But I Was Here To Change That

02/24/2013

This week was really good.  It’s only the second week I have worked in my new area now, and it was only for three days.  But there are some problems.  I have no idea where any of my old comps investigators are. So it’s been a challenge to find people that we were teaching.  One thing that I’m really grateful for is that the members here are really good at giving references, and that makes life a bit easier.  

We had a meeting this week with some of the members.  I was told it was a missionary coordination meeting, but it was really a welfare meeting. So I turned it into a mission coordination meeting.  Whoops. Anyway, we got to present ourselves to the leaders of almost each auxiliary and quorum.  However, the Bishop wasn’t there.  He works till nine at night and is impossible to find.  So I don’t know what to do there.  I just told them that I don’t know what their opinion was of the missionaries, that I guessed it wasn’t very good because of some of the things that happened, but that I was here to change that.  I told them I’m here to work but I will need their help because I don’t know the area, and I told them I want to help them too. So we will see where that goes.  

Also, this weekend we have our first baptism in my new area! Whoo-hoo! And next week we have another one! But the one for next week is a super crazy story. This guy moved in to live with a member and we went and visited him because he came to church and we met him there.  So we go visit and I had no idea what to teach him because I didn’t know what he had been taught, or how far along he was in his conversion, or what we needed to teach to get him ready for baptism.  So we started teaching and we taught about the Book of Mormon, how it’s the keystone of our religion and because it’s true Joseph Smith is a prophet and this is the true church.  After we finished, he told us his experience and story about all the churches he has visited and then told us he knows the church is true. It was just really awesome.  We committed him to a baptismal date.  Afterwards, I remember joking with my comp that there was something, a catch.  There was no way that a baptism comes that easy. It was definitely a little blessing from the Lord.  And it was quite a contrast from another first lesson we had with a reference we had received.  The reference was some guy who was really evangelical and wanted nothing to do with us.  Trying to teach was hopeless and it was almost a fight in my opinion.  

Truly the people who are seeking the truth honestly and humbly are the people who are prepared to listen to the gospel. I don’t really know how to explain it.  There’s just a difference.  The man we met and now committed to baptism had gone to many churches but he said that they just weren’t the same and he felt that this church was true. And he stopped going to other churches. There are people that are prepared to listen and there are people who aren’t. This man we met was prepared before he came, and so he received the missionaries and felt it was true. And now he’s here!  So that’s all for me.

Elder Ollis