Writing emails each week tends to reflect my missionary drive. Starts off each time with "I don't know what on earth I am going to say." But like everything else you just go for it and hope the Lord will make up the differ
ence.
I'll start off with the bad.
We were way into deep east Texas on Saturday doing some knocking, finding referrals, and visiting members. So deep were we that for some reason I felt like getting a picture next to a 'Welcome to Louisiana" sign. We were only a few miles away so we thought it would be a nice kick. Sadly, on our way there I didn't have the best feeling in the world and next thing you know we're on a bridge crossing a river that divides Texas from the dark, no protection zone. As soon as we saw 'Logansport' signs we knew we had made a grievous error. Needless to say (you know me) there was much laughter and we turned around immediately and drove home. The Lord saw fit in His infinite mercy to spare us outside our protective bubble-wrap. That one hurt a bit and there has been much praying for forgiveness ever since! Even knowing it was an accident, it was a preventable one. As Elder Holland said "The pull of proximity can be fatal."
It was one of the tougher weeks this week. Our 2 overage youth that are getting baptized on Saturday did not come to church! I am assuming "best case scenario" on this that they were sick at home. However everyone is still stoked for their baptisms.
Now on to the good.
If there is one thing that has been made more and more clear so far on this eternally changing 8 month extravaganza. It is the mere definition of faith. I thought I had some idea of what faith was with the typical response of "faith is an action word" "faith is hoping for that which is not seen." But the power of the Gospel is in application. Last night in a priesthood meeting our stake President said it like this "We are world class speakers, but the we need action!" how true indeed. I have noticed immediately how badly it hurts when someone attempts to destroy every portion of your faith with put downs such as "you are not really Christian" or many slammed doors. I get bothered by it a lot! It tends to be a constant battle of love verses contention with many thoughts crossing my mind such as "if you only knew who you really were..." or "who do you think you really are." However in the midst of this trial and even sometimes appropriately defined persecution, there is always a solution which has yet to let me down - Exercising faith to move on to the next contact, and the next contact, and the next contact... With all these No's, as Elder Walker would say, we become that much closer to a Yes. Even with all this rejection and non interested people I can always revert back to the fact that I am growing to new levels that I would have laughed at a couple of years ago. Not to mention I find myself in good company, how receptive were the people to the one and only Jesus Christ.
This has lead me to a interesting view (may be considered offensive - fair warning) of who we are, who I am. There seems to be something that irks me to the very core every time I hear it, something worse then all anti out there, when someone tells me that I don't believe in Jesus or that I am not Christian. My initial reaction has been 'Yes we are! We believe in Christ like you!" However this past week something I have discovered is, that phrase is somewhat false. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only Church on earth that houses true Christians. Let me repeat, out of billions of Bible believing, Church going people, only a nano fraction can actually truly be considered real Christians - and the kicker to the Bible belt is the fact that it is the Mormons! Those that actually keep the sabbath day holy, live the word of wisdom, obey the law of chastity, are baptized by proper priesthood authority and receive the Holy ghost, etc etc etc, are the true Christians of the world. Other churches think they are true followers of Christ but really are not.
I took a pencil the other day in my usual "where are the elect" pleading moments and slapped it in the middle of the area map and asked "are they above or below the pencil?" I followed that until I got down to 2 streets and we went out. The first door we knocked into had a really good friend who is an out of state Bishop. Interesting how that works. We continued knocking around until we met "Pastor Bob" who we talked to for about 20 minutes on the porch until his wife invited us in for some water and rice krispy treats (fantastic.) Good heavens I was a little nervous I must admit. Here I was a 21 year old young man trying to convince a Lutheran pastor of 39 years that babies without baptism do not get thrust down to hell! Where on earth did this doctrine come from? Needless to say he could not prove to me with any Bible verse or anything that Martin Luther had ever said that baptism is for the original sin of Adam. He was quite confounded to my response when I testified "We will all be resurrected and brought back to the presence of God. Baptism is not for the original sin!" At that point as the book of Heleman teaches, the 2nd spiritual death is brought upon those that do not repent from their own disobedience.
We had the relief society president and her husband invite themselves out to teach on Tuesday night and it was awesome. She committed both of our investigators to having visiting teachers over. Fantastic. I still am a bit of a believer that missionaries just organize people and lessons and let members do the converting. Well something like that anyway.
I believe that we are living in the "hay-day" of the Gospel and are not taking enough advantage of it. Think of it this way, in the early 50 years of the Church, members were being severely persecuted or even killed for the Gospel yet we have this small window of the world allowing us to really do some damage to Satan and his work. Soon the persecution will once again erupt and it will be a bigger challenge to simply stay active. Let's convert the world!
Sweet
Love Uncle Elder Metcalf X2
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Fast Forward!
A convert in gospel principles class asked a question that really had new meaning to it. A question that if we grow up in the Church we usually tend to ask after instructing the class to turn to a certain scripture, "is it in the Bible or Book of Mormon?" If you were like me in seminary it was always 'hide the fact you are looking in the index for that particular book.' I think we underestimate just how awesome that question really is. Think if all the believers of the Bible understood the Book of Mormon to be from the same source and ultimately, with faith, ask "Is that gospel principle in the Bible or Book of Mormon?"
Awesome.
Reading the Book of Mormon and intensively underlining the doctrine as challenged by President and Sister Smith I have discovered a new book (always the case while reading the Book of Mormon again). I finished Jacob and went on through the Words of Mormon this week and some things that really stood out to me was that Jacob really focused on...you guess it... hearing the voice of the Lord. Then his son testifies the same way but then ultimately you get down to where the plates are not written upon for a few generations. My judgment tells me that they weren't listening!
Seems like driving around in this area is like going to Salt Lake and back all in the same day. We drove out to Center to find referrals that still had yet to be contacted from 10 months ago and did some tracting. It was really weird how desperate I got to find someone around there to baptize. I have to admit that it seems as though that I am still learning some essential pieces to connect the dots for my missionary power to intensify. One of those became pretty obvious as discovered on Sunday.
I think we as missionaries tend to 'over plan' at times. Occasionally there are plans detailed to the point where we limit the Spirit working through us. Something that I learned through the Atonement and through the Spirit before coming out was how the Spirit (at least for me) tends to direct you in a large area (such as do this, go here, try this, remember this in that year) then if we listen we will begin to narrow down (now do this, go there, that's right, remember that month and day) until ultimately if we're still tuned in and following, receive line upon line what we are led to (that house, this man, this moment.) That actually happened yesterday and it was awesome. We got out of Church and our usual routine was to go home and have something to eat (or in other words - limit the Spirit.) Instead a particular subdivision came to mind that is on our way home. Incredibly I felt something as we got closer and the fear in the critical moment welled up inside me and I looked at Elder Braford and said "were tracting here." He said remarkably "I felt it too." We pulled into the subdivision, got out of the car, and looked to feel where to go. Literally I knew that the subdivision was not where to knock so we walked out onto the nearby street, looked both directions and listened. We walked to where we thought was right. Knocking the first door, there was no answer, 2nd door no answer. But then we saw a truck pull into the first door. Immediately we both went to the truck. Right as the driver had got what he wanted and started to get into his truck he saw us... His name is Cody and his response was "please...please come back."
Glorious.
We taught one of the coolest plan of salvation lessons on Friday to a Brother and Sister. it was less then 20 minutes and we had finished but she simply raised up her head from the Book of Mormon and said "it all makes sense now." Her brother who saw us coming wasn't exactly thrilled but heard the last half of the lesson and his response was "now I know what you guys are about and I wont avoid you anymore." Awesome.
We have had a couple more intense lessons about authority and the one true Church and we probably would have dropped one of our investigators if she hadn't opened a huge door to us, "why don't you come teach my Church?" So yes umm not dropped.
The Nac ward is way awesome. Apparently they have the highest attendance in the stake now and everyone is way excited that the overflow has to be opened each week. Last week Elder Braford counted 28 less actives at Church which is beyond me. I still only know a fraction of the members.
We had another really good week and still have 2 overage youth that are stoked on baptism. I must confess that I do have an ulterior motive by having them set the example for their mother. It is interesting to note that I didn't think I would ever challenge someone to get married. I cant believe I have been through a third of this mission already. I still haven't learned enough! Crunch time
Love you
Uncle X2 Elder Metcalf
Speaking of which, my race for favorite child has drastically been damaged. But somehow I find joy in that even knowing I will have 2 one year old nephews (or nieces) before I ever see them. Wow. Sure is awesome though, wish I could have seen the reaction on y'all's faces!
