Email cuarenta y cuatro

June 12, 2017 

Hey y'all! This week was a doozy for sure.

On Monday we went and taught A again. A is a college student, he and all his friends are very involved in an on campus ministry for the Church of Christ called Wolf Life. So they know a lot about the Bible, and are pretty skeptical at times. A expressed that he doesn't necessarily believe that he can trust the concept of receiving an answer that the Book of Mormon is true. We then asked him why he believes in the Bible, and he said that basically there is so much evidence to back up the Bible, that what it says actually happened. We then shared Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We then asked if he hopes that the Bible is true and that Jesus is who he says he is. His answer shocked me. He basically said no because the teachings of Christ are hard to follow. Well there's your problem buddy. If you don't even want these things to be true, God definitely isn't going to give you a spiritual confirmation that they are. Alma 32 teaches us that we have to have a desire to believe. He is also only willing to pray and ask if the Book of Mormon is true, but not willing to actually read it! It's so funny to me! No wonder he is so skeptical!

Thursday was a wake up call for me. We had District Meeting and I was not prepared for it at all, and it was very evident. I had even moved it to Thursday instead of Tuesday because I wasn't prepared but then I just procrastinated it two more days! Tuesday and Wednesday my motivation and drive had just gone down the drain. After CW's baptism Satan really stepped up his game and came after me. And that was very evident throughout the week. On Thursday Elder Jorgensen came to me after District Meeting and called me out on it. He was completely right. He said I was only giving 10% effort to the work and I was thinking too much about myself. He was not afraid to say that very frankly and boldly and thank goodness because it woke me up a little. I'm grateful he had the guts to say it.

Yesterday we got to visit I and E and holy cow! They are my favorite people ever! People from Brazil are the greatest! I always keeps commitments and reads the Book of Mormon every night. They are super funny. E is one of the funniest kids I've ever met. Sometimes our lessons with them are crazy because I'll just be playing around with E and all of a sudden we are wrestling or having a pillow fight while poor Elder Jorgensen is trying to explain Kingdoms of Glory. My Portuguese really coming along, I can now pray in almost all Portuguese with a little Spanish mixed in!

Things are going well down here, love y'all have a great week! The Church is true, the Book is blue, happy early Father's Day to my Dad who is a super cool dude!