ANOTHER IMPORTANT CHANGE: p-days are now going to be Monday instead of Tuesday. I'm going to send Shana a letter with info to see if she can change the delivery time of my weekly email. If not, since it's done automatically by a computer setting, it'll still get sent on Tuesday.
Well, silly me. I again forgot my old planner, so we'll see if I can remember all the important things that happened this week. If not I'll have to catch up next week.
Wednesday we met with Elijah again. We started teaching him about the Plan of Salvation. He believes that God is just an essence, so accepting Him as having a body of flesh and bones is hard for him. We testified of this truth and told him that a lot of our knowledge of that is based on Joseph Smith's experience. We encouraged him to pray about it, and he said he would study and meditate and pray. I can't understand why people can't accept that God has a body. If they would look at the whole picture, it seems like it would be clear to me that it doesn't make sense - if Christ has a body, and we will gain our bodies back - that God would be the "odd man out" and be the only one without a body. Old habits die hard. Even illogical beliefs. We'll keep praying, and hopefully Elijah will too. So we just talked about the pre-earth life, and then Elijah asked if we had anything else we wanted to talk with him about. We told him we'd only just started, but we didn't want to take up too much of his time. We told him we wanted to talk with him next time about our purpose in life and what happens after death. Then he said, "does it have to be next time?" So we stayed and talked a little more, and then we had to leave for our dinner appointment. We met with him again Monday (yesterday) and taught him the rest of the PoS. Unfortunately, Sister Summers and I were not at the top of our game for some reason, and I felt that we came across as kind of sluggish or something. I didn't feel that good about our presentation of it. Hopefully Elijah got what he needed out of it. And hopefully I never feel that way about a lesson again. Sister Summers actually said during the lesson "... I don't know what I'm saying... So... (next topic)..." Oh goodness. It's interesting to see his progression. At first, he wanted to wait 2-3 weeks before we met with him again. Then it was a weekly thing. Now, at least for this week, we'll meet with him twice a week. We had to give him another BOM because he said his dad took his to work with him to read it. Sweet. His dad is an atheist. Not for long if he continues to read the BOM. :)
Wednesday we also had a lesson with Paul, and Paul, and Paul. Paul's dad is named Paul, and he came to the lesson at Paul Kirkeiner's home. Paul Sr. and Bro. Kirkeiner used to work together. We had a good lesson about the Restoration and watched the DVD and gave Paul Sr. a BOM and asked him to read and pray about it. On the car ride home Paul encouraged his dad to really pray. He said he's not much of a pray-er, but because of Paul's urging, his dad did pray. Hopefully that continues. Paul told us that his dad is slower than he is with things like this. That's just fine. We've still got 2 months until Paul's baptism. And however long it takes to dunk Paul Sr. is just fine. I'm sure he'll find his way home sometime. Paul is a really great influence on him. During the DVD I was thinking about a Rubik's cube. I came up with an analogy to the apostasy, so after the DVD I shared it with Paul Sr. I explained that God gave His children the church, perfect and whole - like a solved Rubik's cube. But in the hands of His children, without guidance and direction, it becomes scrambled. Well-intentioned men seek to "solve the cube", most often putting one color together, so it looks good from the surface, but as we look deeper, we see that there are things missing and things in the wrong places. But through a prophet - one who knows how to solve the cube - it can be solved, restoring it to its perfection and wholeness, just as God gave it to us. Such was the work of Joseph Smith. Paul and his dad both really liked that analogy.
Saturday night we met with Paul again. His dad was out of town though. Paul gave me a Rubik's cube! He is so awesome. I just love him! We watched Elder Holland's talk from last Oct. GC on the BOM and it was awesome. Then Paul shared an awesome story with us which hopefully works as an attachment to this email. Here's hoping. Let me know if it works or if it doesn't. If it doesn't work, I'll type it out next week. If it does work, I'll include more audio clips later. (It's in .WMA format - lame. Next week I'll use the .MP3 setting.)
Friday the 23rd we went back to try a potential who was busy the first time we stopped by. His name is David Mees and he's Luthern and works with some Mormons. He at first acknowledged that we had some differences, and then he asked about our view on what's needed to get to heaven, and he brought up a scripture that says if we believe in Christ we can be saved. We explained that faith is required, and true faith leads to repentance, baptism, receving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We explained that it's not by our works that we're saved, we rely on the Atonement of Christ, but our faith leads us to those good works to make us better people. He agreed with us! Oh the Light of Christ is still flickering in him! When he brought up that scripture, I thought he was going to be totally convinced of only needing faith, but he recognizes that true faith is more than just belief. We have an appointment with him for Friday evening. Yay!
We also met Doug Friday night while tracting. We ended up talking with him for probably about 25 minutes or so. He's a good Christian man, and is a director or something at the YMCA. We talked a bit about good Christian values, and at one point he asked us what was different about our church (or something like that). Sister Summers testified of a modern prophet. Then Doug said "I don't know that that's not true." Yay again for the Light of Christ! At one point he asked if we'd read the Bible all the way through. He challenged us to do so, then we challenged him to read the BOM. :) We gave him a pass along card, and we also gave him a Restoration pamphlet and encouraged him to read, study, and pray. He said he's a studier, so hopefully he'll do so. He was a really nice guy. We'll go back and see him soon and see what he thinks and if he ordered a BOM. I hope so! He told us he'd be a hard one to convert because his pastor calls him "steadfast". That's a good word. Doug said "it's better than 'stubborn'". :)
Well, that's all I can remember without my planner. That thing is my life. Until next week! Love you all!
sister humpherys
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