Awesome.
Reading the Book of Mormon and intensively underlining the doctrine as challenged by President and Sister Smith I have discovered a new book (always the case while reading the Book of Mormon again). I finished Jacob and went on through the Words of Mormon this week and some things that really stood out to me was that Jacob really focused on...you guess it... hearing the voice of the Lord. Then his son testifies the same way but then ultimately you get down to where the plates are not written upon for a few generations. My judgment tells me that they weren't listening!
Seems like driving around in this area is like going to Salt Lake and back all in the same day. We drove out to Center to find referrals that still had yet to be contacted from 10 months ago and did some tracting. It was really weird how desperate I got to find someone around there to baptize. I have to admit that it seems as though that I am still learning some essential pieces to connect the dots for my missionary power to intensify. One of those became pretty obvious as discovered on Sunday.
I think we as missionaries tend to 'over plan' at times. Occasionally there are plans detailed to the point where we limit the Spirit working through us. Something that I learned through the Atonement and through the Spirit before coming out was how the Spirit (at least for me) tends to direct you in a large area (such as do this, go here, try this, remember this in that year) then if we listen we will begin to narrow down (now do this, go there, that's right, remember that month and day) until ultimately if we're still tuned in and following, receive line upon line what we are led to (that house, this man, this moment.) That actually happened yesterday and it was awesome. We got out of Church and our usual routine was to go home and have something to eat (or in other words - limit the Spirit.) Instead a particular subdivision came to mind that is on our way home. Incredibly I felt something as we got closer and the fear in the critical moment welled up inside me and I looked at Elder Braford and said "were tracting here." He said remarkably "I felt it too." We pulled into the subdivision, got out of the car, and looked to feel where to go. Literally I knew that the subdivision was not where to knock so we walked out onto the nearby street, looked both directions and listened. We walked to where we thought was right. Knocking the first door, there was no answer, 2nd door no answer. But then we saw a truck pull into the first door. Immediately we both went to the truck. Right as the driver had got what he wanted and started to get into his truck he saw us... His name is Cody and his response was "please...please come back."
Glorious.
We taught one of the coolest plan of salvation lessons on Friday to a Brother and Sister. it was less then 20 minutes and we had finished but she simply raised up her head from the Book of Mormon and said "it all makes sense now." Her brother who saw us coming wasn't exactly thrilled but heard the last half of the lesson and his response was "now I know what you guys are about and I wont avoid you anymore." Awesome.
We have had a couple more intense lessons about authority and the one true Church and we probably would have dropped one of our investigators if she hadn't opened a huge door to us, "why don't you come teach my Church?" So yes umm not dropped.
The Nac ward is way awesome. Apparently they have the highest attendance in the stake now and everyone is way excited that the overflow has to be opened each week. Last week Elder Braford counted 28 less actives at Church which is beyond me. I still only know a fraction of the members.
We had another really good week and still have 2 overage youth that are stoked on baptism. I must confess that I do have an ulterior motive by having them set the example for their mother. It is interesting to note that I didn't think I would ever challenge someone to get married. I cant believe I have been through a third of this mission already. I still haven't learned enough! Crunch time
Love you
Uncle X2 Elder Metcalf
Speaking of which, my race for favorite child has drastically been damaged. But somehow I find joy in that even knowing I will have 2 one year old nephews (or nieces) before I ever see them. Wow. Sure is awesome though, wish I could have seen the reaction on y'all's faces!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The Best Two Years
Hello again dearest family.
Sacrament meeting was pretty intense yesterday. The Nacogdoches ward is doing really well which is awesome to see. The have the highest attendance in all the stake. Elder Braford counted 28 less actives at Church amongst our 3 investigators. In PEC 30 minutes before sacrament meeting they decided to call on someone else to talk. Me. The 3 priests in the ward spoke along with their advisers but apparently they needed more filler time, so I spent 15 minutes preparing a talk about how the mission has drawn me closer to the Savior. Yet when they did call me up to speak I used none of my notes that I had taken in preparation. In fact the whole talk changed. It was pretty cool because I somehow remembered very specific points from the 3 priest's talks and tied it into one subject, yep you guessed it, hearing the voice of the Lord.
