December 7, 2010

Hey everyone.
So this last week was not as crazy as the last one. So on Thursday we took our investigator Elvyn to the temple tour. We got to tour the grounds outside, hear about what the temple is for, a little about what goes on inside, got to visit the family history center, and then took a quick tour of the chapel. It was great. His girlfriend Grace is a member and she was so excited for him to go. They both were really excited about the part about eternal marriage. haha. On the way home he was asking about a mission and what it takes to go on a mission. Both of them plan on going. He's 15 and she's 18 so that's not a bad plan. They asked me if I thought they're age gap was too big. I said I didn't have an answer. I know from experience that it is. hahahaha.
So Friday we taught the mother of a sister in the ward. Sister Olayao. She kept telling us that she wanted us to teach her mom and we wanted to. We had kind of taught her before but it was just a sample. So we go back--mind you, she knows that we are coming. We show up and then she opens up the gate, sits us down and asks us what we are there for. What we are there for? We are here to share with you the gospel of Jesus Christ! So we kind of get in this little discussion. It was just going nowhere. So finally I realize that we haven't started with prayer. So I offer a prayer and then I come right out of the prayer and say, "We are here to invite you to be baptized by proper authority into the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Will you be baptized on January 8th?" I think Brother Olayao's jaw hit the cement. She just looked at me like, "are you crazy?" She declined and I asked why not. Then she told me about how she is Catholic and doesn't want to change religions because she is Catholic. So we taught her about the Great Apostasy and how the prophets and apostles testified for years about a time when the church would be lost from the earth. Then I said, "Look. This has happened. But the church has been restored. And we are inviting you to be a part of it." She declined again. She discussed some scriptures with us and I used the Bible and Book of Mormon (and a little Doctrine and Covenants for some flavor) to show her that the priesthood power was lost. It eventually got to the point where she understood what we were teaching. She even got to the point where she said OUT OF HER OWN MOUTH that the Catholic Church cannot be true because the priesthood power was lost. Then I asked her again, "Then will you be baptized by the proper authority into Christ's true and living church?" She said no. NO! I couldn't believe it. But that's okay. She is just "kicking against the pricks" of revelation. She told us to come back again but I doubt we'll be going back there. I did my part. Something interesting was that when I first pulled out my scriptures, I opened them up "by chance" to 1 Corinthians where Paul says that he wasn't called on a mission to baptize but to preach the gospel. Yeah. Sometimes it just doesn't happen.\

Saturday night was the Youth Cultural Celebration. That was pretty cool. The youth have an annual road show. It is quite something. They said that every year the youth look forward to it. Thats something they should implement everywhere. Especially in Sac North Stake.

Our investigators are either fizzling or sizzling. That's just kind of how things go I guess but like I said, we have that one investigator that had that great experience about knowing that the church is true and then getting drunk that night and not coming to church. Our other investigators are doing well. Apparently Elder Atanacio and Elder Palasan made some great work yesterday on our companion exchange with some former investigators in our area and had a pretty spiritual lesson with a less active family. Elder Frecker and I on the other hand had a great day. We had 7 new investigators in his area and committed all seven to baptism. Even more incredible was that four of them didn't believe in God when we started and then committed at the end of the lesson. It was a great day. As for converts, the retention with our recent convert Duane Del Castillo is going great. He has the priesthood, bore his testimony on his own on Sunday and I think will be getting a calling here in a bit. I'm so excited for him. Not to mention, he's getting his family history done. That was cool too.
Today was played some games as a zone for our zone activity and had lots of fun. We got some zone t shirts. Its the Run DMC logo but it says RUN LAZ (Run Lilo An Zone). It looks so siiiiiiiick. Love it. Everyone does. I'll send some pics. The shirt was my idea by the way.
Alright everyone. Love you all sooooo much. Last Christmas coming up. Promise. hahahaha.
Brandon