March 28, 2011

It was a fun week! We taught a little bit more than we have been, and we had some sweet experiences! We've continued teaching Sebastian. We saw him Wednesday and we taught the Word of Wisdom because he has a pretty big smoking problem. We read the commandment from Dotrine and Covenants (which he accepted easily,but we thank that he might think that Doctrine and Covenants is called the Word of Wisdom haha, he wants to read all of DC now) and talked about it. He told us that he feels like cigarettes and coffee are good for him and that they don't really affect him, but after we testified of why God gives us commandments and reminded him of his testimony of teh BOM and Joseph Smith, he said, "Well, I feel like these things are good for me. But those are the thoughts of the world and not the thoughts of God." And he committed to stop smoking and drinking coffee! The next day we brought him a 7 day stop smoking plan and we came with the Bishop. The Bishop invited him to church at the end of the lesson,and Sebastian told us that he has to finish the BoM before he comes to church. Pourquoi?? Then the lesson started to move from the subject a little, but I wasn't going to take that for an answer haha. I spoke to him pretty boldy, and honestly I don't remember what I said, but right after I said it he turned to the Bishop and said, "Can you draw me a map to the church?" It was pretty awesome, adn I'm glad I was prompted to be direct with him and be more persistent, and I'm so grateful for the Holy Ghost and its power to the convincing of the hearts of men. We saw him again Saturday and just talked about reading the Scriptures and praying every day. He told us Saturday that he smoked his last cigarette that morning. He is super awesome! Every time we come, he shares us spiritual thoughts from the Book of Mormon. Usually it's the other way around! I love this guy. And guess what? He came to church Sunday! And what's better is that President and Sister Carter came to our ward this week. Both of them quit smoking to join the church and they were able to talk to him a lot which is super awesome. Sebastian is still set on getting confirmed Catholic, but president showed me some things in the Bible that I'm going to show Sebastian this week about how confirmation should be done and how they do it in the Catholic church. It should be interesting haha. I lvoe president, he's got a scripture for everything. But I really think Sebastian could have a baptismal date at the end of this week. He really trusts us and listens intently to everything that we say, and I know that we can be bold with him and that he will harken to the promptings of the Spirit. And by the way, he still hasn't smoked since Saturday morning! Besides Sebastian, not a whole lot happened this week, except we had a rendez-vous with a TJ (Jehovah's Witness) that we met the other day. We contacted him and he told me that Jehovah is God the Father, and I told him Jehovah is Jesus Christ, and he told me he wanted to talk another day. It was a pretty simple contact haha. So we went to his house saturday morning and he was waiting for us with his TJ bible (their "original translation" of the Bible, which is basically the Bible with the name Jehovah thrown in it 4,000 times and a few verses are missing from it). He's a super nice guy though. We came in and asked if we could start with a prayer, and he told us no because he prays to Jehovah, and then he asked me why I think Jesus Christ is Jehovah. We opened up to Isaiah 43:11 in their own Bible "I, even I, am Jehovah; and beside me there is no saviour." (In our Bible it says "Lord" not Jehovah) and then to Luke 2:11 "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Or in other words, Jehovah = Jesus Christ. He thought for a second, then rambled off something about what Christ means in ancient greek or something, trying to prove his point haha. It was interesting. Then of course we talked about how we know what we know to be true thanks to a living prophet and we told the Joseph Smith story, the first vision, and the Book of Mormon. At the end, we invited him to read and pray about our message. He said that he wouldn't, and that he had already read the Book of Mormon and didn't think it was the word of God. We asked him if he had prayed about it and he said no, so we explained that that's why he didn't think it was the word of God. Then he just gave us his TJ speel, and told us there is nothing other than the Bible. Instead of giong to the scriptures to try to disprove him, we simply asked him, "How do you know the Bible is the word of God?" And he jsut said, "Because it's the Bible, it has to be the word of God." "But how do you know?" "Because it was written by prophets." "How do you know they were prophets?" "Because they say they were." "How do you know they were telling the truth?" we took him in this circle for a little while, and then we jsut said, "We asked God if these things are true, and He told us by the power of the Holy Ghost that they are. That's how we know this is true, and we know that you can know for yourself if you ask God." He still refused our invitation, but I feel like we got the point across to him that he doesn't have a testimony of what he believes in. Hopefully he'll think about it! I know I talked abotu it last week too, but that experience showed me again just how important a personal testimony is! And I also learned how important it us to use that testimony and testify! We could have sat there all day and had a Bible bash, but it all comes down to the personal witness that we all need from the Holy Ghost to know if something is true. I'm so thankful to be a memeber of Christ's church and also to be a missionary in His service. I'm so thankful for the testimony I have gained through scripture study AND prayer of the things I teach every day. I'm so grateful for and I know that we have a prophet on the earth today. This weekend we get to hear his counsels and teachings, as well as the apostles, which are the counsels, teachigns, and commandments of God. Let's listen to them so we can be more happy and more in line with our Heavenly Father's will! I love you all and hope you have a great week! Love, Elder Tudor