not the same that is preached in "the Mormon church". It was so ridiculous. We listened to him and we gave our perspective and he just kept coming up with other scriptures and giving explanations that didn't even make sense at all. He used mostly the letters from Paul to the churches at the time and preached from them and said that no where in Paul's writings is baptism mentioned. We told him that Christ was baptized and it was important enough for Him to be baptized because it was necessary to be batpized by someone with the right authority to return and live with God again, but he said that wasn't true. He also said that we're only saved by faith, not by works. I shared the "faith without works is dead, being alone" scripture and he said that if you really read the Bible, you find that there are different scriptures talking to people at different times, and that one is talking about after the Millenium when we will be judged by works by for right now, we're only judged bu our faith. It was very contradictory throughout the entire thing, and finally at the end he told us that really, there were 2 different Gospels in the Bible: the one that Christ taught, and the one that Paul taught. And he's teaching Paul's. It was insane. Sister Tschumi and I almost started laughing in the middle. But at the same time, it was really sad because you know he really beleives it and he's going to spend his whole life teaching it to others and then learn after that it was all for nothing. It also made me realize that you really have to teach with the Spirit, otherwise it's just forcing someone, it's not actually convincing or helping them. We can't convince people ourselves; it's the Spirit that teaches and that converts. Also, I realized how much we really need the Book of Mormon, because the Bible doesn't have a fulness of the truth and can't be explained just on it's own. It was interesting.
Also this week we talked to another drunk man in his 50s or so while we were out contacting (we seemed to find a lot of those this week...) and we tried talkign to him and he said something to me and I didn't catch it at all, so he repeated it and I still didn't understand and so I said "I'm sorry; I really just can't understand what you said" and he said it again and I STILL didn't understand (it was a little ridiculous...) and so Sister Tschumi translated and said "he asked if you understood when he said that you have really beautiful eyes" and it was SO uncomfortable. I guess I started blushing and he just started laughing and the contact didn't go anywhere at all. And then I was talking to Elder Grinton and he said before he met me, he knew me as the "12 year old sister" since that's how all the other elders referred to me...I was the one that looked like I was 12 and WAY too young to be on a mission. It was pretty funny :)
So it was a fun week. We taught a couple of people, set up an appointment or two for this week, and we're going to be doing evern more finding this week! It'll be wonderful. And the weather is really pretty right now, so it makes it even better. But anyways, i hope you all are doing well and having a wonderful time. Thanks for all the letters...I'll be writing back as soon as I have time. Have a great week!
Love, Sister Nicole Lindsey
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment