Happy Canadian Thanksgiving;
I'm so jealous of the delicious food you'll be eating tonight! I can just imagine mom's yam casseroles. Mmmmm.
WE HAD OUR FIRST BAPTISM! Wooohooo! He cried after he got out of the water and he cried when he was confirmed on Sunday. Also, his parents did not approve of his baptism before, but his dad apologized to him on Saturday after he was baptized! The Lord is already blessing him! Seriously, he was met with so much opposition before that I can't believe he went through with it. He totally gets it though, so I'm proud of him and excited for the next.
Our ward mission leader is 19 and has a friend that's been going through some really hard struggles, so our mission leader, Trevor, brought him to church. Andrew (the investigator) said that he felt peace as soon as he walked into the branch building. We taught him about prayer a week ago. We didn't have the chance to teach the first lesson because Satan is working so so so hard on him! He's also been having some really crazy trials happen lately so we just told him to pray for the Lord's strength, it took us an hour to tell him how to do it effectively I guess. He's so wonderful though, he's a music major and when he feels the spirit he hears music. When we finished praying he ran up to the piano and started playing this beautiful beautiful song and said that that was what he heard when we finished praying! He says that he's terrible at reading music, but as soon as he hears something in his head, or just anything, he can play it! He's so wonderfully gifted. I had this vision of him becoming the next Paul Cardell or John Schmidt or something. Seriously, he was so good! Anyway, I asked if he and I could figure out and make a musical number to do in sacrament and he said he'd love to, hopefully that all goes through because he's really talented! Member referrals are the best.
So we have this new rule to go tracting for 2 hours everyday and I actually surprisingly like it. One of the best blessings that has come of it came from a referred contact. These other sisters referred us to this guy they contacted and we went by his house and he wasn't home but his roommate was so we handed him our card and told him to have his roommate call us. It was a shot in the dark, but an attempt nonetheless. The next day guess who called us? The referral! We never ever get anyone actually calling us first! We call them, and typically they don't answer or they tell us they're not interested, but not this guy! His name is Ben, and we went over the next day to teach him the first lesson. Well, we show up and he says he's already read all of 1 Nephi and if he had had time he'd be halfway through! And we committed him to a baptismal date! We tried to get him to talk about his feelings while we taught the first lesson, but he wouldn't really dive into it, but he said he felt something. I know he felt the spirit! I know he did! I sincerely hope he's baptized on November 16th, the Lord prepared him.
We have two others on date, but they're softly on date... This is where faith and miracles comes in, but doubt is a very real, very present emotion that comes frequently into my mind. However, we're told to expect miracles, so guess what, I'm expecting miracles. If nothing, I know for a fact that Ben and Andrew are prepared to recieve this gospel so at least they'll be baptized.
Oh and we were totally bible bashed this week. Actually we were doctrine bashed, bible bashed and we talked to an atheist feminist about the priesthood. Wow. So the bible bashing was stupid because the guy goes to KSU and he's really too far ahead of himself. He doesn't truly know what he believes in and how he sees God, really the only thing he wanted to do was to prove us wrong, which didn't work out. He uses way to big of words for his simple intellegence and tries way too hard! Anyway. It's hard to explain over email, but his guy honestly had no idea what he was talking about, so it wasn't that good of a bible bash. And the doctrine bash was with a muslim dude. He tried to get us to question our faith. I mean, he understands that we all, Muslim and Christian churches, are based on the same values, but he doesn't understand that we do legitmately believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior. He tried asking us how Mary concieved Jesus. Easy. First off, we only know what's in the scriptures and second off, who cares? What's really important here? Getting back to live with God and our families someday, or figuring out how Mary was concieved. And the atheist feminist was my personal favorite. She was very classy and spoke very poignantly and elegantly, I just liked her. She really understands values and being a good person, her only hiccup is the fact that she doesn't believe in God. Our conversation revolved around the priesthood and stuff, which again was surprisingly easy. She was the best to talk to because she was calm, cool and collected. She respected our beliefs while we respected hers. It was cool. My companions think I'm the secret weapon because I don't talk as much as they do during lessons, but as soon as someone wants to "bash" us, I step in and start talking about the important things. I thought I would hate it, but those are when I'm the most calm and in control of what we're discussing. Honestly, this is the only church that fully and completely follow God's ordinances from the Old Testament. The more I know about the bible, the definition of the word religion, and when I reflect on the teachings of the temple, the more I realize how logical this church is despite how illogical people seem to think it is.
Anyway, that's all for today. Love you and miss you all.
Jocelyn
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