Week Twelve

What a week! It's been full of up's and down's and a few interesting/amusing moments in between!

We had an investigator drop us that we were positive would be baptized, so that was one of the downs, we got a number of new investigators, that was an up. We talked to a professional Anti-mormon, that was the amusing moment!

So this guy we talked to was the vice-president for some church, and it was his job to train the youth to avoid being "led astray" by the mormon missionaries! he then talked about how we are so blinded and kept from the truth. Quite ironic that he said WE are kept from the truth while he was actively engaged in keeping people from the truth. He started in on some of his anti-mormon rhetoric, but we wouldn't let him get too far... he used the whole "Well in revelations it says don't add or remove..." I cut him off and said "You know perfectly well that that scripture is only speaking of the book of Revelation, and you know that we know it as well. You also know that same thing is in Deuteronomy" I knew he'd argued with mormons before, so he should know better than to use such a lame argument. He tried to make it better and threw out some more dumb comments, all of which we handily shut down... I was itching to start bible bashing, but we instead bore testimony, he then left. It was amusing. It seems that at least once a week we have the privilege of running into an anti-mormon. Most people simply don't care or some have never even heard of us!

I'm very excited for General Conference this week! my first of four on my mission. A rare opportunity to get investigators to gain a real testimony of the current prophet! well there is always opportunity, but this one is quite profound.

We met this really awesome guy named Duane, or Dwayne, or however he spells it... but he's from Jamaica! He is so hard to understand. He's actually a member already, but is just getting back to church. Our first lesson was more him teaching about the importance of the Book of Mormon, he had some cool stories and is an incredible person, he will one day probably be a motivational speaker, he understands many things. It's just so hard to understand him!!! Also he was kinda rude at points, we had a member with us who has an incredible testimony and is very strong in the gospel, he's 19 I think, was just recently baptized, and is the only member of the church in his family, well Dwayne told him that the reason his family hasn't joined is because he must not be strong enough! AGH! it was somewhat amusing, because I can't imagine he meant it the way he said it, but still, rude. Oh well, what can ya do?

My district has a turtle! not really. But for a day or so we did, the sisters in my district found a baby Turtle, named him Hadley. Small little fella, but we're not allowed to have pets so we found him a home.

The church is still true! My testimony continues to grow as I see the hand of the Lord in my every day work and life. I love this gospel and I love preaching the gospel.

Elder Martin