Fourth of July in D.C.!!! (7/7/2014)

Hey everyone!

         

This last week was kinda slow.  We couldn't get a hold of any of our investigators for some reason. We did have at least one lesson though.  This past week we were able to meet with Anthony. I can't remember if I have talked about him or not already, but Anthony is an interesting guy.  From the first time I talked to him on the phone, Anthony has asked a lot of questions that he legitimately wants the answers to. These questions however are the type that it wouldn't effect his salvation whether he knew the answer or not. For example, he wanted to know why we believed that Christ's name was Jesus because in the in Greek and Hebrew translations of his name, it doesn't mean Jesus. He also brought up blacks and the priesthood and he asked if we believe the Holy Spirit is a boy or a girl. He also asked if we believe in the apocrypha. So as you can see, there are a lot of questions that do not have to do with his understanding of the Restoration, but that he wants answered.  Which, I guess if it helps him to come closer to baptism, then so be it. 

Anyway, we ended up teaching him about the Restoration, how the church came to be and how the Book of Mormon was translated. He was more focused on those points then anything else. In the end, we invited him to read the Book of Mormon and to pray with sincerity to know if the Book of Mormon is true. We also invited him to come to church, but he said he works the morning shift most Sundays so he couldn't. After we said the closing prayer, we showed him around the church. He had inquired earlier about how we do baptisms in our church, so we showed him the baptismal font. After that we showed him the chapel and explained how our worship service goes and what we do. In the end it went all pretty smoothly.

So pretty much other than that lesson, we just tried to find some of the "unknown" members in the ward. I don't know if I talked about this before, but the "unknown people" or the "people on the unassigned list" are the members in the ward that no one has any idea about who they are or if they are even still in the ward. So the Bishopric gave us a huge list of names. We have 109 people to go and check on.  All together in the ward has 316 people that need to be checked on. So that's what we did in our spare time this week.  We go and check on them, but most of the time they don't answer.  If they do, they are either cool with meeting us or they don't want anything to do with us. Most of the time it's the latter. So we just continue on trying to see what we can find out about these people.

Then last, but not least, the topic of the 4th of July!!!  This year's Fourth was awesome! Way better than last year's. The rule for last year was that it was an all day P-day, but when it hit 6pm we had to get off the National Mall for the night. Then by I think it was 8 or 8:30pm, we either had to be in our apartments or at a members home. If we were at a members home then we could stay out till 10:30.

Well this year was much different! This year the rules were that it was an all day p-day and we could stay on the Mall for the fireworks show!  No having to be at a members house. But! We absolutely had to be in by 10:30 or earlier! So we woke up that Friday the 4th in morning and went to the church to help cook for the breakfast the Ward was doing. Well we got there at the time they told us to and know one was there yet.  So we waited around for 10 minutes or so before someone showed up. We thought that we would be cooking a little bit here and there, but nope! We pretty much cooked the entire breakfast.  

So after the breakfast (we left early), we went home and chilled for a little while. Then decided to go to the gym, which is conveniently a five minute walk from our apt. complex. So we worked out there for an hour and a half.  Then we met up with the zone leaders and headed to D.C.!   We first made a stop at one of the other Elder's apartment for food. What I didn't realize was that it was a full on BBQ Roof Party!  There were all types of salads, burgers, hot dogs, fruit, cookies and deliciousness! So we ate, we laughed and we had fun! I started kicking a soccer ball around with a few elders, just trying to show off our ball control (which I have very little of). Well I think twice the ball went over the edge of the roof.  The first time it went over the roof, a bus driver had just gotten off his bus and grabbed it for us.  The second time though, we just had to run downstairs and quickly grab it before other people did. 

After the BBQ, we headed down to the mall!  It was crazy how many people were there!  It was nuts! Then while we were walking around, Elder Bodda ran into one of his friends from home. He was pretty happy about that :). So they talked for a while and then we went our separate ways. We then met up with some other Elders and went to Union Station.  It was pretty cool!  So we got some food there because we hadn't had dinner yet and afterwards headed to the mall again to the fireworks!

There was a huge group of us that we're following this one member and I felt like a tourist group. So when we got off the metro we just kept back and let the group go forward. It was also a good idea because that kept us next to the metro stop that we needed so we could make a quick dash for the metro when it was time to go. We started looking around for a place to sit and I ran into Victor! He was one of the people I helped teach and who got baptized while I was in Glenn Dale. So we all found a place to sit and enjoyed the fireworks! It was a pretty great show :)   There were quite a few that had actual shapes. Some spelled out USA some were stars and some were smiley faces.

