Fall's Here

Hey Everyone,

It's been a long week of finding and not a whole lot else, but I'll try and give you some of the highlights.

Monday night we drove out to Clarksville so Elder Mitchell could do a Baptismal interview for the Clarksville Sisters' investigator. 

Tuesday we had exchanges so I brought Elder Mendez down to Savage for the day. With this being his second transfer, he's still getting used to missionary work, but he has a much better handle on it than I did when I was in training. We stopped by a potentials house and, unlike what normally happens, they let us right in. We sat down in their kitchen with them and started getting to know them better. It was a really good conversation, but in terms of teaching, it really was quite sad. It wasn't sad because they were rude or threw away everything we said, they were very nice and listened attentively when we explained why we believed certain things. They also shared many common beliefs with us such as continuing revelation, vicarious ordinances for the dead, and that the fullness of the gospel isn't held entirely in the Bible. They told us how they "bless" their ancestors in their church, that they believe that marriage isn't only for this life, and they even brought this massive book up from their bedroom which they claimed had selections from religions all over the world, mostly Judeo-Christian, but also some things from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. They even claimed that it had sections of the Book of Mormon in it. But as they were talking and asking us some very strange, but honest, questions about what we believe, I could just feel the Spirit telling me that they weren't ready, and if I tried to force a lesson right now, it wasn't going to end well. They also impressed upon me the importance of the Fall, although not in the way they were originally intending. They said that since the Fall happened, God had to change his whole plan. They were telling us that since the Fall wasn't in the original plan, that it was not God's will for Christ to perform the Atonement, and in essence, we cannot be truly happy until Christ comes back and restores the Earth to what it was like at the time of the Garden of Eden. We had a good conversation until we had to leave to make sure we got home on time. Elder Mendez and I were talking afterwards and I asked him how we could've done better, and he told me he had gotten the same impression that I did, that they were very close to embracing the Gospel, but they needed one more push until they were truly ready.

We also had two lessons with a less active named Todd, he has been estranged from the church for more than 45 years, to the point that we didn't have his records in our ward. Elder Marshall and Elder Foogle found him randomly a few months before I got here, and he has a true desire to come back. We read Alma 42 with him, he warned us beforehand that he was going to ask us a lot of questions, and that he did, amazing questions too. It was so cool to watch someone's understanding change, and if you remember what's in Alma 42, that's a very dense chapter, I love it. 

A couple of weeks ago at Zone Conference, Elder Barney committed us to read and really dig into Jacob 5. I've spent several study sessions pouring over that chapter and I simply can't get enough of it. I'm finding things I've never noticed before; it's marked and connected together in a way that I've done before, it's so much fun. 

Friday we stopped by Florence to see how she was doing. She was sick, but we still sat down for a few minutes and talked about how things have been going. We set up a return appointment and asked her to read 3 Nephi 18 before we came back; she's been making so many awesome steps closer to Christ as well. Saturday we helped one of the younger couples in the ward move across town. We ended up having to make two trips because they had too much stuff to fit everything in the Uhaul at once. 

I think that's everything major this week,

Love you all,

Elder Howell

P.S. The reason for the Subject line was because the temperature went from 80s on Thursday, to high 50s on Friday. I guess Fall was sick of waiting for Summer to fade out, so it just took over. Back to jackets and sweaters!