this week was pretty good. We are still are having a tough, tough time getting in with anybody. We taught a couple of people though. we picked back up Isaiah. He apparently had been trying to get a hold of us, but we never got any call from him and he would never respond to our calls either. Our ward missionary, Bro. Kuhn who we go out with a lot had a thought to go visit him so we did. His mother was very happy to see us because he had been trying to get a hold of us apparently even though we never had any call from him. Confusing. But now we picked him back up and his friend Dante, but they will be busy this coming week so we may not be able to teach them.
Also, right now we are trying to implement a family history class. It was just going to be at the ward level, but now it might eventually be with the stake! We talked to sister Pry, who is the representative over the family history center in Columbia. At first she was super defensive because we were jumping in too fast I guess and we are novices compared to her. But she then softened up and gave us a bunch of great ideas to teach the class on. She is going to help us get "experts" to come teach various classes on various subjects of family history such as pitfalls, internet usuage, indexing, vital records, uploading family stories, family trees, family group sheet vs pedigree chart, etc etc. I hope it turns out well. This is all pretty much inspired by a returend missionnary in our ward named Bro Chapdelaine. He used a lot of family history on his mission in Flordai Tallahasse. He also gave us a way cool pamphlet they used and I am sending it hopefully to my mission president to see if he likes the idea. So far he loves that we are trying to do family history and is very supportive of us doing it which is good. It may not get started up until I have to leave to another area but I am happy to at least get it going.
Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week. We taught a less family who has a lot of developmental problems so that was interesting. We sweat a lot. I'm really used to the humidity by now it doesn't even bother me. I don't every wear sunscresen either. maybe is should. I don't get burned though. it's weird.
Elder Howlett and I are having fun though. He is a smart kid. Very inquisitive and we think similarly so we get a long pretty well.
Oh yeah before I forget. We talked to this preacher guy in his mid 20s. He sat us down and said he had a few honest questions which eventually turned out into him spewing out a bunch of anti and even showing us a video on it to try to shake us from the faith. But we could not be shaken. He maid outrageous claims t hat I'm sure are not new but I'd never heard before such as Joseph smith didn't translate a single character right on the Book of Mormon, The book of Abraham was translated incorrect and is just a thing fromt he Egyptian Book of the Dead, their is no reference to the temple signs and tokens in the bible (which I know, Mom, you know much better than he does--if only he knew Hebrew :), there is only one God because it says in Isaiah there are no Gods before me or after----I wouldn't mind someone's interpretation on that one actually because I can see why he would think that) So yeah that was kind of a tough experience. WE just bore our testimonies and left after a while on kind terms. It was pretty sad to see how decieved he was though. The video was about people who used to be Mormon. Very deceiving video. But I still have my faith.
In fact I studied about faith this morning. I have never understood the principle of faith all too well. I never realized how we excercise faith every day with EVERYTHING, not just gospel related stuff. "Without faith you can do nothing." (D&C 8:10) but WITH faith, even as a grain as a mustard seed, "nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Matthew 17:20). I also seemed to finally make the connection between my faith and my prayers. Because I have always, and still do struggle with God answering my prayers, but now I realize that he empowers me through my faith to answer them. He just puts "packets of help" ---as Elder Richard G. Scott calls it---- along my path and as I HOPE and DO (because that is the definition of faith in my own words) God puts instances in my life where prayers are fulfillled. We all have heard the story of that man who said that god would save him from the flood. God sent people to help him but kept saying "it's okay the Lord will save me." Little did he realize that God was trying to save him and when he died and went to heaven he asked the Lord "Why didn't you save me?" Then the lord responded, I did you big dummy!"
So God I think a lot of times helps us fulfill our own prayers if that makes sense. So I will have to work on that.
Also I have a question for anyone. We studied in gospel principles about the gifts of the spirit. It says that one of the gifts of the spirit is knowing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The other one is The gift of believing the testimony others. I was told by a couple of people that some only have the gift to believe in the testimony of others. Does that mean that they don't really have a testimony?
Luckily, we can all have each of the gifts if we try our best to obtain them. I guess I am just not sure if I have the gift to believe in the testimony of others or if i do have the gift of knowing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.. Just curious what you all think.
Well I best be get going
Love you all!
Have a good week
Elder Soutas
No comments:
Post a Comment