Something that has struck me as pretty obvious the past few months is the simple fact that sometimes, as missionaries, we tend to encounter a spiritual problem then halt some of the work to figure it out. As I have noticed in many applications and as mentioned in conference the best way to solve any of our problems is to help others come unto Christ. By so doing, we also come unto Him with them. Something I have to admit was, although I loved every second of conference, I wasn't feeling too good. A little pricked you could say. I had let my guard down for a couple days before conference and didn't think I needed to do as much contacting. Well the solution to the problem was pretty easy, invite others to come unto Christ. This past week was pretty awesome. We managed to teach over 20 lessons and to talk to at least 140 people. Not so difficult when I look back on it and it gives little excuses for more future success! The awesome part was that I personally was able to regain and feel the Spirit work through me to help others receive the Restored Gospel. Problem Solved.
We got 2 baptismal dates with a part member family this week. The mom and dad aren't married so it was an interesting moment committing a couple to get married and live the law of chastity for the first time on the mission. The spirit prompted the instant commitment to baptism for her daughters at the beginning of the lesson and I wasn't going to let that prompting get away from me again like I did in Frisco (Felipe and Vanessa had to ask me if it was alright if they could get baptized.) The commitment that came out of my mouth - "how would you like to have your daughters baptized by proper priesthood authority?" the response with wide eyes - "that would be awesome." This is the same mom who I think I mentioned last week who's countenance was changing rapidly. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and came to Church for the first time in Nacogdoches. The fellowshipping was awesome on the ward's part. Once again the Spirit managed to find an avenue to work through me and it felt sweet, and most desirable.
We had a couple of intense lessons this week with some investigators. Both over priesthood and authority. We and missionaries past had been letting the 'bible study' go on too long and it was time to 'eat the frog' as some missionaries call it. Establishing the fact that there is one true Church with the right authority seems to have a devastating effect on some who actually preach at a Church. It was easy to bring it down to one topic that I seem to be falling more and more in love with - The Book of Mormon, the keystone! It is interesting though, seeing how many people do believe the Book of Mormon to be true, but when it comes to Joseph Smith and authority, the shenanigans tend to happen... "Keystone, keystone, keystone." We did meet a guy in the park reading his bible so we started to talk to him. He asked about the '3 heavens' and we made the references in the bible to him yet it was an interesting thing, he turned to his study bible to figure out what the philosophies of man were and what certain scriptures "really meant." Good heavens, as Grandpa Metcalf put it, the spirit will teach you more in 5 words than all the world's knowledge. Have to love 1st Corinthians 4:20
We were out tracting on Saturday and knocked into an unknown less active. He was a bit hostile but let us in. After asking what was keeping him from Church the response was 'Joseph Smith.' That rang a bell in my head that I remembered from Rockwall when I was being trained. Elder Johnson taught me to find the real concern. Almost always it's a commandment not being kept and the issue over doctrine is an excuse. We found the real concern and talked for a while and he invited us back. Interesting to note that one of the real concerns was over the Godhead and the nature of God. Satan is winning an amazing war right now that is becoming more obvious. If he can screw up the true nature of God, namely that He is our Father and we are His children then interesting things begin to happen. Especially in one of the greatest defense systems we have - prayer. We have to know who (not what) we are praying to! Now check out the Bible dictionary on prayer and it starts to make a little more sense why Satan really pushed the council of Nicea along its way to what produced such a devastating and false doctrine that has most of the Christian world wondering who or what God is.
Cue in one of President Uchtdorf's talks about the love of God and it makes even more sense.
Well last week since Elder Woodward was sick in the district and Elder Runyan needed me as a companion to email his family I was able to download all the conference talks onto my iPod the day after conference. How awesome is that? Now if I could just find enough space on there to put on the audio book of Jesus The Christ which I found on lds.org, Technology is awesome.
