Hey everybody!
So
this past week has been pretty busy! I mean the numbers don't show it,
but it was REALLY busy. We were able to visit a couple of less active
members in the ward. One of them (we'll call him Jim) has been
less-active for about 40 years. We started sharing a message about
faith. All of a sudden he just started going off on us, asking us
questions like, If we knew someone in the church that broke rules and
flat out lied to everyone and did this and this and that... Would we
still want to be a part of this church? We told him yes, because we
believe the church and it's doctrines to be true and we don't base the
truthfulness of the church off of the actions of it members. We tried
explaining this to him for over an hour.
Turns out that the reason Jim left the church was because the second counselor in his bishopric, (according to Jim), tried to cheat the system in order to get his son his Eagle Scout Award. When Jim went to the bishop about it, the bishop backed up the second counselor. So Jim has held a grudge against the church for over 40 years and has completely deemed the church false because of this perceived wrong. Jim also kept going off about how "perfect" a member of the church he had been and how he had a stronger faith then everybody in that ward. Ha I really just wanted to say, "Well apparently not because look where you're at now!", but I didn't. However, as you can tell it was a little frustrating.
Turns out that the reason Jim left the church was because the second counselor in his bishopric, (according to Jim), tried to cheat the system in order to get his son his Eagle Scout Award. When Jim went to the bishop about it, the bishop backed up the second counselor. So Jim has held a grudge against the church for over 40 years and has completely deemed the church false because of this perceived wrong. Jim also kept going off about how "perfect" a member of the church he had been and how he had a stronger faith then everybody in that ward. Ha I really just wanted to say, "Well apparently not because look where you're at now!", but I didn't. However, as you can tell it was a little frustrating.
Later,
the week got much better. We had an awesome opportunity going to a
Scouting group that was from the Methodist Church. At the pinewood derby
that the ward held a couple of weeks ago, a woman came up to us and
asked if we would be willing to go and teach their scout group about our
religion and what we believe. Part of one of their achievements is to
learn about another religion/culture. So we had the awesome opportunity
this past week to go there and teach 8 to 10-year-olds about the
church. That is awesome to be able to plant the seeds in those little
guys! All of them were very interested in what we were teaching and
paid a lot of attention to us. In the end we had a display table with
all of our pass along cards and stuff on it and they all took some. We
also found out at the lady who talked us at the pinewood derby (her name
is Amy), is actually a member that went less active when she was 18 and
moved to Maryland from Utah. I think she's probably in her late 30s
early 40s now, so it's been quite a while. We're going to give her a bit
of time and hopefully what we taught will sink in and then we'll give
her a call to see if she would be interested in moving her records to
this ward, and maybe even begin to meet with us. So we're pretty stoked
about that.
Also
this past week Dominic had his baptismal interview, was baptized and
confirmed into the church! It was so awesome! The interview went super
long, but it was good and the district leader had some good insight to
pass along to the members to help Dominic stay strong in the church. It
was also really fun to be in the confirmation circle at church. It was
really awesome to see the number of members that showed up for the
baptism to support him. It was really good for him I think. It was a
very powerful Confirmation and hopefully Dominic will recognize how the
Spirit is helping him to change his life. We're pretty excited to see
where it goes from here!
Last
big news of the week! We found out yesterday, (being Sunday), that
they are actually going to redo the ward boundaries for our ward and the
Lexington Park Ward (which is our neighboring ward). We will most
likely lose a lot of members and they will gain them. Lexington Park
Ward is a much much smaller ward. I think we have twice the youth
program that they do. So were pretty sure that they're going to put some
of our members into their ward. It's going to be sad to lose a lot of
the members that we've come to know and to love, but we know that is the
Lords will and blessings will come from it.
Well
that was our exciting week this week! I hope you all had a wonderful
week as well and I hope you have a wonderful week to come! I love you
all and I will talk to all next week!
Love,
Elder Gold |
| Dominic's Baptism |
 |
| Dominic, Saundra and Family |
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