"Book of Mormon and Bible to Testify of Each Other"

"I got Grandma's stuff!"

Feb. 27, 2017

This week has been a really good one. Definitely an improvement from last week! We were able to find that Vietnamese couple that we told you about. They were super prepared. We taught them the Doctrine of Christ when we first contacted them. They understood the simplicity of Christ’s gospel and accepted a baptismal date. We were able to go back by that night with a Vietnamese recent convert and taught the Restoration. They recognized on their own that the path to finding out if all of this is true was to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, and come to church. They offered their first prayers in our two lessons and it was amazing! Their name is pronounced like "cow," so when we prayed before the lesson, I prayed to bless us that we will be able to have the spirit with us to know what to teach the "Cows"… I cracked up at the end. It was a struggle, but I think God was probably laughing too…Hopefully.

We also have started teaching another family from Africa. The mother has been coming to church for a pretty long while with another African family in the ward. The kids have come on and off, but the family has always rejected joining because they go to another church and are confused about priesthood authority and baptism. We had a great lesson with them last night where we were able to use the Book of Mormon and the Bible to testify of each other. They accepted the invitation to be baptized if they receive an answer from God that the Book of Mormon is true! It was amazing because the first lesson we had with them on Friday didn't go so well. We started out with some good questions when they brought up the concern that they had already been baptized. Actually, it started out something like this...

Elder Moe: Have you guys thought about being missionaries one day?

The Daughters: Yea! Yeah! That'd be cool!

Elder Moe: Have you ever gone out and translated for the Swahili Sister missionaries before?

Elder Jensen: turns and whispers to Elder Moe They are all non members...

Elder Moe: Quietly replies Ohhhhh...

Brief silence

Elder Moe: Well, have you guys thought about joining the church and getting baptized?? (:

Lesson proceeds

One of the daughters was trying to roast us because we worship on Sunday and not Saturday, so that ending part of the lesson didn't go that great just because we were facing a lot of stubbornness. Our next lesson went a ton better! They are going to have us over on Friday and make foo foo and a bunch of African food. We are going to bring a Lingala translator and maybe the Swahili missionaries.

We had investigators at church as well and were able to see a ton of miracles!

We met this awesome guy named M this week as well. How we ended up meeting him is kinda a long story, but we were able to talk to him one night when he had his brother over. Missionaries worked with him a ton in the past. They drug him to church quite a bit because he never came. He has been in Samoa for a few months and just got back a bit ago. We shared a message from the Book of Mormon when Alma found Amulek and they worked together and were given power from God. We had a fellowshipper leave us high and dry later this week for a lesson with a family where the husband was at work so we couldn't come in, and so we grabbed M to come with us. He said yes he would help us out, but he wasn’t going to say anything. He ended up bearing a powerful testimony and said that he had been praying that we would come by that night (that we came the first time) and he is trying to get active again.

We had an awesome week. I know this is God’s work and that D&C 33:6-10 is so true: "For lo, I am with you." He is with each of us and will deliver us from anything we are captive by if we trust in Him and turn to Him. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer.

Love,

Elder Moe

"This is some leftover Bengali food from the Gonsalvases we are teaching.  This is how we ate it at their house.  No utensils!!  Mmmmmmmm"

"These are the missionaries from the Mexico MTC.  They came in the night before, so they stayed with us.  It was super fun!"

"We took a bunch of chairs to the mission office because our apartment is already small enough without 4 chairs! I am using the ball as my chair and it works great!"

"This was picking up the new missionaries at the Front Runner.  All the departing missionaries had already left that morning, but Elder Baldry's flight wasn't leaving until 3 so he came!"

"Yes"...I am a dingus