Dear friends and family,
This week I learned that some cockroaches can fly. Interestingly enough I learned at the same time how quickly I can run into another room and hide. Also, apparently tarantulas are interested in the gospel, because we found a big one in the church. My companion had to trap it solo because I was waiting on the other side of the church property.
We gave 3 blessings this week, one of which I sealed. It was my first one in Spanish. Fun fun. We´ve been working harder to teach more lessons every day. I think we had 8 yesterday. I´m a little bummed about our investigators. They love to meet with us and talk to us, but don´t take any initiative on their own to come to church, read, or pray often. It’s really teaching me a lot of patience. I taught a cool object lesson that i learned from a missionary when I was 10, about time management. You stick rice in a container, and try to fit in a big rock and it doesn’t work. But if you put the rock in first then the rice fits in around it. Obviously the rock represents time for the savior, and the rice represents time for other things. It went well. I also thought of an object lesson on the spot using my flashlight. I took out the batteries and talked about how the flashlight is useless without them, just like how we are not as effective without the spirit in our lives. I also mentioned how we can recharge our spiritual batteries through sincere prayer, study, and church.
That´s another thing I’ve learned this week. I got a little lazy and was just reading from the Book of Mormon, meaning that I was just following the story. But when I started studying by topic again, I felt the guidance and peace of the spirit much stronger. I think the same goes for our prayers. Do we say the same rote prayer every night because we know we are supposed to pray? Or do we take the time to open our hearts and minds to our heavenly father and talk to him as if he were kneeling next to us? Do we attend church and sit through it because we have to? Or do we ponder the sacrifice of the savior, the covenants we have made, whether our weekly decisions are in alignment with them, and listen with a humble heart to the what the spirit is asking us to change?
In the process of contacting people we find a lot of people who want to preach to us. It is interesting to me because nobody can go more than five minutes without contradicting themselves. One lady said that we don´t need a specific church because we the people are the church. So we asked her why she goes to her evangelical church and she said because we have to congregate and hear the words of god. One man said that there was no apostasy because the gospel of Jesus Christ was never taken off the earth and that there is only one gospel. When we asked what the gospel of Jesus Christ was, he said it´s different for every person because it´s in your heart. Another man said that the Sabbath isn´t Sunday, but that it´s not important what day it is anyways because we should always worship in our hearts according to the higher law. He also said that he will worship with any church but the Catholics, because they worship idols such as Mary or the other saints, and he wants to follow the Ten Commandments. So i asked him if he thinks it´s important to follow the commandment which says to keep the Sabbath day holy, and if so, which day is the Sabbath? He never answered me.
I have run into so many people that say they are Christians and that they read the bible every day, and so they don´t want to listen to us because the bible is all they need. Um.... Hello! Are you sure you are reading the bible? If so, where are your prophets or apostles as found in Ephesians 4 verse 11 to 14. Or Amos 3 verse 7? Why do you think that a belief in Christ is all you need to be saved when it says in James 2 verse 17 to 18 that faith without works is dead? Why do you repeat the same prayers when Jesus says not to in matt 6 verse 7? Why do you think that you can just choose to be a preacher when the bible teaches against this in Hebrews 5 verse four and john 15 verse 16? Anyone who is reading the bible can see the proper way to baptize, and that it´s pointless without the correct authority or if its not followed by reception of the holy ghost. Anyone can read that at the baptism of Christ god spoke from heaven and the Holy Ghost descended, or that Christ prayed to the father in the garden of Gethsemane, and therefore cannot be the same person. Anyone can read in Ephesians 4 verse 5 that there is one lord, one faith, and one baptism, which should naturally raise the question which is right? So please, don´t tell me that you know everything just because you read the bible. Anyone who is reading it can see that there are many false interpretations in the world, and a restoration is obviously necessary, and would have some serious questions.
Now, would you like to talk to a missionary of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints? Would you like to speak to one of the saviors chosen representatives and have all of your questions about the bible answered and confirmed through study of the Book of Mormon? Would you like to have that knowledge confirmed through sincere prayer and a powerful witness of the Holy Ghost? Whom Jesus said that he would send us as a comforter and a teacher of all things? Which knowledge we are promised by our loving father in heaven if we will just ask him?
Think about it.
Elder Nichols
