Another Sweet Week

President Smith and the leaders of the mission have been hitting really hard on contacting. It seems the more we implement this the stronger the opposition becomes (surprise!) Although at the end of the week my thoughts are always turned to the Savior and what He had to endure. It seems strange but amidst the battle we seem somehow to come off victorious with some awesome new investigators.

The first to mention would be Ron. He has been dating a member for a while now and referred himself 6 times to us on mormon.org. Unfortunately the media referral took about 5 weeks to get to us. In his own words "I pass by the Church multiple times going to work and I have tried to stop and pick up a Mormon bible but the door always seemed to be locked even with cars in the parking lot." Elder Jones was out on splits with another member that night setting a baptism date while Brother Cox and I met with Ron. He's awesome. When I was explaining that the 'Book of Mormon is our keystone' he replied "That makes a lot of sense, I grew up with the bible being the cornerstone so if you were to take it away not much would happen." He was pretty excited over the first lesson and gladly accepted a conditional baptismal commitment (they always seem to surprise the members when the response is "Yes, of course"). His work schedule is being on call 24/7 so it is hard for him to get to church. We'll keep praying.

Next would be Ceaser, this was an awesome contact. We got done doing our weekly planning session on Thursday and had scheduled to do some tracting afterwords. The thought came to mind to just 'go to SFA' and I acted on it because we had minimal time to get 10 people to contact. We got to SFA, parked the car, got out of the car and the very car next to us rolled his window down. He asked if we would teach him. We set up a appointment Saturday evening at the Church which he kept. He has said for some reason he loves the Mormon church, has always loved the members and for some reason has been drawn to it. He feels that we live what we preach. We started the lesson at 8 and he loved how the Book of Mormon answers his questions. We went til 9:15. He told us "when can we get together again? I will take you out to dinner." His week is extremely busy so we set up an appointment much further out than any missionary would like but he is hungry for that spiritual satisfaction.

In nightly planning on Saturday I looked at the map with a small sigh of "where haven't I tracted?" So after the prayer I closed my eyes and put my finger right on 'Jefferson' street. Yes, it was a very crude technique and one that if I had observed my companion doing, I would have questioned his guidance by the Holy Ghost. When we got to the street the next day it was an extreme battle with the natural man. I was tired and thirsty. Quietly, I reached back for my favorite Blue Book and read Mosiah 3:19 to rebuke myself into action. My companion knocked the first door. It was a man who invited us to sit down outside. "whats your message?" he asked. Elder Jones replied "...and there is a prophet on the earth today." "Whats his name?" the man asked as if interrogating him. "President Thomas S. Monson!" my companion testified. "Get out of here!" was the mans pricked response. The next door (there were only 2 houses on the street) let us in after some talk. At first she explained that she was sick. But then went on to say "I have been meeting with the Jehovah's witnesses and disagree with them. I am desperately looking for a church." Some time into the conversation after introducing the precious, dear to my heart book that I love so intensely, we turned to Alma 7. She has experienced many pains and heartache in her life. We read verses 11-13 and she talked some more and asked "but how can I get over it all and leave the pain?" "read the next 2 verses" was my response. (I'll let y'all look those up.) We have an appointment tonight, pray us some luck!

And I haven't even gotten into the regulars!

The Bennetts were fun during the week. Jody took time to slave over feeding us poor little missionaries which was much appreciated. (yes, Jody, hello again!) The lesson was actually simple but pretty awesome. We went through some of the cross references of the Bible mentioning the Book of Mormon and so on. It rekindled my joy for the simple scriptures that I hardly ever use because I think they are way too common.

We taught Tyler on Tuesday night the plan of salvation. He liked it although his member friends already explained it to him so he practically taught it to us. He didn't come to church Sunday which worries me a lot but we are still on for our lessons and resolving some stumbling blocks.

The Smith family is Elder Jones' family. I have only been over there once but usually we just split up and I let him do his testifying over there. So far it has been awesome because Elder Jones is an outstanding missionary (not greenie!) and has already set a date with him. The mom was in the hospital Sunday so he couldn't come to church. We pray that she will heal quickly!

Lewis is still golden. We taught him up til the Restoration principle in the first lesson and we had to leave. We gave him the Restoration DVD and he replied "dang, y'all always leave at the good part when everything becomes really interesting."

I love serving and I love the people I am around. The Lord is blessing us like crazy.

Love y'all
Elder Metcalf