14th Week in Spokane

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! this was a pretty eventful week! I told you last time about Cheryl and Triston and how they are getting baptized January 2, well when we met with them this week they decided that they didn't want to wait and that they want their family there so they were actually baptized last night, Dec. 27!! The service went way good, the Holy Ghost was definitely present and everyone in the room could feel Its presence. They are going to be very strong members of the church and we are excited to watch them progress! They will be ones that I will stay in contact with for the rest of my life! Jessie came to the baptism as well and afterwords she was talking about how she's excited for when she gets baptized, so we are excited about that because we haven't even talked with her yet specifically about getting baptized but she knows that its what she needs to do! I also had a very interesting, but very good teaching experience this week. We were on our way to see someone else when I saw this guy named Jessie Jones, I saw him through his window and the Holy Ghost told me that we need to go see him, so we turned around and knocked on his door and he let us in. Well we started teaching like normal and we tried to read out of the Book of Mormon, but every time we would he would act all weird and pretty opposed to it. So I decided to switch gears a little bit and teach him more about the book of Mormon, now this Jessie Jones is a little bit different then most, and he talks like this: "ya man, sweet man ya that's awesome man that's sweet ya" so that's how he talks. I figured out real quick that in order for him to really listen and pay attention and understand is for me to talk the same way. So with that being said, I stood up, so my companion did too, and taught the rest of the lesson standing up and talking in kind of a loud voice, just imagine like one of those sermons you see on TV early Sunday morning.. kinda like that, except a lot more animated and a lot more interactive, I asked him a lot of questions and let him teach himself, it was pretty cool to watch him answer all these questions and watch it form in his mind the point we were trying to get across.. so I asked him, "did you know that Christ is going to come again?" and I guess he's not all that familiar with the bible so he said he'd never heard that so I showed him quite a few places in the bible where it talks about Christ coming again. Then I said what do you think, is Christ perfect and is He the same yesterday, today and forever? He said yes, so I said so what do you think, since Christ called twelve apostles when He was here the first time, do you think He will again? He thought for a minute and, said yes He will. I said that's right, He will. Then I asked him about what he knew about John the Baptist, well he didn't know much so I taught him about John and what his roles were.. 1st he was called to be a prophet to prepare the way for Christ and second to be the one to baptize Christ because since he was a prophet he had that Priesthood authority to do so. So then I focused on the part of john being a prophet called to prepare the way for Christs coming. so I asked Jessie, what do you think, we already established that God is the same yesterday today and forever so will He call a prophet before Christ comes again to prepare the way for Him, like John? So Jessie thought about it and said yes, He will call a prophet. So I said that's right, He will!! and then I showed him some scriptures in the bible that talk about how there will be prophets and apostles before the second coming of Christ.. there's a couple in Ephesians and it talks a lot about it in revelations, especially in chapter 11, and many more places, but those were the ones I showed him. Then I told Jessie well guess what.. it has happened, the time that prophets prophesied thousands of years ago where there will be a prophet on the earth again is happening right now! Then we talked more about the book of Mormon and why its important. Then he asked me how I know all of this is true. So I told him the truth.. that I have prayed about it, all of it, and the Holy Ghost told me that it is true, all of it. So I bore my testimony on it all and then he was all excited and said, I believe you, I don't know why I believe you, I can't even picture it in my head, but I believe you, I believe that the book of Mormon is also the word of God like the bible, I believe that there's a prophet today. So then we explained that the reason why he believes everything is because its true and because the Holy Ghost is testifying it to him through his thoughts and feelings.. so that was a really long story and I'm sorry if you got bored with it, the reason why I wanted to tell you about it and why it was of significance to me is because it was totally out of the normal for the teaching style, but we taught everything exactly how he needed to hear it, and the cool thing about that is even though it was different, the Holy Ghost was leading me through it every step of the way, telling me what to say and telling me which scriptures to share, and not only that but it was very apparent that the Holy Ghost was working with Jessie through out the whole thing and by the end he took a book of Mormon and said that he was going to read it because he knows its the word of God, because it is!