Thank you for your prayers
-Love Uncle Elder Metcalf
Sacrament meeting was pretty intense yesterday. The Nacogdoches ward is doing really well which is awesome to see. The have the highest attendance in all the stake. Elder Braford counted 28 less actives at Church amongst our 3 investigators. In PEC 30 minutes before sacrament meeting they decided to call on someone else to talk. Me. The 3 priests in the ward spoke along with their advisers but apparently they needed more filler time, so I spent 15 minutes preparing a talk about how the mission has drawn me closer to the Savior. Yet when they did call me up to speak I used none of my notes that I had taken in preparation. In fact the whole talk changed. It was pretty cool because I somehow remembered very specific points from the 3 priest's talks and tied it into one subject, yep you guessed it, hearing the voice of the Lord.
Something that has struck me as pretty obvious the past few months is the simple fact that sometimes, as missionaries, we tend to encounter a spiritual problem then halt some of the work to figure it out. As I have noticed in many applications and as mentioned in conference the best way to solve any of our problems is to help others come unto Christ. By so doing, we also come unto Him with them. Something I have to admit was, although I loved every second of conference, I wasn't feeling too good. A little pricked you could say. I had let my guard down for a couple days before conference and didn't think I needed to do as much contacting. Well the solution to the problem was pretty easy, invite others to come unto Christ. This past week was pretty awesome. We managed to teach over 20 lessons and to talk to at least 140 people. Not so difficult when I look back on it and it gives little excuses for more future success! The awesome part was that I personally was able to regain and feel the Spirit work through me to help others receive the Restored Gospel. Problem Solved.
We got 2 baptismal dates with a part member family this week. The mom and dad aren't married so it was an interesting moment committing a couple to get married and live the law of chastity for the first time on the mission. The spirit prompted the instant commitment to baptism for her daughters at the beginning of the lesson and I wasn't going to let that prompting get away from me again like I did in Frisco (Felipe and Vanessa had to ask me if it was alright if they could get baptized.) The commitment that came out of my mouth - "how would you like to have your daughters baptized by proper priesthood authority?" the response with wide eyes - "that would be awesome." This is the same mom who I think I mentioned last week who's countenance was changing rapidly. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and came to Church for the first time in Nacogdoches. The fellowshipping was awesome on the ward's part. Once again the Spirit managed to find an avenue to work through me and it felt sweet, and most desirable.
We had a couple of intense lessons this week with some investigators. Both over priesthood and authority. We and missionaries past had been letting the 'bible study' go on too long and it was time to 'eat the frog' as some missionaries call it. Establishing the fact that there is one true Church with the right authority seems to have a devastating effect on some who actually preach at a Church. It was easy to bring it down to one topic that I seem to be falling more and more in love with - The Book of Mormon, the keystone! It is interesting though, seeing how many people do believe the Book of Mormon to be true, but when it comes to Joseph Smith and authority, the shenanigans tend to happen... "Keystone, keystone, keystone." We did meet a guy in the park reading his bible so we started to talk to him. He asked about the '3 heavens' and we made the references in the bible to him yet it was an interesting thing, he turned to his study bible to figure out what the philosophies of man were and what certain scriptures "really meant." Good heavens, as Grandpa Metcalf put it, the spirit will teach you more in 5 words than all the world's knowledge. Have to love 1st Corinthians 4:20
We were out tracting on Saturday and knocked into an unknown less active. He was a bit hostile but let us in. After asking what was keeping him from Church the response was 'Joseph Smith.' That rang a bell in my head that I remembered from Rockwall when I was being trained. Elder Johnson taught me to find the real concern. Almost always it's a commandment not being kept and the issue over doctrine is an excuse. We found the real concern and talked for a while and he invited us back. Interesting to note that one of the real concerns was over the Godhead and the nature of God. Satan is winning an amazing war right now that is becoming more obvious. If he can screw up the true nature of God, namely that He is our Father and we are His children then interesting things begin to happen. Especially in one of the greatest defense systems we have - prayer. We have to know who (not what) we are praying to! Now check out the Bible dictionary on prayer and it starts to make a little more sense why Satan really pushed the council of Nicea along its way to what produced such a devastating and false doctrine that has most of the Christian world wondering who or what God is.
Cue in one of President Uchtdorf's talks about the love of God and it makes even more sense.
Well last week since Elder Woodward was sick in the district and Elder Runyan needed me as a companion to email his family I was able to download all the conference talks onto my iPod the day after conference. How awesome is that? Now if I could just find enough space on there to put on the audio book of Jesus The Christ which I found on lds.org, Technology is awesome.
