Week 93: MIRACLES!!!!

Last week was amazing, so many miracles!! We were able to pick up two new investigators and teach them both the Restoration! One of them was a service referral named Sam that was given to us from member of the Upland 1st Ward. He is a strong Catholic but has a few questions about the Church ever since his son joined the Church some time ago. He is very set in his ways, so we are not very sure how far this will go. But, we are glad we were able to get in his home and share the message of the Restoration with him! 

The other person was an optimistic agnostic named Rick that we tracted into two weeks ago. He had some good questions about life and the nature of God that we were able to answer, it was awesome. 

We have been tracting a lot, trying to meet a lot of people. We were so blessed to have 2 less-actives stay for all 3 hours of church on Sunday! We met with one of our other investigators and showed him a conference talk by President Uchtdorf about repentance. After showing him the video we committed him to repent of his sins, and he said he would. I could see in his face that he understood the importance, what a blessing it was to see him have been taught by the Holy Ghost.

All of these blessings we have experienced last week I know came from our inreased diligence, faith, and obedience to God's commandments and to our mission rules. And I am never more happier than when I am doing those things! 

On Saturday we thought it would be fun to go and see Tupperware Man again (long story about how we gave him the name, ask me later). He says he loves Mormons but hates the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, and strongly disagrees with our interpretation of the Bible. He kept telling us how foolish we were to be living as a Mormon, and that we should leave the Church. "Over my dead body!" I told him. He was dumbfounded at my (apparently) audacity to say that.  Elder Jeppsen and I testified to him of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Restored Gospel It took him a few seconds to find some words to say. He was firing away at us, trying to rip away our faith from us and prove us wrong. But it didn't work. In fact, Elder Jeppsen and I both thought he was funny. He is not searching for truth in the world and a better relationship with God; instead he is searching for the faults and flaws of religion, but specifically the LDS church. He says he gets all his information from "experts", when in reality they are just people who are against the Church. Sure, I have been raised in this faith, and people raised in the Church tend to take a lot of things in the Church for granted. But I cannot deny the experiences that I have had in my life that have witnessed to me that there is a God. I have no doubt that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I proclaim that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I add my testimony to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles:

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies....I ask that my testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that it implies, given today under my own oath and office, be recorded by men on earth and angels in heaven. I hope I have a few years left in my “last days,” but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.

Elder Ruiz