I don't think I've had so many opportunities to testify and defend the Book of Mormon than I have this week. We are coming across more and more people who are so quick to claim the LDS church to be false, yet have either never read the Book of Mormon or have never prayed about it with sincerity and real intent.
We did an exchange this
week with the Foryth Elders. I was here in Shepherd with Elder Manufekai
who is Tongan. $ lessons in a row it came down to the Book of Mormon.
We met a new Less-Active who let us in and said, "I don't mess around,
what do you want with me." We explained he is a member of the church and
the Lord checks on his people. He vented for about 20 minutes about how
the church treats women like property and how we were decieved. He
doesn't beleive the Bible is true or any book is true because it was
written by man and not God. That is his reasoning as to why we have a
patriarchal society and why women don't hold Priesthood offices. We
tried to explain the seperate but equal roles and that it was a waste of
time to try and tell God how to run his church. I cut him off in his
rant and asked if he had read the Book of Mormon. He said he had not and
that he doesn't need to read a book written by a con-man in New York to
tell him there is a God. He told me I was living by blind faith. I flat
out responded, "FALSE. You do not know what I have studied or what I
know to be true. You can NEVER tell me this is not true until you ask
God for yourself and you CANNOT tell me what I know and believe to be
true. If the Book of Mormon is true, than this is the ONLY church on
this planet with the ability to seal your family for eternity and you
will lose that opportunity because you won't do something as simple as
asking God." Elder Manufekai then bore his testimony and explained it
was a waste of time for us to be there if he was not willing to take
that invitation. He told us to come back in a week and he will have read
some :)
We had two similar experiences after
that but slightly more effective haha. All I know is the Book of Mormon
is absolutely true. If we trust God enough to answer our prayers, he
will answer us. Wednesday
morning we got to see a pre-screening of "meetthemormon's" on a
projector at the Stake Center. So sweet! Such a good film and the
beginning is hilarious. It isn't playing in Montana yet, so President
Mecham has all of us spending an hour a day asking people to request the
film online. We have a goal to get 10,000 requests in before October 4th. We are nearing 4000 and it's only been 5 days!
I don't have a lot of time today so I'll skip to Saturday.
We helped paint a house for an older couple who are not members of the
church. Their house got destroyed by some crazy hail not to long ago. I
love painting! That night we had dinner at a Recent Converts house who
had a non-memeber there. At first he was super standoffish because he
thought we were the Jehovah's witnesses. Upon teaching the Restoration,
he decided we weren't and instead accepted a baptismal date! Woohoo the
church is true!
Transfers start today. I am
staying here in Billings with Elder Griffith as a Zone Leader and happy
to be! Our whole zone seemed to have been transferred so we are starting
fresh again but that's ok I guess. Thanks for the letter grandpa! Can I
get Jensen and Shane's letters/emails? I have heard from those two in
seriously 20 months!
LeeRoy's Baptism
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