Septiembre19

Wow. What a week. Satan had fun throwing quite a few curveballs... GOOD THING I HAVE A TESTIMONY.

Anyway, it was AWESOME to hear from all 3 members of my familia! What a rare treat haha.

How to recap this week.....?
B is doing great. He's still reading and praying. He received his brain injury from a car accident some 6 or so years ago. He's definitely all there and he does have some issues with memory, but I'll tell you what, he remembers everything about that experience he had a week ago and when he prays before he reads the BoM he says he's able to remember what he read much better... and then he proves it by telling us all about Nephi and Lehi. :)

M and T.... We brought Sis. O to our last appt with them and she was able to share with M how the gospel has blessed her family and her marriage. The commitment we were teaching toward was for the S family to have family prayer. M expressed hesitation--that she'd like to but T wouldn't. I then addressed T and asked him if he would allow it and give his support. He then went off on a tirade about how he has purposely not introduced religion into the home yet because he had religion forced on him and he doesn't think his kids are old enough to choose for themselves and he doesn't intend on introducing religion to them until they are. Let's just say that the Spirit of the Lord ..... is great. Sis. O tried to help him understand the umm.... wrongness? weakness? of that philosophy but he would just interrupt her with his own thoughts. (Poor Sis. O we could tell was struggling for patience.) Then I don't really know how to explain it, but I felt the Holy Ghost and I was able to confound him with things he HAD to acknowledge. It was like in the BoM when they "spoke with power and authority." Believe me they weren't my words--I'm not tooting my own horn. But it was literally a miracle. After we established certain facts that had never before entered into his mind but that he couldn't help but admit, and when he went silent... he consented to allow family prayer in his home. Now we just hope and pray that M has the ambition to put it into practice and that they have "ears to hear and eyes to see" the effects of it.

We had a friend of a person we taught last week call us for an appt. HE was interesting. Loooooooooong story short, he drowned in the mud of anti. I could definitely go on about Mr. K, but I'd rather not. He really tested us this week, but in the end the same invitation stands: we're not here to prove it to you. The only way to know is to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. That's the ONLY WAY. I've been thinking a lot about how in order to gain a testimony of these things and know of their truthfulness, one has to be humble, submissive, sincere and full of faith. And it doesn't come any other way. I'm sure K will come in contact with the Church again--a person like him can't help it. I just pray he'll have the preparation he needs to later accept it.

And yesterday as we were walking around trying to find people to talk to and teach, we passed 2 college-age boys dukin it out in the driveway. As we were almost past them, they called out to us about who we were. We explained we were representatives of Jesus Christ and proceeded to have an interesting conversation with them.... we were even able to teach one about the First Vision and the Restoration, but it was a very short conversation nonetheless because the other one I'm fairly positive was possessed with something (drugs, alcohol, a devil or a combination of the three) and we moved on after giving the one a pamphlet for him to read once he was sober. Pretty sure Sis. T was scared lol but that sort of thing happened every third day in Kansas City, KS. (Not an exaggeration.)

I'm still learning new things like crazy and it's amazing how a little experience and pondering can open your understanding to a multitude of scriptures you've known your whole life. Can't wait for what the next 5 months will bring. (except the snow, wind, sleet, ice and negative temps.... I CAN wait for those.....) My poor little Samoan companion is cold in 50-60 degree weather (which we had this week) and I keep telling her she's going to LOVE the -12 days and that blasted wind....

And HECK YEAH UTAH CREAMED BYU!!!!!!


Well, familia querida, espero que todo este bien y que estan disfrutando los tiempos y autumno. Es corto. :(