Hello Everyone!
It has been an amazing week! Elder Benner and I have been working
hard and we picked up 3 new investigators this week! The first one I
think I mentioned last week, his name is Joe Norarro. He is a very
inteligent person. He is mid 20's and studying nutritional science at
San Jose State. He is very Cathloic but has some friends who are members
and has been studying the church for a long time. And the cool thing is
when he studies the church, he uses church resources like lds.org
and other things rather than whatever crap he finds on the internet
that other people think we believe. I am so grateful that he is smart
enough to go to the source. He is also in Moroni chapter 4 so he is
almost done with the Book of Mormon! I really think that he is ready for
the gospel, he just has some hang ups on some things that don't make the
most intellectual sense to him. He disagrees with some of the chapter
headings in the bible and says that the church's interpretation of those
chapters is wrong. And also he believes that the scripture that talks
about if your brother sins against you talk to him about it alone and
if you still have a problem then bring like 3 witnesses and then take
him to the church and let the church sort it out, he thinks that
scripture conflicts with the apostasy because if Christ intented to take
his chruch off the earth then he wouldn't have said that. He just has
some minor issues like that. But I still think he wants to belileve it.
Anyway, the second one is this guy named Jose that we met on the street.
He asked us some questions about repentance and told us to go and do
some research and come back with something that would specificially help
him. So we did and it was an awesome lesson. He really respects us and
what we do, but when we asked him if he wanted to come to church, he said
he wasn't really a church guy, but I'm pretty sure we will be getting
him to come soon.
Then our third one is an Indian lady named Sandyha.
She was a referral from the sister missionaries but when we stopped by
we talked to her for just a second on her doorstep then she said her
husband was gonna be home soon and asked us to leave so we think
something might be going on there. We have an Indian couple in our ward
that is happy to come with us to teach her, but we need to talk to her
about her husband and things like that. But thats all the people we are
really teaching.
I mentioned about Mike and Norma before, the less
active lady and her boyfriend that are living together. They told the
Bishop that they decided to get married and just take the social
security cut, but then when we met with them on Thursday they said that
they are just going to do a "formal promise ceremony" which they are
positive that the church will deem perfectly acceptable. I don't think
they will, but its up to the Bishop, not me. But becides that, not much
else is new.
I finished Jesus the Christ last week (which I think I may
have been inspired to read because there are a lot of things about the
Great Apostacy in there that I think will really help Joe). Reading
about the Savior's life, especially His suffering in the Garden and His
crufixion has been the most spiritual expirence of my life, and I
encourage everyone to read it. It might take a long time. Its a long
book and the language can be kind of hard to understand, (I had to read
each paragraph 2 or 3 times for it all to make sense) but if you keep a
dictionary and your scriptures handy, its possible and it is such an
amazing book! Anyway, thats all the time I have for today. I love you
all!
Elder Spencer Grant Harbold
