hi all. i don't have much to write this week. in fact it will be really short. because i get to talk to you next week!!! ah!! how crazy is that???

 

first i want you all to look up Alma 27:17. right now.

okay

 

did you look it up?

 

because if you didn't. than you must.

 

anyways that will be me in november of 2014.

 

when i read that i laughed. and then i was like yeah that will be me.

 

this week during district meeting we discussed the importance of the Book of Mormon in conversion and how it has played a part in our conversion. Last Monday I had an interesting experience. So we met this lady on the street a couple weeks ago who, when i asked her if she wanted to learn about Christ told me to follow her to her house. So I was like great this is awesome! She ends up taking us to some other place to meet her friend who "has interest in your message" so we met him really awkwardly. got his number and left because he was working at the moment. she then proceeded to take us to meet another one of her friends who she wanted us to meet. basically she gives us referrals but isn't interested in the gospel herself. anyway we decided to meet her again and she took us to this place where like five guys were sitting around a fire thing. oh my gosh it started snowing here by the way! yeah snow is on the ground! and ice....okay back to the story. so she introduces us as her friends. oh while we were walking there she's like can you take off your badges for like a little bit? and we were like no....and she's like ah okay. but yeah so she's like these are my friends! and they're all like laughing and joking that we're americans and blah blah and then it was way awkward because she didn't say anything else like about us being missionaries or anything so we just sat there awkwardly and i was thinking in my head gosh i do not want this to be pointless and i need to open my mouth. so this guy ends up being like oh you're mormon yeah i know mormons. so i walk over to where all the old guys are sitting and start talking to him. and he's Christian and heard of Mormons before and this other guy was like oh what's Mormon? And the guys like they're like Islam and I was like uh no we're Christian. And he's like no you're not. Mormons aren't Christians. And I wanted to be like excuse me?? Yeah I'm the Mormon here thank you. But then I calmed down and I was like no we believe in Jesus Christ and God. And he was trying to quiz me on who created us and who was God's son and i was like Christ. I believe in Jesus Christ. I teach about Jesus Christ. And he's like well what is this Mormon then? And I talked to him about the Book of Mormon and had him read the intro and the testimony of the witnesses and his countenance changed. I felt the Spirit strongly and I know that he did too. I testified about Christ and that the Book of Mormon contained God's words. I knew that I taught what I needed to. And I knew that it is such a privilege to testify about Jesus Christ. Sometimes we think that missionary work is having people accept the gospel and get baptized, but a lot of missionary work is merely giving people the chance to learn and understand more. That guy didn't want to learn more, but I know that his thinking about the church changed and his understanding was clearer. It was an awesome experience.

 

The ward members are great and about 95 percent of them speak ridiculously good english.