Monday, August 28, 2017

Week 94: "It's so humid here I could take my fish out for a walk!"

So this week was pretty great. I want to start off with a little miracle. So Tuesday, we were planning on stopping by to see a potential investigator named Deborah. We had talked to Deborah twice before with not much luck, other than her not saying "Get off my porch!" Lol. So we basically knew she wasn't a member of the church, but she had a sister who lived up in Utah, and her son joined the church and was sealed in the temple. So we park, and we see a vehicle with Utah licence plates, so we get all excited. We walk up the driveway and see a young man in the garage smoking a cigar. We talk to him, and ask if Deborah was home. He said ya, just go knock on the door. So we knock on the door and get let in for the first time! We sat down and talked for a minute, then her sister from Utah came in. She's from Vernal, so all her neighbors are members of the church, and she apparently went to church for like 6 months! Her daughter is close with members, and even attended activity days for a while. After talking for a few minutes, the guy smoking the cigar walked in. He sat down on the floor, and just started talking about how he used to meet with missionaries. He loved that, and he started talking about the priesthood from Hebrews chapter 7 and went super in depth. Then he mentioned he was sealed to his spouse, and we realized who this was! It was Deborah's son, Brian! Brian lives in San Diego, and he was separated from his wife that day, that's why he was in town. He (convert of 10 years) and his wife (life long member) were active in the church together for like 10 years, then she was offended and gradually became inactive. He wasn't offended at all, in fact he loves the church, but started slowly slipping away with her for the past 2 years. During that time, he began socially drinking and smoking, not heavily. While under the influence he said things that started his marriage falling apart, which led to his current situation. He was very depressed obviously. The whole time we were there, his non-member mom, and aunt were telling him he needed to go back to church. He asked for a blessing, and we gave him one. He asked me to give the blessing, and during the blessing I was focused; focused on seeking to discern what the Holy Ghost wanted me to say. He was grateful for this blessing, and when I looked over at his mom she's was at the brink of crying. She was touched. We told him to study his patriarchal blessing, and he said he needed to start coming back to church, and that he wants to come back to church. He low key bore his testimony that the Church is true and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet, and the Book of Mormon is true and everything. It was great. We hope the best, and look forward to seeing him soon.

Other cool things that happened:
Lots and lots of contacting. We are actually really busy compared to what the area was like before I got here. We've got tons of really solid potentials, and a few investigators, which we had none of when I came into the area.

James came to church. He was the less active member we visited awhile back that we had never met before, but said he wanted to come to church. 

Thursday was MLC, which is always good.

Friday after dinner with an older active family, their less active son, Todd, invited us to play a game of pool with him. How could we say no, so we played some cutthroat, it was fun.  Later, we were invited by another companionship of elders to a concert at a members home in their ward. This member, Brother Baker, was in the band Beau Nasty back in the day. He was the bass player. Super cool guy. Heard some Led Zeppelin covers, Tesla, Rush, etc. Pretty fun.  No pyrotechnics or anything at the concert, but there were some good local rock bands that played. There was also an Elvis impersonator that came out at the end of the concert haha, we got a picture with him! I told Brother Baker I play the drums and he got super excited and said I can come back anytime and jam with him in his studio!

Surprise, we had a baptism on Saturday.. Devin, the one who got baptized, is the autistic son of a member family. He's 18. He wasn't baptized at 8 because he and his family didn't feel he was ready, but he was now. He was already taught all the lessons before I got here. He's the nicest kid ever though, and it was a happy day for him and his family.

Wayne Burrows is a stud, he has a wonderful family! He is from South Africa (he's white), and him and his family are investigating the church in a different ward in Upland, but they are friends with the Robbins in our ward. And the Burrows family know my mom and stepdad and my neighbors in Provo as well! They had stayed in Provo for a few weeks this summer next door to my parents, so they got the chance to experience Mormon culture and attend church. Their daughter even went to girls' camp, how cool is that? We had breakfast on Saturday with them at the Robbins' and afterwards we all tried to answer his doctrinal/Church history questions. He's got some hard questions, but the fact that he's asked these exact same questions to several other LDS people before meeting with us makes me question his sincerity when he said he's looking for spiritual truth. 

Yesterday we stopped by our chapel to do something and there were two teenage boys sitting in the church parking lot talking to each other. We said hi to them and went inside. As we were coming out of the church building we asked them if we could give them a pass-a-long card, and they said only if we'd let them see the inside of the building. So, we had a little impromptu church tour! It was cool! 

We have been listening to Joseph Smith the Prophet, by Truman G Madsen on tape in the car, and we are halfway through and it's only been a week. It's 6 hours long, but so far it has totally been worth it. It has strengthened my testimony. I know this is Christ's church, and that Joseph Smith was indeed called by God to be a prophet and to restore Christ's Church to the earth. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and it has brought me much closer to God and my Savior. I love this gospel. And I love you all, have a fantastic week!


Elder Ruiz
Quick pic on a couch out on the street that was for sale.

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