Happy Mardi Gras all Y'all!
I am sad to say that I wasn't able to participate in many of the Mardi Gras festivities this year in Baton Rouge. All of the awesome parades are down in New Orleans and I of course got transferred right before... a little disappointing but it's all good I heard it was quite the ruckus anyways. There are a few parades in Baton Rouge, but all of them seem to be pretty grody and not "family friendly" unfortunately. On Saturday we were out tracting almost all day and ran into quite a few characters. It was pretty crazy all of the people going to and from parades totally out of it haha. We gave the car back on Friday though, so luckily we were on foot and able to stay off those roads. Let's just say some of the Mardi Gras merchandise/throws were pretty nerve wracking at best. One of the rated E for everyone quotes of the day had to have been, "No disrespect fellas, but I am just trying to have a good time with Mardi Gras."-Guy outside drinking Tequila. Haha so classic.
Anyways, this week was quite a great week! Elder Jensen was starting to get back up to speed, and we did our best while still making sure he didn't exert himself too much. Since the last couple weeks have been all over the place we really focused on finding new promising investigators. We surpassed our goal of new investigators this week even though Elder Jensen was a bit slowed down so that was awesome! It looks like the zone is doing fantastic too so that is always great.
One of the awesome things about being on LSU is that every Tuesday night we get to go to the Institute class. The Institute teacher is super awesome and is the Institute director for the entire state of Louisiana. I guess he travels all over and tries to have a small class available for young adults. This week the lesson was on finding answers to our prayers through the scriptures and we read in Acts about Paul's ministry. It is a great opportunity for us/and other members to invite investigators and friends as well. Dinner is provided too, so advertising a free dinner always helps :)
Last week on our way out of the hospital one day we ran into these two guys washing windows. They both were interested in learning more about our faith, so I wanted to share our meeting with them this week. Elder Jensen and I met with both of them, Aaron and Charles, at a public diner and learned that they are both out spreading the gospel of repentance after having been imprisoned for a time in their lives. They shared with us their change of heart stories and it was really cool to see how the Lord blesses those that have a desire to change. It is great that they are out sharing that message, but I find it interesting that they ran into us missionaries :) Both of them are pretty hard core baptist ministers and so they definitely hit us with that Bible doctrine, but don't worry we were prepared. Fear No Man. They started out asking us about what it means to be saved by grace and we had a nice discussion about it. It was cool though, because some of the things we had previously studied that day came to mind and so we were able to share how faith without works is dead, being alone. James 2:17 and ultimately our belief in Jesus Christ's sacrifice being the fundamental origin of saving grace. Not too sure how well it went, but Aaron said he would start reading the B.O.M!
We were also able to meet with the two of our most progressing investigators Jackson and Savannah again this week. We first asked how their reading went and found out that they had read 1st Nephi 1 and 2 together and enjoyed it. Savannah converted to Christianity at age 14 and undeniably believes that God is there and loves us. Jackson is almost the complete opposite, so him bringing her into the picture has really helped so much! As far as Jackson's praying is going he still doesn't quite feel he has received an answer. We shared a talk/Mormon message by Elder David A. Bednar called Patterns of Light, and he talked about how revelation can be identified in a few different ways. The examples he used were: a light switch, a sunrise, and a foggy day. Savannah told us how she related a lot to the sunrise analogy, and how she gradually came to believe in a God over the things that were occurring in her life. It was super cool, because it felt almost like we had a member present even though Savannah is totally not a member. Jackson seemed to understand the analogy of the foggy day where he may only be able to see one step in front of him right now, but he just has to keep moving forward. We soft committed them to baptism if they come to know if it is true, and they totally said yes! It was awesome and we are really excited to keep meeting with them. Unfortunately they were out of town for Mardi Gras weekend, but hopefully we can invite them to Church this next Sunday!
Overall another fantastic week! I love y'all and hope everyone is doing well. Have a blessed one!
Love,
Elder Wilson
