Dear Friends and Family,
So this last week was pretty awesome. To start off, Conference was CRAZY!!!! 18 for boys and 19 for girls. WHAT???? So freaking cool. And then all of the talks I thought were the best ever. I loved every minute. Then we taught and found a lot of cool people. I wish I had time to tell you about Danny, Edwin, Marta, and all of the rest, but Jose Luis takes the cake and so you are just going to hear about him.
But to start off, last P-day, we got permission as a zone from President to watch Forever Strong. It might be my new favorite movie. We did have to apply the movie to ourselves and the investigators afterwards, but it was awesome! Watch it if you haven’t. It’s not a church movie, it’s about Rugby, but it’s great.
Well, so this past Thursday night, we were walking home after an appointment in the night. We always say goodnight to people as we pass by. We passed by a guy who was talking with his moto driver and we said ‘’Buenas Noches’’ He said ‘’Buenas Noches Hermanas, el fin del mundo se acerca.’’ Which means Goodnight, the end of the world is coming. We continued walking and started to laugh, then we felt like we should go back and talk to him. Well we found out his name was Jose Luis. We talked to him a little about why we are here. He’s a police man and loves to talk to people. He’s currently on a month of vacation and is not working. So we talked to him about how our purpose is to help people be baptized. He explained that he wanted to be baptized, but that it was nearly impossible to know where because there are SOOOOOOOOOOO many churches. Well, needless to say, since it was late, we made an appointment for the next day.
So Friday, we went by and taught him about Joseph Smith. Jose Luis loves to read and has read the Bible simply to read it, not because he has a ton of faith. He said he believes in God but hasn’t ever felt like anything has given him direction in his life. He said he loved the fact that we actually came by and that he really respected us and thought it was incredible we were so willing to just listen to him. We invited him to Conference Saturday morning. He said he would come with us.
So Saturday morning, we passed by his apartment and he was all ready to come with us! Well, so awesome! He had his Book of Mormon in hand ready to listen to the words of the prophet. So we go to Conference. After the 1st session, he said he may come to the afternoon session but wasn’t sure. Well then we introduced him to some of the single adults in the district and then for about an hour, he was talking with them and then when he left he said, I’ll see you guys in an hour for the afternoon session! SUPER excited. Well, he came to the afternoon session and even went to the Priesthood session! Sunday, he was at the building a half hour early ready to listen. We found out that inbetween the afternoon session and Priesthood that the elders had a baptism that he attended and was reading in 2 Nephi 31 about baptism because he really felt like that’s what he needed in his life and wanted to know how to prepare for it! FREAKING AWESOME! So… basically, this guy we found Thursday night attended ALL of Conference.
Last night, we went to our appointment with him to see if he had questions about Conference. He said he had more of a confession. He said that in the church at Conference he said that he heard how we shouldn’t drink or smoke because it damages our bodies. He said that being a policeman, he sees a lot of awful things in the world and that he sometimes drinks and smokes to take his mind off of his work. He said though that he has tried to stop before and hasn’t been able to but wanted our help.
At first, my excitement kind of was shot. I was like great… this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. Addictions are TOUGH!!! Well, I bore my testimony of Jesus Christ and the Atonement and what it can do for us and how through baptism, we can be clean from all of this and then have the spirit as a constant companion. It got quiet after all of that and he goes, that makes a lot of sense. I’m ready to leave this all behind. We helped him to make a plan of what to do when the temptations come. He’s super solid. When we left. I asked if I could take his cigarette box so that the temptation would be gone. He kind of laughed and said please take it! And then proceeds to hand me his ashtray too. We’ll just say that I got rid of the ashtray and cigarettes pretty quickly because that would not look so good if I were walking around with them. But he asked what he needed to do before he could be baptized and how can he help others to experience this joy also. SUPER awesome. Anyways, he said that he feels like Saturday is the date he should be baptized! So, next Monday, be excited to hear more!
Anyways, that’s about all I have for now. Oh… I did keep the cigarette box though as a reminder that to leave sins behind, we need to do all we can to eliminate the temptation and then replace it. It is the same with anything we have in our lives. Any change we want, do all in your power to eliminate the bad and then replace it with something good!
I love you all, and hope to hear from you soon! Tell me any exciting news, questions you have, or something cool you learned! It could be super short or long! But I miss hearing from some of you!
Love Always,
Hermana Carly Jo Lang
No comments:
Post a Comment