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Stephanie and her BIG Book of Mormon
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Just before the fireside
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Friends and Family!
Richard is getting baptized!! He practically came running into the Visitors' Center, sat us down, and with tears in his eyes held up the Book of Mormon and said "This is truth." It was my first experience with someone really getting an answer, recognizing it and being so excited for the next step. It was thrilling! Sister Jones and I had been praying about a baptismal date for him and separately we both came up with December 9th (Happy Birthday Mom)! When we asked him he said that he knew it was going to be in December and that 9 was his lucky number. Still, neither of us will be surprised if it happens sooner. We haven't even taught him about the Word of Wisdom yet and he has already given up coffee, tea, swearing, gambling, and he's working on alcohol. He read about the Word of Wisdom and other addictive behavior on Mormon.org and in True to the Faith! We had a missionary fireside last night with music by the missionaries and testimonies from recent converts. Richard came and introduced himself as our favorite investigator to everyone he met and as he told his story I learned more about how this all began for him. He had a friend at work that was Mormon, which we knew, but apparently he saw the Book of Mormon musical and that's what really peaked his interest. He said it was vulgar, but for whatever reason he was interested in reading the book. He thought he purchased one that night in hopes of learning more, but it turned out to be a playbill or something. That's when he referred himself and where we came into the picture. Isn't it interesting that avenues the adversary may be trying to use are working to our advantage? Richard was prepared and that musical was the connection for him. Cool!
Susan is not really progressing. It's hard because we know how much a knowledge of the gospel could help her. She believes it, but just doesn't have the energy to do. Especially church attendance. We found two new investigators, John and Jay. John was a potential in the area book and when we went by he said that missionaries do so every few years, but that none had seemed quite as genuine as we do (playin the sister card). If anything I'm sure it's just that he's a little more ready. We hope so anyway. We invited him to be baptized and he said he would like to see one first, but that he does want to continue meeting with us. Not bad! Jay is great. I met him on splits with a member of our ward and he has a baptismal date for November 18. After meeting with us he called and said that he had gone to Mormon.org and just wanted us to be aware that he drinks alcohol, coffee, and he smokes. We told him that as he comes closer to Christ and lives the gospel he will have a desire to cut those things out of his life and that God will help him to do it. I thought he was a goner for sure, but he just said "ya ok, I just wanted to be honest with you. See you on Tuesday." What? :) We're finding it helpful to give anyone we teach a lesson to a Mormon.org card. Mostly because you can't teach someone everything right when you meet them and we would rather people get overwhelmed by truth than by lies. I don't know what the statistics would be, but I think a lot of people that meet missionaries probably do a quick search online and I'm sure many find false information.
The two people we had come to church this week(Richard missed because he held his own personal general conference - more power to him) were less actives. Crystal, who is a young mother who was baptized when she lived with a Mormon foster family at age 15 - hasn't been back since, and whose only hesitation about coming to church was that she didn't have anything to wear. So, we found her something, she came, and loved it. We had our primary program, and spoke about how to teach our children in relief society. It was perfect for her and she told us she had forgotten how much she liked being there. The other was Stephanie who is 44 and hasn't really been active since she was baptized as a child. She is very open and basically wanting to come back so it's great for us because it's like teaching an investigator as far as lessons go, but she has some basic knowledge and doesn't have a religious history that brings up opposing beliefs. She seemed to enjoy being there as well and seemed to hit it off with another mid-single lady in our ward that's in the same field of work.
I'm out of time, but I love you all! We had some funny experiences this week as well that I'll have fun telling you all one day. Have a great week!
Sister Davis
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