Hey All Y'all,
This week has been fantastic! My companion had his birthday this week and he was making 20 as they say down here! We had some good gingerbread cookies to celebrate the occasion. (He is aware that we still have a couple months, but I guess Tis the Season :)
We did some great tracting this week, but most everyone was "fixin to go to the store" as soon as we showed up haha. Of course you were :) Good times. I am loving all the funny phrases people use!
After what felt like a few weeks and months of a bit of discouragement, the Lord blessed us with some incredible lessons this week! We have been having a lot of success taking members out with us to teach as well.
One of our new investigators this week seems super solid. One of the members of the ward starting talking to him one day about his life and his religious background and found that he has been looking for a religion that makes sense. He agreed to meet with us over at the member's home on Monday night and we had a powerful Restoration lesson. He agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and has already started to quit smoking! It is great to see him have a desire to build a relationship with Christ and change his life around. Yesterday we met with him again after Church and taught him the P.O.S. He told us so many times in the lesson"finally something that actually makes sense. I know it is true. This is what I have been looking for my whole life I just didn't think it would be with Mormons. People always say they are crazy polygamists. Wait, you guys don't do that right?" Haha bless his heart that was pretty funny. I am excited to keep teaching him, and we are meeting with him again tomorrow!
We also got to meet up with Charles again this week. We did some service for him a few weeks ago by breaking down a brick wall in his backyard, and he finally had the time to meet up with us this week and let us share a message. We taught a great lesson on the Restoration and he especially liked the story of Joseph Smith. That was probably the quietest he was the entire lesson haha. That is definitely one hard part about teaching down here is that everyone will talk your ear off if you don't intervene. They will starting rambling off about something crazy and you have to gather all the thoughts and key it back into the lesson haha. Let's just say getting through an entire lesson and hitting every point is quite the struggle :) He said he was going to try and make it to Church soon and pray FOR Joseph Smith. Hmm, we are working with him haha I guess that is always a start.
Yesterday on our way back from an appointment we got caught in a "Second Line" parade. It was crazy!! Apparently after every Saints game that we win everyone parades from one end of New Orleans to the other! It was a mad house and there were dirt bikes and four wheelers all over the place. It was intense getting caught in the middle of that. Luckily we got out of there safely!
One of our investigators that watched General Conference with us the other week and has come to several bible studies is really coming along. His name is Mr. Moore and he used to be a street preacher! He is such a good guy and knows his scriptures really well. He has been fellow-shipped by Brother Johnson and we were able to teach him the Restoration on Saturday and commit him to a pretty aggressive baptism date on October 29! He is really golden though, and he carries around his Bible and Book of Mormon everywhere he goes. Him and his wife came to Church yesterday and the speakers were definitely inspired, because they both taught on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and bore wonderful testimonies. I think that really solidified our lesson. I am excited for the upcoming weeks!
It is such a great feeling to have the holy ghost present during a lesson and to see the investigator feel it as well. I love the thought that it is just the missionaries job to bring the lesson __to__ their hearts and then the spirit will bring it _into__ their hearts. Soo cool!
Love you all, thanks for your love support. Have a blessed week!
Love,
Elder Wilson
