People are taking off their jackets, tossing the hot hand packets, and best of all the snow is on the go!
Coming to ya live in Spokane Washington. It's 46° degrees out and the snow is going home.
I'm happy of course. Already the days are getting longer. The sun is shinning, The blessings are coming and my companion still thinks it's freezing cold.
I don't know if you all know this, but when someone requests a blessing, from the local major hospital is in our area, we are usually the ones to go and do it.
Already we have been able to be there for several individuals who were having medical problems. One kid had landed on his bike wrong after trying to go for a jump, he landed with one of his handle bars going straight below his sternum. This caused major damage to his pancreas among other important organs. So we were told that we had to come in soon because his surgery was going to be in just a couple of hours.
Upon arriving at the patients room we found the mother and some other close relatives. The mother had been taking lessons from missionaries for months and she had been on the fence about becoming a member for quite some time.
We were able to give the child a blessing, it was a wondrous experience, the spirit was so strong in that room and all the close relatives held back a tear or two. We gave our number to the mother to make sure everything was going to be alright and just in case she needed anything else. The next day it was reported that the boy had a successful surgery, and would be on the path for recovery soon.
We had high hopes for the number of people we are teaching to come to church this week. We had advertised that I was going to give a talk about the Book of Mormon, that it would help answer any questions they might still have about it. (By the way, I gave a talk in church yesterday.) None of the people we made sure to invite came
. We still had our usual Swahili class. This week we had a special lesson. We taught about priesthood and authority. We were focusing on trying to get them to understand that they must be baptized by proper authority. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to finish, but they told us that we would talk later. So far so good.
We met with this one lady we have been trying to get with for the past few transfers. It really is hard to tell when she would be available. We can only really catch her when she goes out for a smoke.
With our most recent visit, she asked all the hard questions, I guess she thought we were a cult at first. Upon answering her questions, she told us that she was beginning to like our church more and more. Hopefully this means we can actually schedule some time to meet with her now.
Lately a bunch of the Swahili people we are teaching are being found by other missionaries. A few of them have taken it to themselves to teach those Swahili (a few of them can speak enough English to get by). Ultimately we get them all referred back to us eventually.
There are a few new families that have been found, they seem to like missionaries, until we come by, then they yell NO! Then drive away (rude).
Anyways the work is going good.
I talked about how I gave a talk, so here is an excerpt of me talking about the Book of Mormon.
As the Bible teaches us in 2 Corinthians 13:1. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." God will give us more than one witness of His Gospel.
The Book of Mormon is a companion to the Bible. In no way does one overshadow the other. They are both accounts of man's dealings with God. They both testify that Christ is the the true Son of God, that He is our Savior and Redeemer.
The Lord himself spoke to Lehi talking about these different records.
2 Nephi 3:12 " Wherefore, the fruit of thy loins shall write; and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah, shall grow together, unto the confounding of false doctrines and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins, and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter days, and also to the knowledge of my covenants, saith the Lord.