Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Jan. 17, 2016 in Catawba, South Carolina

Howdy howdy howdy...

So first off, an update on the whole bed bugs deal. The exterminator sprayed and the total kill period is 15 days to make sure it got all the eggs too. So far we have seen 0 new bed bugs and we are up to day 10 or so, so we are still just hoping and praying that they are gone. It seems that so far we are good, I hope it did work!

I'll start off this week with an update on last week's p-day. We had a zone activity at the park and played Pioneer Paintball! Essentially we put flour and colored chalk in socks and threw them at each other all while playing capture the flag. There were no safe zones or anything, you just had to not get hit. Anyways, we did Senior Companions vs Junior Companions and it was a fun activity. Today we are having one final district activity with the district before transfers. We are doing bowling and possibly laser tag, so as always it will be a blast!

As far as transfers go, the only changes in our district are Elder H. and Sister D. who go home this transfer. (It's weird! My Sisters are going home! I'm old!) Sister K. will be getting a trainee, and Elder R. will be getting... Elder L.!!!! :D

Well, I can say one thing for this week, and that is that we did all we could. We were able to see some good blessings as a result, for example, we have quite a few investigators who are keeping their commitments to read the Book of Mormon currently, and now we are mostly working on inviting people to baptism and finding new progressing investigators and families. We have been struggling with finding recently, and as I was pondering on why, the Spirit whispered "Once you start inviting people to be baptized more, and show that you are focused on the Doctrine of Christ, then I will lead you to those who are truly ready to make those covenants now." It was a humbling thought, and we are definitely going to be better at inviting our investigators to be baptized!

We worked really hard to find people and once again only found like 2 people, and they are both super scary. (As in they know the Bible super well but seem to get caught up/lost in all the minor details.) For example, we were just beginning to teach them and talked about how understanding our message takes time and keeping invitations. They asked what invitations and we told them CPR (Church, Prayer, Reading). They asked why those three things and we were like "Cause that is how you can know of truth." They were all like "Show us where it says that in the Bible" so we shared James 1:5 and Matthew 7. Then the guy went off about how we were using those verses out of context, and how they were originally talking about other things, not about praying or learning truth. Then he showed us a verse where it talks about the people comparing Paul's teachings to the Bible, and how because they compared they came to know what he said was true. It was so frustrating because they couldn't even accept answers to prayer or the Holy Ghost as ways to know truth. The only scriptures I knew that would have taught ways to know truth are in the Book of Mormon, and I knew that if I used those they would be like "Well how do you know that is true?" and I would say "I prayed about it.." And they would not take that as legit. Anyways, got any suggestions? We are going back next Sunday, so we will see how it goes.

Later that day we met an interesting guy who believes the Book of Mormon, but doesn't believe Joseph Smith is a prophet. He said he could be an Apostle though.. He also believes abominable doctrines about the Fall, and he wants to read "The Gospel of Mary." Anyways, so the finding aspect of the work is kinda rough right now, but we're hoping it will improve.

Our investigators are all doing kinda ok-ish. The C.'s are good, and this next week we get to go bowling with them and then teach them.

B. has been reading the Book of Mormon, but had to move a couple appointments, so we are hoping to meet this Wednesday (pray for that!)

Pastor R.C. is hilarious as always, and seems to be enjoying the Book of Mormon. So yeah, it's not all bad here, we're getting along.

Well, thanks for the fun emails! I sure love y'all!
Happy P-daay!

Love, Elder Branch








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