Week 26: Happy Groundhog Day

Sadly here in Brazil they don't celebrate groundhog day with the kind of fanfare that we do in the US, so I'm having to spend my groundhog day at home only being able to wonder if there will be two more weeks of 80° weather every day.

The theme of this week was the Restoration. We ended up teaching it about a bajillion times, and so now I'm pretty confident to be able to play with it and adjust it to the person's needs and understanding, which really helps the quality of lessons.

Here's a few people we taught it to:

Maria de Fatima -- The first time we went to her house, she said she was so excited for us to be there. She had talked with missionaries before, and they gave her a Book of Mormon. She also had received visits from Jehovah's Witness people and multiple other churches as well cause she had a bunch of random religious pamphlets bookmarking pages of the BoM, lol. But she said she believed in the Book of Mormon, so that was a start! When we came back the second time and taught her the restoration, she had a cake in the oven cooking for us. But, because her oven was broken, she had to struggle to hold down the gas knob the entire time while we were teaching her. 

Michelle -- She's really funny and reminds me of one person I knew from BYU. She's an older lady yet always sits on the couch in a yoga pose while petting her cat who always bites her. And she wants to be baptized! She actually brought it up like three times during our lesson. Sadly though, because she came back from an all-night shift an hour before church started, she didn't come this week, so we had to move her baptism date until the beginning of March, meaning we may end up baptizing 4 people in one day because we already have a few planned. Also her dog is really fat.

Raphaella -- She really likes to talk and very quickly then gets annoyed when I don't understand her, so this was a harder lesson. After teaching her the restoration, she said she believed it and invited her to church. She said no, and my companion asked, "if you lived in Christ's time, would you have joined his church?" She said yes to this question. Then said no again. Apparently she's been burned by many churches before so is incredibly hesitant about even visiting another one, which is not surprising. I'm not gonna name any names, but from what I've heard, some churches here genuinely take massive advantage of their followers, in and outside of their services. (I'll just say our church's fixed 10% rate of tithing is a breath of fresh air for many investigators). 

Ana Paula -- When we talked about baptism by the Spirit another time, she said she never had been baptized with the Spirit and really wanted to. Then when we talked about the restoration, we emphasized how the authority to perform this ordinance has been restored on the earth. While she said she believed us, when we invited her to church on Sunday, she said no because she already had Bible study at that time. 

Favorite Hymn -- I'll continue with this theme and pick up where I left off last week with the 6th verse of Sweet is the Peace the Gospel Brings:

That which we have in part received

Will be in part no more,

For he in whom we all believe

To us will all restore

Assuming I'm not interpreting these lyrics completely wrong, I take that it's talking about the restoration. The restoration, in a nutshell, is that there is a path (a "gospel") given to us by God to have happiness in this life and eternal life after death, and this path includes certain ordinances, like baptism, that must be performed by those with the proper authority to bind them on earth and in heaven. This authority and some key teachings were lost shortly after Jesus Christ and His apostles died. Many faithful followers of Jesus Christ knew something was missing and created new churches, attempting to fix these holes, but only God himself, through revelation, could restore what was lost. And He did, beginning in the year 1820, with Joseph Smith, who would later be called as the first prophet of the restored church.

Now to many people, this is just a story, either because they choose not to believe or it just doesn't have any significance in their lives whether it's true or not. This is why we always invite people to follow the invitation given at the very end of the Book of Mormon:

We ask them to pray! When the people we're teaching don't pray about it, we know they'll never be able to know that the things we tell them are true and that it can help their lives. And even for people who already believe, often times believing is hard. Often times anything we believe but haven't seen (Ether 12:6) may seem like a story. 

Simply in general, I am a very doubting person. Getting on the subject of doubts, I still have plenty, for sure. I don't have a complete knowledge of anything, and I don't think I ever will. But, I can testify of Alma's experiment of faith given in Alma 36:27:

I desired to believe. Then I prayed and I read the scriptures, and I received an answer, still an incomplete one that I continue to expand on, but an answer. I believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. With Him, we can find the most solice possible in a confusing and difficult world. I believe that this is His church and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. The authority to perform ordinances and make strengthening covenants with God is in this church. I know that because my life would be very different without this knowledge.

And I know you can as well! If you ever have a challenge of faith, like Alma says, as long as you desire to believe, that is enough! Then put that desire into practice: read scriptures, seek the Spirit, and especially, pray.

And that's it for this week!

Till next time,

Elder Haroldsen

 

Images (that hopefully load this time)