Hi family!
I don't remember anything that's happened this week.
Lemme
think-- Tuesday, we went to that Beyond 5 concert, and "worked
security," which was a joke, because there were a million missionaries
there. But I got an official badge, which most of them didn't. I
successfully ignored most of the concert by texting pretty much everyone
in our phone-- actually managed to schedule a few people, so I consider
it something of a success! It was so loud! I'm such an old
person/missionary. But I did see a bunch of the youth from my first
area, including A-Pui, who is an eternal investigator only because her
parents won't let her get baptized, and this time I could actually talk
to her! Yay!! We were both very excited. It was fun to see all those
girls.
We had interviews with President Hawks this week,
which was fun. He kept offering to take the cookie off my hands that
Sister Hawks gave to us. It was pretty funny. I think he really liked
those cookies.
We taught Edwin again, and found out from the Elders
he's been investigating since 2003. They don't understand why we want
to teach him. I refuse to read his teaching record because I want to
give him a fresh start. I think he's beginning to trust us a little
more, that we're not just "the Lord's salesmen," as he put it in the
closing prayer he said in our last lesson. Haha. It probably helps that
we're girls. Our lesson with him was pretty powerful, though-- I think
we're being able to help him actually understand the answers to his
persisting questions, or helping him understand that some of these
things require faith.
Speaking of faith, we had this woman Janice come to
church on Sunday, who a previous set of elders, both of whom have
already left the area, taught, but I recognized her from seeing her come
to the church to be taught. In relief society she pulled us out of 3rd
hour to make us answer her questions about the Book of Mormon. She has a
ton, and she kept trying to have us prove everything from the Book of
Mormon in the Bible. We were like "Well, you see the point is that there
is restored truth in here that was lost from the Bible, so there are
going to be things in here that might not be extremely clear in the
Bible." One example was that she asked us about Moroni 2, which is about
Jesus giving the 12 apostles the right to give people the gift of the
Holy Ghost, then had us show her where in the Bible it talked about the
gift of the Holy Ghost. We then looked in the footnotes and found a
story in Acts about Paul giving people the gift of the Holy Ghost, which
I thought was a really cool, awesome answer to her question. Then she
told us it wasn't good enough because it didn't come directly from
Jesus' lips. I was like "Wait a second, you believe in the Bible, right?
You believe that Paul is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, right?"
And she said of course, and I said "Then doesn't that mean that what he
says about the gospel is what Jesus Christ told him to say?" And she
didn't have a response to that. Where is the faith? When the Bible isn't
good enough, I don't know what is. She said she created a file on her
phone of questions she had when she's read the Book of Mormon (she's
gotten all the way to 2nd Nephi), but that it disappeared on its own,
since deleting it herself would take multiple steps and wouldn't really
be possible for her to be able to do on accident. She prayed and asked
God what it was supposed to mean. At first I was like "Oh no!" But
after teaching her, I just kind of smiled at how tricky Heavenly Father
is-- I'm pretty sure it was him telling her to stop doubting and needing
an answer to absolutely everything before being willing to believe. And
he's proactively helping her forget those doubts. Hehe. So awesome. So
yeah, between her and Edwin in one day, I feel very blessed, as I've
realized I actually have been given the gift of faith more than I
realize. It was kind of sad watching them, because you could see these
questions just haunt them, and the inability to believe or trust just a
little bit leaves them in a bit of desperation for answers. Faith is so
important! We must have faith and be willing to follow the answers we
get before God will answer our prayers! Logic can always be twisted in
whatever way you'd like it to be-- just trust in God, it's so much
easier! Things don't bother you so much. So much more peaceful! The
gospel is awesome!
Love you all!
Sister Heaton
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