This past week was one that was quite
memorable and I'm glad y'alls was memorable too! Montana sounds so much
fun and what I would do to feel 44 degrees again in dry air! I'm glad
that Mom survived that tubing experience haha and it sure sounded like a
fun time!
This
past week was a scorcher and people here in Evans said the summer has
never been that bad since the time that they moved there. It's record
heat down here in Evans. I don't know what it feels like to be dry
anymore. When you come home everyday you have to peel off you clothes
because of the sweat and the humidity. Its so muggy!
On
Tuesday, we had our district meeting and I gave a training on what does
a successful missionary mean and how do we deal with failure. I felt
like there was a lot of correlation between that and potential. I
described various missionaries and great prophets in the Book of Mormon
and the bible. Like how Nephi was strictly obedient and even though
people wanted to blame God or lose their faith he trusted and loved God
so much that he didn't care what people said about him or thought about
him. He only cared about how God felt and that relationship he had was
the most important thing to him. Or like Peter, after Christ was
resurrected he appeared the apostles when they were fishing and
Christasked Peter "Lovest thou me?" Three times and in essence Christ
was saying then why are we fishing for fish instead of fishing for
people to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. The training went pretty
well. Everyone of us have potential to be a great everyday, we cant just
be great all at once, all good things take time. Understanding that
trials are opportunities to grow is crucial. We have a quote on our
fridge that says," God does not send thunder if a still, quiet voice is
enough." So if we are humble and have a good relationship with God, you
will be more in tune with the Holy Ghost. Later that day we had English
class where both Elder Weston and I taught the verb ponder to the class.
It went very well and its awesome hearing their stories and why they
want to learn English. The gift of tongues is a real thing because there
is no way that I could remember how to construct a sentence in Spanish
from a year ago, but now I can say sentences in Spanish and I know its
cause God needs me to do that.
On Wednesday, we
did service and finished grouting a patio for an investigator. A hard
thing here in Evans is trying to find people to teach in the afternoon
because everyone is at work and it makes it hard to catch people. A lot
of the people here are very into their church and don't want to do with
the Mormons because of rumors they've heard or think the Book of Mormon
contradicts with the bible. So you can say we get into lots of "bible
bashes" and the same concerns are always brought up. This one guy we
tried told us that he thinks the history of the church is nonsense and
said if they cant find evidence of the Book of Mormon that he wouldn't
read it. He also thought that he doesn't need to ask God if the Book of
Mormon is true because if it doesn't add up with history then its not
true. No matter what we said he wasn't listening, but we both stood up
and testified and made sure he understood what we believe before we
left. It's funny because we left with a prayer and he followed with his
own after ours. He prayed that we may come to the knowledge that the
Mormon church is false and prayed that God would forgive us for
believing in the church. We had a lesson with the Kings and we had a
great lesson about the Plan of Salvation and the spirit was definitely
there and they accepted to be baptized!
On
Thursday, we went to the library to meet up with Madison and she was
planning to go to the Pastor of a church to discuss the LDS' churches
beliefs and we talked to her about what she should be ready for and how
to go about talking with him. Keep in mind she isn't a member of the
church but she is so faithful that she is going to other churches
testifying that the church is true! So Awesome! We later had service
planned for a member and the Lord had a hand in it because we got there
and it was raining and the things she planned for us to do were things
outside. We started the mower up and even though it worked like 5
minutes before we got there it wouldn't fire up. We looked to their
neighbors and they were moving and they looked like they needed help. We
asked them if they needed help and they asked..."What do you charge?"
We said nothing we just want to serve! He said wow that's awesome! So we
helped him pack the furniture into the truck. He told us hes not
believed in God for a long time and it meant a lot for him to see good
men of God serving because they want too! Later that day we drove to
Augusta to spend the night with the other zone leaders because we were
car pooling to MLC the next day. Whats crazy is, is that I was in that
apartment a year prior with Elder Jones to the day! But I was in
training and it was a crazy flashback moment.
On Friday we woke up at 4:30
to drive to Macon. We passed through Milledgeville and it was fun to
see it again. We had a great meeting and it was fun to see everyone
again. The main topics were trusting in God, putting on the whole armor
of God, and how to effectively find people. They were all great training's and I learned a lot from the Spirit. We traveled back and got
back to the apartment at 11:00.
It was funny we had to fuel our van at a gas station late at night and
they were bumping like gangster music and there were drug deals and we
got out of there as fast as we could but just picture 2 white Mormon
missionaries pulling up in a red mini van, wear everyone else is thug-gin out and got chains around their necks and we are like "What up!"
On
Saturday, we planned a lot of the day and celebrated Dads birthday when
we went to dinner with a member and it also happened to be Elder
Billmans birthday so we sang to you 3000 miles away haha:) We started
our fast and we sweated a lot that night and it was so hard to not drink
anything after we got home and I worked out haha.
On Sunday,
we had a great fast and testimony meeting. I shared my testimony about
small and simple things and how if we don't nurture our seed and let it
grow than we wont ever gain a witness if we know its true. We broke our
fast at the Crisweels home, they have a chicken, turkey, and goat farm in
their backyard that is super cool and I got to hold a goat:) We had a
bit of an interesting conversation with this guy later that night and it
was quite the experience. We walked out of our apartment and this black
guy approached us and it started off more or less where he wanted to
understand what we believed and then it turned to him telling us why our
church is false and his reasoning behind it. He was very well versed
with the bible and the history in the Old Testament and he brought up
various verses in the Old Testament where it talks about how he thinks
Jesus is black and how everyone in the bible was black besides Esaw. He
kept on using the phrase "our people" and 'your people". He was making
fun of Joesph Smith and how he saw the gold plates with Magical glasses
and saying how the White picture of Jesus is the anti-Christ and how he
is raping and killing people. He invited us to come and be with his race
and be saved by God. his exact words" Y'all are finna be shocked when
Christ comes again and there's a black man coming from the sky." But the
fact that he was the promised Israelites and that the Book of Mormon is
false because it says that "Blacks are cursed" he said the whole book
is false. He said" Elder Hill will you humble yourself and deny your
faith if I can prove to you its true?" I said No, because I know its
true and it would be a waste of time." It was quite the exchange and we
quickly had to clear our minds through prayer to prepare for a lesson
with the Kings. We ended up putting them on date and we are pumped!
I LOVE Y'ALL and thanks for everything!
_Elder Hill
#Churchistrue #Evans
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| Baaaaaaaaa! |
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| MLC in North Augusta! |
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| The Bros! |
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