Date
February 13, 2017
Area
Brighton, Colorado
Companion
Elder Hills
What an interesting week! I will start with maybe the most interesting thing that happened. We knocked on this lady's door and as we were teaching her we invited her to read from the Book of Mormon. She in turn invited us to her church, which we accepted to her surprise. Well, we went last night to their evening service. After the service, we had a lot of people come up and talk and they were very nice. Then their preacher came up, and I excitedly shook his hand. Well, that quickly went south. He immediately went into attack mode and tried to start bashing with us. He would bring up something controversial and then when I asked if he knew any more about the situation, he would say no. I would then explain it a little more, but all he wanted to do was argue. He would bring up some crazy claim that he said would "prove" the Mormon church was wrong. I told him we were not there to argue and that the conversation wasn't going to go anywhere if he just kept trying to argue. He then said he knew the conversation wasn't going anywhere, because we had finally come across someone who knew the Bible and knew a little history about the Mormon Church. (If you can’t tell he was pretty prideful. :/)
The interesting thing was that he was the least knowledgeable preacher I have ever come across. Everything he said about our Church was based off a one paragraph thing he had probably read online. After politely trying to end the conversation for 15 minutes, and after a total of 40 minutes talking with him, I extended my hand and said "we must be going, our purpose is to invite others to come closer to Christ, and that isn’t happening here so we must go spend our time better elsewhere." He shook my hand but made it clear that "This isn't a hand of fellowship, only a hand of being polite." I said well, that is good enough for me! It was a little bit sad to see how obstinate and contentious he was, however, most of the people at the congregation were nice. My companion, Elder Hills, stayed quiet most of the time, but he did add a couple really good things, so I appreciated him being with me there. It was interesting to say the least.
Elder Hills is my new companion, and he’s pretty cool. He raced downhill mountain bikes back home, so he LOVES bikes lol. He is from New Hampshire and he has been out about 4 months so still pretty new, but he is a cool kid so I am excited to serve with him over the next few weeks and maybe months.
So, I am not very fond of some of the leadership of the stake I’m serving in. I know that they are called of God, but boy I am not fond of the human side of some of them. I won’t go into details, but I’ll just say that I had a tough time this past week with one in particular. I have been praying fervently to feel love for him. Hopefully, the Lord will bless me with that love soon! Other than him, I love the members here! I am really enjoying serving and many of them are very missionary-minded.
I have also concluded that members love missionaries wayyyy too much! Here is a list of some things which were given to us this past week - some from people we know, and others from people we don’t:
-80 lbs. of weights (that make a total of 880 lbs. that have been given to me on the mission...)
-a bench for weight lifting
-a super nice computer chair
-a big white board
-girl scout cookies
-a bag FULL of steak and ground beef
We are spoiled.... but I guess the Lord blesses us for working hard?
Toni will be baptized this week! So far, our Zone is the highest baptizing Zone in the mission this year. It hasn’t been in the past, so hopefully we can keep that going! Melanie and Eric are still doing well, and they came to church again! Unfortunately, some of the other people who are also doing well, did not make it to church this week. We need to continue to teach them to understand and feel the importance of attending Church and feel the Spirit to help them act! Overall things are going great!
I will close with a reminder of the power of prayer. Prayer isn't a way for us to ask and get everything we want. As the Bible Dictionary says, "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them." I think too often we forget this and we try to make God’s will change to our own, but prayers are about changing OUR will, not God’s. I have seen that again and again and am always grateful for the reminders I receive about that.
As always I love you all!
Elder Steven Richards
The interesting thing was that he was the least knowledgeable preacher I have ever come across. Everything he said about our Church was based off a one paragraph thing he had probably read online. After politely trying to end the conversation for 15 minutes, and after a total of 40 minutes talking with him, I extended my hand and said "we must be going, our purpose is to invite others to come closer to Christ, and that isn’t happening here so we must go spend our time better elsewhere." He shook my hand but made it clear that "This isn't a hand of fellowship, only a hand of being polite." I said well, that is good enough for me! It was a little bit sad to see how obstinate and contentious he was, however, most of the people at the congregation were nice. My companion, Elder Hills, stayed quiet most of the time, but he did add a couple really good things, so I appreciated him being with me there. It was interesting to say the least.
Elder Hills is my new companion, and he’s pretty cool. He raced downhill mountain bikes back home, so he LOVES bikes lol. He is from New Hampshire and he has been out about 4 months so still pretty new, but he is a cool kid so I am excited to serve with him over the next few weeks and maybe months.
So, I am not very fond of some of the leadership of the stake I’m serving in. I know that they are called of God, but boy I am not fond of the human side of some of them. I won’t go into details, but I’ll just say that I had a tough time this past week with one in particular. I have been praying fervently to feel love for him. Hopefully, the Lord will bless me with that love soon! Other than him, I love the members here! I am really enjoying serving and many of them are very missionary-minded.
I have also concluded that members love missionaries wayyyy too much! Here is a list of some things which were given to us this past week - some from people we know, and others from people we don’t:
-80 lbs. of weights (that make a total of 880 lbs. that have been given to me on the mission...)
-a bench for weight lifting
-a super nice computer chair
-a big white board
-girl scout cookies
-a bag FULL of steak and ground beef
We are spoiled.... but I guess the Lord blesses us for working hard?
Toni will be baptized this week! So far, our Zone is the highest baptizing Zone in the mission this year. It hasn’t been in the past, so hopefully we can keep that going! Melanie and Eric are still doing well, and they came to church again! Unfortunately, some of the other people who are also doing well, did not make it to church this week. We need to continue to teach them to understand and feel the importance of attending Church and feel the Spirit to help them act! Overall things are going great!
I will close with a reminder of the power of prayer. Prayer isn't a way for us to ask and get everything we want. As the Bible Dictionary says, "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them." I think too often we forget this and we try to make God’s will change to our own, but prayers are about changing OUR will, not God’s. I have seen that again and again and am always grateful for the reminders I receive about that.
As always I love you all!
Elder Steven Richards
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