12:24 PM (2 hours ago)
Tuesday Elder Rencher and I went on trade-offs. I've literally served my entire mission with Elder Rencher in the same district. It's a little weird watching him die (in missionary lingo, that means finishing the mission) and go home.
Wednesday was a pretty good day. Last Friday I got the scriptures dad and mom sent me. Elder Magalei and I added our testimonies to both the Book of Mormon (triple combination) and to the Bible. We printed off a few pictures of his baptism and glued them right in. When we met with him we talked about some longer term discipleship goals. He wrote them into his triple combination. He really, really appreciated the gift.
Our mission is striving to "flood the world" with the Book of Mormon. We use the Book of Mormon simply because it's the keystone that establishes the truthfulness of the Restoration of the Gospel. In the words of Bruce R McConkie, "Either the Book of Mormon is true, or it is false; either it came from God, or it was spawned in the infernal realms." Trying to use the Book of Mormon more in our finding efforts we've had some fun experiences.
The first was with this one lady on Saturday. We spoke with her and briefly explained the Book of Mormon and read with her Moroni 10:4-5 and 3 Nephi 11:3-7. Moroni explains that one has to pray to gain a testimony by the power of the spirit, and 3 Nephi 11 contains the moment when Jesus appears in the Americas. Truly powerful scriptures. As we read with the lady we all could feel the spirit testify that the record was true. She asked for a copy which we happily supplied her with along with a return appointment.
The other cool moment happened yesterday. We pulled up to the home of someone we are teaching. Outside was a hispanic family of 10 or so people so we walked right up to them and started talking with them. We introduced the Book of Mormon to them. Unfortunately people began to slowly filter away until we were left with just one person. We spoke with him and testified of how the Book of Mormon was written for our days and contains the fulness of the gospel. You could tell something clicked and he was extremely interested, he wanted to make changes in his life and we promised that through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the authority of the priesthood that has been restored he could receive the ordinances of the gospel that help in that process.
The Book of Mormon truly speaks for itself. Occasionally we get people who try to be faith shakers but without exception they haven't really done that with the Book of Mormon. No argument stands up against truth. The spirit I feel reading the stories of Jesus in the Bible is the same which permeates the pages of the Book of Mormon. Though there are a bunch of cool things which have been learned after the printing of the Book of Mormon that support the veracity of the truth of the record, my testimony is founded in the power of the Holy Ghost. Truly, it is by the power of the Holy Ghost by which we may know the truth of all things.
On the same train of thought we had a lesson with Jorge this week. He is very intelectual, which isn't bad (2 Nephi 9:29), but has given up in part on the Book of Mormon. He has allowed, or pins an unexpressed concern, on one small insignificant detail which has eclipsed the magnificence and miraculousness of the Book of Mormon. We planned out a lesson which if it carried a title, would be, "seek learning by study and by faith," using the principle found on D&C 88:118. We used a bunch of scriptures and it was pretty direct. We outlined how truth is the knowledge of how things are, were, and will be (D&C 93:24) and that while study is necessary it is incomplete without the spirit of truth to accompany any finding. Jorge seeks out to prove or disprove the Book of Mormon by the current understanding of the American continent between 600 BC - 400 Ad (the time period of the Book of Mormon with the exception of the book of Ether), but shies away from trying to accompany that study by seeking the spirit of truth. Moroni 10:5 is pretty clear, we can know the truth of all things by the power of the Holy Ghost. "All things" is a lot of things, and it's not going to be until he accepts that principle that he will find the answer that satisfies him.
We watched the face-to-face yesterday and it was really impressive up to one point. They seemed to have practiced their responses significantly. The point I referred to was when poor Elder Quintin L Cook misspoke when he said that "the Savior was martyred in Carthage jail." Surely someone has already taken advantage of taking this out of context. It's comforting to know that God will still work with imperfect people.
-eric
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