Thank you for your prayers
-Love Uncle Elder Metcalf
Monday, April 12, 2010
Amen!
Wow a pretty stark change has taken place out here, I find myself looking at the clock during conference quite frequently and yell in my mind "SLOW DOWN!" We printed up some sweet fliers during the week and handed out about a hundred of them. One of the more funny, weird, and waste of time moments of the mission took place. You see, so sweet were the flyers that we went to make copies of on campus but a member student had us get them approved for posting on campus. So we went around posting these conference invitations for a long 4 hours. When we finally finished we went to the student center to have some lunch (as we discovered there is a panda express.) as we were eating we noticed an interesting sign that didn't click in my mind for a few minutes. "The cafeteria will be closed early for Easter holiday." As soon as we started eating we noticed the campus had become strangely empty with very few students compared to what it was like in the morning. Alas, our work was in vain, they had just been released early for a 5 day Easter break. Elder Runyan (District leader) and I couldn't help but to start laughing hysterically. Our feet were hurting and our hands hurt from stapling but we had to laugh.
Had a pretty devastating turn of events that I will write about then forget about. Green Eggs and Ham let us know she "doesn't want to be Mormon anymore." Apparently a 'spiritual' retreat has invigorated her enough to have a new determination to become a minister herself. What had really happened is that she never picked up the Book of Mormon again after reading it in between the first lessons. I cant believe how much offense is taken to the Book of Mormon. There has been a few instances here in Nac that have caused quite a shock. I have fallen deeply in love with the Book of Mormon yet I am noticing a deeper opposition towards it. It is a sad way to look at it but definitely with that opposition, continues to prove what source it divinely came from.
We had a man approach us in Wal-Mart today asking where I was from, then proceeded to go on to tell us that he chooses to follow Paul and that we follow Joseph Smith, he was a bit confounded when the line "above all we follow Christ" slipped out. I feel like I just may start turning in to J. Golden Kimball with this opposition! It is quite fun though, some very unique and sometimes hilarious opposing forces. "I believe that the Bible has flaws and that there are other scriptures out there" says one, "would you like to read the Book of Mormon" ...*gasp*...
But I must put the positive spin on this. We having been meeting with a super nice woman named Rose every week this transfer. It is hard to explain that there is the one Authority and the one church considering how much she loves and teaches in her other church (sometimes out of the triple.) One night I noticed her neighbor across the street reading his Bible. Of course we gave some standard compliment to him. We talked for a bit then departed. A week or so later we dropped off an invitation to Rose and he was outside, we asked how his reading was going. We talked for about an hour and now we have a couple new investigators. Deryl has been, in his personal studies, taught by the Spirit exceptionally. He had just recently been in a argument with his pastor about the lost books of the Bible. He now has a pretty firm desire to find out if the Book of Mormon is one of them. Funny how the Spirit works because he was the *gasp* earlier along with his wife. Very humble follower of Christ.
We have been meeting with a part member family every week of the transfer as well. A mom and her 2 daughters are investigating while the father has been slowly reactivated. A couple lessons ago we both noticed a change in countenance on her face. It was awesome! Turns out she started reading the Book of Mormon! Yes yes I love the Spirit even when I don't know he is working behind the scenes. What member on earth doesn't want to have the truth revealed by God himself to an investigator? Read the Book of Mormon prayerfully and it shall be done. Awesome.
Well a couple of stories that nearly made me cry was about the Elder who went without letters for 9 months and the 2 mission calls, one being beyond the veil. Good heavens I am grateful for all y'all's letters and emails. very uplifting to know I have a family that cares for me. Humbling as well considering all the problems throughout the teen years (all the years for that matter) but during all the talks on how to raise families in General Conference the thought flashed through my mind a lot... "that's my family...he's talking about my family."
During conference I wrote down something that I have been so determined to understand more and more... that being "reality." Oh good heavens if we all realized the reality of the 'awful crisis' that some of our mistakes put us in or the reality that we will all die (you cant overcome that no matter how prideful you are) or the reality of Satan as his massive attempts in our own little worlds... if I could just understand more of that type of reality then the Atonement would be all the more easier to cry out to. [cue in Alma 36]
What I can testify of is this, That the mission the Lord has put me on has engulfed me in a stark vision of reality.
