Dear family and friends,
This week we had 3 service projects for investigators. During the first one we found a cienpie, or centipede about 8 inches long, 2 inches wide. The Haitian next door trapped it in a bottle and told us the venom makes great alcohol...
In other news, it´s really really hard to get people to come to church. I would say that it is the next biggest problem after getting people married.
One guy told us that having an eternal family didn´t interest him. That was sad. Maybe he was having marital problems.
I had a cool experience where the Holy Ghost gave me the answer to a question before the investigator even asked it. I was talking about the first vision and Exodus 33, verse 11 came into my mind. Then the guy said that man can´t see God or he will die. So I showed him the scripture that was given to me, about God talking to Moses face to face, as one man speaketh to another, and that solved his doubt. I´ve never had to use that scripture before and it´s not in my usual arsenal. It was definitely revelation, as were 3 other answers given to me in response to some other doubts. It was a cool lesson.
Another man name Jose Manuel doesn´t believe that God answers prayers, and refuses to come to church, because he says that the church doesn´t save us, Jesus did. His mom told us the exact same thing. Shows us the importance of teaching our children the truth. But anyways later he was talking about how God is a God of love and nobody teaches that. I told him pretty firmly that it´s interesting to me that he wants to believe in a God of love, but doesn´t believe that our loving Heavenly Father would listen and answer the prayers of his children in need. Or that he would send us Prophets to help us learn how to cope in a world with more spiritual and physical dangers than ever before. Or that he would personally establish and direct a church where we can be nourished by the word of God and find comfort and aid from other members of the congregation.
He didn´t have much to say after that. So we dropped him a Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. He loves to read, so maybe that will get through to him.
We had a 2 hour discussion with one lady, the spirit was pretty strong, and it wasn´t like a debate or anything. She was just really stubborn. She doesn´t believe we need prophets, because Jesus was the last prophet and fulfilled everything. We backed up all of our doctrine with scriptures, but she conveniently ignored the points that were against her belief. Although she was willing to read the Book of Mormon.
Wish me luck, 2 weeks of holidays and people that refuse to commit to anything really put a wrench in our timeline.
Love
Elder Nichols
