Teaching The Restoration

I had a better week! Elder Thompson and I have been praying for our friends to progress and grow in the teachings of the Savior; we've worked hard to find and teach.

We got to teach the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the whole lesson—four or five times this week! This was a highlight for me. It's probably the most I've ever shared this lesson in a single week! New people have reached out to us to meet at the library, church, and their homes. We got to teach English and the Restoration quite a bit.

Our lesson with Jorge, Maria, and Fabiola was spectacular! They love learning English with us. After, we planned on talking to them about the Book of Mormon, but it took a different direction. Our good member Hermano Robledo got into church and baptism. He explained both pretty well. Jorge opened up and admitted that he feels really good when he's at church and around us! We told him that he's feeling the Holy Ghost, and he even said he wants baptism!! We bore testimony to him, and we had to leave. We wanted it to feel like a cliffhanger so that he'd be drawn to meeting again. We told him, Fabiola, and Maria that we'd see them at church on Sunday. Jorge has a car, but not Fabiola or Maria. We told the two girls we'd get a member that would provide them a ride to church. Sure enough, our member Hermano Morales saw our text and got them to church!! They brought three of their little children too, which was great. Both girls said they loved church and thought it was a nice service. Sadly, Jorge didn't make it. However, our next lesson with the three of them will be great. We're hoping Josue can be there too so we can teach all four of them. We are going to ask them what they liked about church and follow the Spirit as we invite one or more of them to baptism. I'm excited!

Yormi is hilarious. He's our good friend who we teach English. After our English lesson, we asked if he got to repent to God as we invited him. He said he did!! This was good news to us; he kept his commitment! We then taught him the full Restoration. He had some good clarifying questions, and the Spirit was present. His home is usually loud with his kids running around, but the kids were in their rooms this time. It was quiet, and we were able to testify boldly of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the church. Yormi asked about what it's like to be a missionary, and we told him things that blew his mind. We don't spend time with our families for two years; we only call them once a week. We don't get paid; this is all voluntary. As we told him things like this, we told him we serve because we "know this is true." Elder Thompson put his hand on Yormi's copy of the Book of Mormon as he said this. Now, the Spirit was stronger. Yormi was REALLY paying attention. We had to get going, so we finished by closing with testimony. We set up two lessons per week so that Yormi can progress more quickly. Our new invitation for him is that he prays and reads to know the truth. Also, he said he can give us haircuts on Tuesday, so I'm excited for that; teaching the message of the Savior while getting my haircut for free is sweet!

We had an English class on Saturday with a friend named Claudio. Once we were a majority of the way through our lesson, we found out that he's a member! He's from Chile, and he's really cool! He came to church the next day! He doesn't have a lot of friends, so we're going to make sure our members get to know him and have him involved in our ward. Our ward leaders tried finding his records, but they were unsuccessful. Our bishop admitted that we'll probably get to re-baptize him if he's willing to learn everything again. This is a first for me, but I'm excited to restore light in his life! We are so grateful that we met him; he is returning to activity in the church.

Many of our members commented that the highlight of their week was being at lessons with us. It was so humbling! They also did a great job of showing our friends Fabiola and Maria to class after sacrament meeting. They did it without us asking! I sure love our members.

Being a missionary is incredible.

2 Nephi 2:22-25 is a great passage on the blessing of the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Plan of Salvation. Read it if you haven't already.

Stay tuned for next week's email. It's going to be a great one.

Elder Jones