The reality of Satan
The reality of evil
The reality of lust
The reality of repentance
The reality of faith
The reality of forgiveness
The reality of the Book of Mormon
The reality of the Spirit
The reality of Christ
The reality of The Book of Mormon
yet I desperately desire more of reality in my life. Then again, what Christian wouldn't?
I have been trusting myself a lot lately but my trust in God will be increased greatly, for in his strength I can do all things! Like Baptize!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love you
Uncle Elder Metcalf
Had a pretty devastating turn of events that I will write about then forget about. Green Eggs and Ham let us know she "doesn't want to be Mormon anymore." Apparently a 'spiritual' retreat has invigorated her enough to have a new determination to become a minister herself. What had really happened is that she never picked up the Book of Mormon again after reading it in between the first lessons. I cant believe how much offense is taken to the Book of Mormon. There has been a few instances here in Nac that have caused quite a shock. I have fallen deeply in love with the Book of Mormon yet I am noticing a deeper opposition towards it. It is a sad way to look at it but definitely with that opposition, continues to prove what source it divinely came from.
We had a man approach us in Wal-Mart today asking where I was from, then proceeded to go on to tell us that he chooses to follow Paul and that we follow Joseph Smith, he was a bit confounded when the line "above all we follow Christ" slipped out. I feel like I just may start turning in to J. Golden Kimball with this opposition! It is quite fun though, some very unique and sometimes hilarious opposing forces. "I believe that the Bible has flaws and that there are other scriptures out there" says one, "would you like to read the Book of Mormon" ...*gasp*...
But I must put the positive spin on this. We having been meeting with a super nice woman named Rose every week this transfer. It is hard to explain that there is the one Authority and the one church considering how much she loves and teaches in her other church (sometimes out of the triple.) One night I noticed her neighbor across the street reading his Bible. Of course we gave some standard compliment to him. We talked for a bit then departed. A week or so later we dropped off an invitation to Rose and he was outside, we asked how his reading was going. We talked for about an hour and now we have a couple new investigators. Deryl has been, in his personal studies, taught by the Spirit exceptionally. He had just recently been in a argument with his pastor about the lost books of the Bible. He now has a pretty firm desire to find out if the Book of Mormon is one of them. Funny how the Spirit works because he was the *gasp* earlier along with his wife. Very humble follower of Christ.
We have been meeting with a part member family every week of the transfer as well. A mom and her 2 daughters are investigating while the father has been slowly reactivated. A couple lessons ago we both noticed a change in countenance on her face. It was awesome! Turns out she started reading the Book of Mormon! Yes yes I love the Spirit even when I don't know he is working behind the scenes. What member on earth doesn't want to have the truth revealed by God himself to an investigator? Read the Book of Mormon prayerfully and it shall be done. Awesome.
Well a couple of stories that nearly made me cry was about the Elder who went without letters for 9 months and the 2 mission calls, one being beyond the veil. Good heavens I am grateful for all y'all's letters and emails. very uplifting to know I have a family that cares for me. Humbling as well considering all the problems throughout the teen years (all the years for that matter) but during all the talks on how to raise families in General Conference the thought flashed through my mind a lot... "that's my family...he's talking about my family."
During conference I wrote down something that I have been so determined to understand more and more... that being "reality." Oh good heavens if we all realized the reality of the 'awful crisis' that some of our mistakes put us in or the reality that we will all die (you cant overcome that no matter how prideful you are) or the reality of Satan as his massive attempts in our own little worlds... if I could just understand more of that type of reality then the Atonement would be all the more easier to cry out to. [cue in Alma 36]
What I can testify of is this, That the mission the Lord has put me on has engulfed me in a stark vision of reality.
The reality of Satan
The reality of evil
The reality of lust
The reality of repentance
The reality of faith
The reality of forgiveness
The reality of the Book of Mormon
The reality of the Spirit
The reality of Christ
The reality of The Book of Mormon
yet I desperately desire more of reality in my life. Then again, what Christian wouldn't?
I have been trusting myself a lot lately but my trust in God will be increased greatly, for in his strength I can do all things! Like Baptize!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love you
Uncle Elder Metcalf
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