This week wasn't bad. I had Golden Orientation this week. Basically we have an over-night training on the mission, their expectations and rules, and doing everything with the spirit. I was an inspiring experience, especially with President speaking; he always gives good training's. I learned so much from him this past week. We also had trade off's with our zone leaders. Elder Taylor lived in China before his mission in the Shen Zhen Branch. It's pretty amazing, the connections to different people we have. He is a great example to me, he has really good GQing skills and teaching skills. I was amazed at how he can connect with almost everyone he talks to and have a decent conversation.
This week, we fasted for new investigators. Miraculously someone let us in after we pleaded with him a little. The statement my companion used was "we don't come out here for two years to have small talk with people. We would love to share this special message with you." Hans (the persons name) let us in after a moment of silence. Before we started, he bluntly told us that he just wanted to learn more about our church and has no intention of joining. We were more than happy to teach him just that. We taught the restoration, and answered all his questions. The spirit was definitely there, I know Hans felt it too even though he may deny it. Miraculously, he accepted the invitation to say the closing prayer. The spirit was so strong. I know he knew that there was something different about us. Sadly he denied the invitation for another lesson, and was satisfied with the little knowledge we shared with him. All we could do was give him our number and a copy of the Book of Mormon and invite him to read. We hope he will call us for another lesson.
We also met a guy named Peter at General Conference. I will be brief, since my time is running short. He had a lot of questions for us. He also had a lot of his own ideas. He had a genuine desire to find a true church. He came to the right place, but he wanted physical evidence to know how a church is true and how you know someone has Priesthood Authority. Sadly that's not how the gospel works. We told him over and over that the only way to know these things, is to exercise faith and read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. This answer was not what he was looking for but it is the truth. We encouraged him to continue to meet with the sisters. Hopefully he will eventually realize that the gospel is actually simple and we are the ones that complicate things. As we watched conference, we invited him to ponder about the questions he had during conference and find his answers there. I know I found answers to his questions, but he continues to deny that he found any answers.
Until next week!
Elder Westbrook
MVI: The size of bats in Australia
No comments:
Post a Comment