Hello all, this has been a great week and there is lots to talk about, so I'm going to just start writing. I did most of this email on my phone instead of a computer, so if there are typos, I apologize. The work here in Attalla is tough, but we are working hard and doing our best to find the elect and bring them unto Christ. Here are some things we did this week -
This week we met a lady named Patience. She was just chilling on her porch and we went up to talk to her. One of the first things she says was, "Don't even waste your time on me." She was clearly down in her life, and kind of told us a bit about some of the bad things that she had been through. We just sat and listened and testified and talked to her about the Savior and His love for us. She obviously needed help, but she told us that she "wasn't in it to win it." She didn't feel like she could get over some if her problems, even if she wanted to. Long story short, we talked to her for about 20 minutes and we basically convinced her that there is always hope for her because of the Savior. We told her that there was nothing that she could ever do that would put her beyond His reach. We told her that the Church has an addiction recovery program and that we would look into it for her. She cried a good bit and I could tell that she just doesn't really have a lot of people in her life who tell her that they love her. That's what people need a lot of times - they just need to be told and shown that they are loved. We did our best to help her realize that. We also introduced the Plan of Salvation to her briefly and gave her a pamphlet. Throughout our time talking to her, we asked her a couple of times if we could come back and share more, to which she always responded, "No, I just don't want y'all to waste your time." By the end of that first visit, she did finally consent to letting us come back again the next day. We really just wanted to help her, and I think she was finally able to feel that. Anyway, we made an appointment for the next morning at 10.
Well, the next day comes, and we show up. She had a guy over to fix one of her broken windows, and so she just told us to come back later, around 2. Well at like noon she calls us and tells us that she got called into work and so we would have to make it another day. We tried calling her twice or so and she never picked up. Finally she calls us back a day or two later, and just says, "Guys, I talked to my aunt, and I'm gonna start going to church with her. I'm a Baptist, and y'all are Mormons, and that's just not gonna work." Dang, I was so sad. Just 2 or 3 days before, we helped her see that there was hope for her. Hope that she probably had not seen or felt for years. I know that she felt that. And then she just turned around and abandoned it that quick. I can almost guarantee that her aunt told her something about us that she didn't want to hear, and that turned her off towards us coming back. We will still try and reach out to her in the future, but it always just makes me sad when people reject what we have to offer them.
This week we also went to another Bible study at First Baptist Church in downtown Attalla. Last week when we went to Siberton Baptist, we just sat and listened, but we actually participated a little bit this week. There are lots of things I could talk about in regards to this visit, but I just want to talk about one: the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only church with the FULLNESS of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Everyone else has their parts, but there are definitely gaps in their doctrine. Here's the story:
One of the teenagers there asked the guy doing the teaching a question similar to this - "Last week at our Bible study, you said something about how after Jesus died, he descended somewhere or something like that before he was resurrected. Where did he go? My mom and I have looked all week for an answer and haven't found a definitive one." Well the teacher thinks about it for a second, and says, "Well, I guess y'all will just have to do some research and I will as well. There are lots of opinions about this..." and at that point I kind of just whispered to Elder Vanderhoff, "Yeah there are lots of opinions but there's only one doctrine." Earl was the guy's name who was teaching, and he's like, "What was that?" I restated aloud that there are lots or opinions, but there is only one doctrine. I then took the opportunity to teach them very simply the part of the Plan of Salvation that is a very Biblical doctrine, but one that most non-LDS people have never even heard of before: the spirit world. I basically said this: "There is obviously a time in between death and resurrection. At death, our spirit and body separate, and at resurrection they are joined again. At death our body gets buried, but where does our spirit go? It goes to a place called the spirit world. And what happens there? Well, let's go to the scriptures. John 5:25 says 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.' What I know to be true is that during the period of time in between the Savior's death and resurrection, he was in the spirit world, preaching the gospel to those who hadn't ever heard it in this life. God is perfectly just, and so it is completely logical and scriptural that everybody who did not have the chance to hear and accept and live the Gospel in this life will have it in the next. As such, the scriptures teach that that is where Jesus went immediately after his death. He went to those in spirit prison to teach them the Gospel and give them a chance to accept or reject it." Earl kind of tried to argue a little bit, and asked if that was the only reference to the spirit world or spirit prison, to which Elder Vanderhoff responded by quoting 1 Peter 3:19, 1 Peter 4:6, and Isaiah 42:7 (all of which mention very clearly the doctrine I was trying to teach). Everyone in the class was just speechless, they really had nothing to say. They just kind if brushed it off and moved on after that. Interesting that people will reject or ignore doctrine that they have never heard before, even when it completes the gap that they couldn't fill before. Anyway, I was happy to be able to teach those people a doctrine that is very obviously biblical, yet one that they had never heard before. I hope it was enlightening to them.
We talked a lot about that Bible study over the next couple of days, and there is a concept that we talked about which I have always found interesting. It is that there are so many people who either 1) want to believe what we teach, or 2) actually do internally believe what we teach. However, they often refuse to accept that they believe it because it is not what their church teaches. As we were riding home that night, Elder Vanderhoff just said, "I'm so glad that I'm part of the true Church." Me too. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is "the only true and loving church upon the face of the whole earth" because it has in it the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You cannot go anywhere else in the world and find that.
