The mission was visited by Elder Kapischke of the Seventy this week. I truly love when the senior brethren of the church visit. They bring a powerful spirit and energy. He instructed us for about an hour and a half before lunch which was fantastic then four straight hours after lunch - it was fantastic, long, but fantastic.
He told a bunch of funny stories about his time as a mission president in Berlin. He also spent a significant portion of time expounding the scriptures with us. President Brennan does extremely well and is always the highlight in zone conferences, but the assistant and zone leader trainings in zone conference for the last 6 months to a year really have decreased in quality, with the exception of our current zone leaders.
We left conference with a new energy to go out and help the people we teach. There was one moment that really stuck out. Very expertly taking from the instruction in D&C 121:43 Elder Kapischke rebuked one of the Elders who mentioned something he was doing that wasn't strictly bad but wasn't in accordance to one of the rules in the missionary handbook. It was not grandiose but was very simple and direct. Elder Kapischke seemed very happy. He was an incredible and effective teacher, really pretty awe inspiring. It's a pretty close tie between when President Nelson came to visit the mission. The only thing I didn't appreciate were the questions he would extend which were not really PMG questions, namely non-specific questions looking for specific answers. All in all, a great visit.
Good news for the week is that Patricia is getting baptized this Sunday. We briefly stopped teaching her but Elder Guerrero and Elder Berry have picked the teaching back up and have been doing great. We anticipate a great service this next Sunday. Our friend Carlos in Lansing is also doing well. He works Sundays which would be the only delay on his baptism but beyond that he is doing great. We ran through the baptismal questions with him during our last lesson and he is pretty ready. It's really nice when people just read the Book of Mormon and pray sincerely about if it's true or not.
Two other notable events that passed this week were our lessons with a woman named Nuvia and a man named Jorge.
Nuvia we met about a week or two ago. Despite seemingly everything fighting against our progress, she is doing pretty good. We teach her and her 8 year old son, normally outside on their porch. Our past lesson we drove up and she is outside like normal. As we walked up it was apparent that something had just gone down. Their house was beaten up and their windows were smashed in. We spoke with her and figured out what had happened and basically were with her waiting for the police to arrive. About 20 minutes into our visit this guy parked his car on their lawn and with his meanest face on strolled up to us looking very angry. I remember thinking, "Wow, we are about to get beaten up." Luckily the guy pretty much walked up to us and seeing who we were turned and left. I think it wasn't an accident that our appointment was at the moment it was. Whatever would have happened wasn't going to happen with us there. It reminded me of a moment we had with an investigator named Carmen about 14 or so months ago. Miracle.
Jorge's lesson was also great. We taught a few principles out of the Restoration and focused on the necessity of prayer a little more directly. The last few lessons with him have been pretty intense, but I think he has made some progress.
The Book of Mormon more than the Bible really helps us discern things that are good and true. While the Bible explains "ask and ye shall receive" (James 1:5) and later explains the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25) but the Book of Mormon takes the cake. To name a few, these scriptures outline one or more ways that we can know for our selves if something is true.
1 Nephi 15:11
2 Nephi 31:3
2 Nephi 32:3-5
2 Nephi 33:1,10
Jacob 4:13
Mosiah 5:2
Alma 5:45-46
Alma 32:27-29
Moroni 7:13, 19
Moroni 10:3-5
The Book of Mormon really speaks for itself, challenging any and all readers to find out for themselves. I really know it to be true. There really isn't anything we can do to convince someone aside from allowing the spirit to confirm what we teach. Endlessly we are bashed and that is terribly annoying and it's exceedingly unfortunately because those people have hardened their hearts and refuse to think or test things out beyond the words of their pastor. The Restoration of the Gospel truly is a miracle.
God has not changed, revelation does not have some prescribed ending after the revelation of John. If that were to be true then everything after Deuteronomy 4:2 is void and if their Bibles are anything like mine there can't be prophets after the old testament because it says "the end of the prophets." Lastly, if there weren't going to be prophets in the lasts days why did Jesus take time give instruction on how to figure out if someone is a false prophet instead of saying, sorry guys I'm the last one!
Being a missionary is pretty great. The Gospel is true.
-eric
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