Taking our stand when backed up to the wall of faith

April 8, 2013

Alright so this has been a pretty good week.

We have spent a lot of time trying to get the elliptical organized. We spent most of Monday and Friday getting that done. Ya we only did a partial p-day Monday, we did laundry and email, then got back to work, because our district decided to go to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and museums are closed on Mondays. But Monday night we went over to the C family to see if they were there, and they were and let us in. We started teaching what we were planning, repentance out of Alma 36. We read it with them, talked a little bit about it, then they opened up a little bit more to us. One of their friends was asking them if they even knew when the church was founded or anything like that. They didn't so they decided to go investigate online. Blegh. They came across some anti stuff. Luckily it didn't seem to shake them too much, but it did lead them to a bunch of other questions. They just started telling us all these doubts and concerns, and then Ernesto started telling us that he thinks that all churches are false and were created just to control people. We spent most of the lesson trying to answer concerns as they kept throwing out more before we had a chance to answer the first. It was a little frustrating but we learned a lot about where to direct the lessons.

Tuesday we spent most of the day just doing lookups and trying to find people to teach.

On Wednesday we started out going to Prospect Park for service like we always do, then we had district meeting afterwards. We had another appointment with the C family that night and we had arranged to meet with our ward mission leader at the church before hand to talk about the lesson before we went over (he was going to come with us). We had planned to teach about the Restoration again, with a focus on how Christ set up his church, but it was corrupted and lost over time, then it was restored through Joseph Smith. But while we were waiting I decided to say a prayer about the lesson and I felt like we should change the lesson to just a short, simple lesson about the Atonement. So I went to Elder Rodgers and he liked it so that's what we decided to go with. So we head over and knock on the door, and they aren't there again. Their daughter said they are late coming from work but they want us to come back over on Monday. Alright sure. So then we head out.

In district meeting that day we emphasized that when members come out teaching with us, we need to make sure they have a good experience. We didn't want to just walk home with nothing, so we invited him to go look up a referral with us, that was just a couple blocks away. He said ya so we went over. We knocked on the referral's door and nobody is there, so I start writing a note on a pass-along card to leave on the door. Not waiting for us, the member decides to knock on the door next to us. They open up and he does one of the worst door approaches I have ever seen but they let us in so who am I to judge. They have been emphasizing lately the importance of sharing short messages for the first few lessons so my plan is to just share a quick scripture about the Book of Mormon, bear our testimonies, invite them to read it and get out in 15 minutes.

As we talk to them they tell us that they are Pentecostal missionaries. Ooohhh, this is going to be a fun lesson. I pull out the Book of Mormon and start introducing it and the woman says she wants a lesson from the Bible. Alright, PMG says to show how the Book of Mormon and Bible support each other so I'll play along. I share Matt 11:28-30 and talk about how Christ will bear all of our burdens, then I ask her what her favorite scripture is. She says John 14:6, Jesus is they way, the truth, and the life. Alright lets look at Alma 7 now. And from there it just progressed with them trying to confound us and us boldly declaring the doctrine. In the end we had to leave or it would have turned into a Bible Bash. But it was a really good lesson. I like those lessons a lot, where you are "backed up to the wall of faith, and there [we] must take [our] stand." to kind of misuse a quote from Pres. Benson. Oh well it applies. That lesson gave us some much needed fire. It was the first door we had gotten into since we have been together. We needed that. And our mission leader gained a lot of respect for us in that lesson. He didn't really respect us before that so that was another blessing. It was just interesting to see how God worked in that experience. We showed our faith in preparing carefully the lesson for the C family and he rewarded us with that experience which all three of us needed.

On Thursday we took the rest of our p-day and went to the museum after a zone meeting that afternoon. I'm still not too much of an art guy, but I had a good time reading the historical background for all of the art. They had a big exhibit about ancient Egypt and the ancient Americas which were fun to look at. Then after that we had correlation.

On Friday like I mentioned, we needed to finally knock out the area organization so the six of us got together and spent most of the day finishing that up. But that will make it a lot easier now, having all of the formers and potentials and less-actives all typed up and in our hands while we're out working.

Then Saturday and Sunday were of course general conference, so that is always really nice.

Yeah I think that's about it for this week,
Love you all,
Elder Pearce