This week I also was able to finish "Jesus the Christ" by James E. Talmage for the first time (finally). I started reading in in Scottsboro and I read like two thirds of it and then kind of just stopped for a while. I picked it back up like 3 weeks ago and finished it on Friday. It's a long book but it was so good. There are so many things in there that I just didn't really pick up when reading the New Testament that Elder Talmage explains. In fact, after bible study at First Baptist, I went up to the teacher and I said, "Hey, I've got a book that I think you might like. It's called "Jesus the Christ" by James Talmage. It basically is just his scriptural commentary on the entire New Testament, as well as some other things about the Savior that aren't in the New Testament. Look it up, it's awesome." And it is.
Haha I hope y'all remember my devil dog story from last week. Sonya is the lady's name, and we went to go see her this week. We didn't have a whole lot of time, but we were able to talk for a bit, and believe it or not, her story gets even better. She said that when they pulled the car out of the ravine, IT WAS STILL IN PARK. So yeah supposedly her car was in park when it DROVE UP A HILL and then into a huge ravine. I dunno what to say to that. Pretty crazy. Anyway, Sonya used to live in Salt Lake for a couple years, and so she thinks she knows a little but about the Church haha. She asked us a few things about what we believe that she supposedly was told by members of the Church while in SLC. She asked us if we really believed that Malakite (?) was being chased by giants when he was jumping from planet to planet, exploding the planets he was jumping on, and then those fragments somehow came together to form this earth. Haha, what? No, we told her that that was false doctrine, and we definitely believe in the Biblical account of the creation. She also asked, "What's your opinion on Brigham Young?" I just said, "Well, he was a prophet." Then she told us about how it was all in the history books that he had killed lots of people and families for doing bad things. I didn't know what she was talking about, but after I thought about it, I actually know exactly what she was talking about. It's just some anti that people throw around that Brigham Young taught and lived the so-called "blood atonement doctrine" in which the blood of murderers must be shed in order to atone for themselves because the Atonement of Christ doesn't cover them. The doctrine itself isn't necessarily false (I'll explain), but the idea that it was ever practiced in this dispensation is false doctrine. In "Mormon Doctrine," Bruce R. McConkie explains that the doctrine of blood atonement cannot be practiced unless the civil and ecclesiastical leaders of the day are the same people. Therefore, it cannot be and has not been practiced in this dispensation. However, it was in effect in like the Law of Moses. You know, an eye for an eye, and a life for a life type of deal. Basically capital punishment was commanded as a way to make restitution for certain sins. But it is definitely not practiced today nor was it in Brigham Young's day. Sonya was not trying to bash us, she was just trying to clear things up. I actually love when people do that. I'm glad that at least some people will come to us with their questions rather than look to outside (and often false) resources. Sonya's doing alright and we are going to see her again this week.
I mentioned that Dan and William both came to church last week. Unfortunately we were not able to see William at all this week for various reasons, so we haven't had a chance to talk to him about church. We were able to talk to Dan on the phone, but not in person. He just said that he understands that church isn't always like that, and he knew that he would have to come several times to really get the feel for it. I was relieved to hear that, however, he didn't come this week. I was actually bummed that neither of them came to church because sacrament meeting was so awesome. There was a great talk given in which the speaker talked about the hierarchy of our lives, and how different circumstances in life make us change what we are focusing on, or change what is most important to us. However, at the top of our hierarchy (or what is most important to us in our life) should always be eternal life. That is the greatest gift of God, and that is what we should be striving towards always. It was a talk similar to the "Good, Better, Best" talk given by Elder Oaks a while back. I know that as we place God first, and do all we can for that gift of eternal life that is promised to all who live his gospel, everything else will fall into place.
We also were able to meet with a guy named Matthew this week. He was one of our potentials that we had been trying to see for a little while and we were finally able to on Saturday. We read with him 2 Nephi 31, and invited him to be baptized on September 1. Now, there's a lot of things that still have to happen for that to work, but I'm willing to work as hard as it takes to help him make that date. If Matthew is willing as well, we will make it happen. I love 2 Nephi 31. It is one of my favorite chapters in all of scripture. It so simply and clearly lays out for us the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nephi often says, "I delight in plainness," or "I will speak plainly." That chapter is about as plain as it gets, and I love that. In a world where so many people think they can just "interpret" the scriptures to fit their liking, I love how the Book of Mormon so clearly states what needs to be taught. In "Preach My Gospel" there is a line that says something like, "You shouldn't just teach clearly enough that they can understand, you should teach clearly enough that they cannot misunderstand." The Book of Mormon does that. I love it.
Well y'all, this has been a good week. We're hitting that grind trying to find more people to teach, but I'm thankful for the ones that we are already teaching. Whether they realize it or not, they need what we have, and I love teaching it to them. Love y'all!
Elder Beach
#RollTide
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