Even before the show was completely done we quickly started heading for the metro. Unfortunately others had the same idea. So we ended up making a train by holding on to one another and pushed our way throughout he crowd. It was tough but we made it through. Once we actually made it into the train it was smooth sailing all the way home :). We got in at about 10-10:15pm. Just in time.

The sad part is that we found out later everyone who was late that night was told that they weren't allowed to go to the Nationals game that we are going to in August. I won't say how many, but just know there will be A LOT of people who aren't going.

Well that was my week everyone! I hope you have enjoyed reading it and that you will have a awesome week ahead of you! I love and miss you all!  Till next time :)

Love,

Elder Gold

Elders Gold, Tevana and Cervantes making 4th of July Breakfast at the Ward.

Riding the Subway to the Mall: Elders Gold, Bodda, Tevana and Cervantes

Elder Gold and Elder Bodda (have no idea who the face is in between them.- Photo-bomber?!?)

Chinese Festival at the National Mall

Kenyan Festival at the Mall

Together Again....(6/30/2014)

Hey everyone!

 This past week has been pretty full of dogged appointments but also a couple of miracles!

 Great news!  My new companion for this transfer is Elder Bodda, my first companion from the MTC!

Saturday night, we had to fill up on gas before we turned in for the night (so that we didn't do it on Sunday :)). We pulled up to the pump and right as we pulled up, another car pulled up at the same time facing us! Well there was an open pump behind us, so we backed up into that spot instead. The man graciously waved at us and gave us a big smile. As I was pumping the gas, he went into the gas station a couple of times and both times that he passed us on his way in and out, I would smile and wave.  I finished pumping gas and got into our car.  Right as I did the man walked past us on his way to his car. Then he stopped and looked at us to wave goodbye, but then he motioned to us to hold on for a second. He came over to the window and the first question he asked, (which is always the first question we get asked) was "Are you J-Dubs (Jehova's Witness)?". Ha!  We laughed a bit and said, "No, we are Mormons!"  He gave kind of a sigh of relief and said "Ok, good" haha.  He then proceeded to ask for a card. He said "Do you have a card that I could have?"  We gave him our card and he said "Awesome! I'm going to call you this weekend and you can come over and talk with me and my little girl!"  We were speechless!   He continued by asking if we were brothers because we both had the same "first name". We explained to him that we were just really good friends and that Elder is a title given to us by our church.  He said, "Oh! Like Pentecostals!".   We laughed again and said "Yeah, kinda". He then introduced his daughter to us and we talked with her for a bit. I can't remember her name off the top of my head but the guys name was Ransford. So hopefully we'll meet with him this weekend!

We also received a referral the day that Elder Bodda came into the area. We have been playing a bit of phone tag with her! Until today!!! She finally called and we were finally able to talk with her. However, I have no idea what the heck she said, because of her think African accent, other than the fact that she wanted to meet with us. Due to her financial situation, she may be leavening her residence because she can't afford it.  She is still very interested though!  We BRT'd (Built Relationships of Trust) with her for a while and then informed her of the lessons that we teach. After that we still had time left over so we ended up teaching her the the Restoration. She really liked it a lot! She kept telling us how happy and grateful she was because we had come to visit with her. We committed her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and also to come to church.  She accepted both!  She said though, that she might not be able to come this Sunday because she doesn't know where she'll be living. However, she said she would call us and let us know.

It's pretty awesome/weird being with Elder Bodda again! I remember when we were teaching together in the MTC and we thought that teaching was the hardest thing in the world! Now we can pound out all the lessons without our planners or anything to help us remember stuff. It's awesome to see the progress we've made and the men we have become :)

Well last but not least! Today is actually not our P-day! Due to the 4th of July coming up, we switched our p-day to Friday and it's an all day P-day! They realized however that parents, family and friends would be waiting for our emails or letters and that we needed to buy food for the month, so they gave us two hours to do both, then told us to get back to work. So Elder Bodda and I went shopping. Ha!  Worst experience ever!  We were almost robbed.


So here's the story: We went shopping at a store called Aldi and on our way in we said hi to this elderly gentleman, who just stared at us and then kept walking.  We just blew it off and went in. Well while we were shopping, a guy comes up to Elder Bodda and tells him that security needs us outside of the store because there was a man who was in our car going through our stuff!!  So we ran to the front of the store, asked the lady to save our stuff so we could go out, then went out side.  We got there and the guy who came up to Bodda from the store said, "The guy is right over there!!"  We thought he had pointed to a guy who was just pulling out of the parking stall. So we ran over there, stopped him and asked him if he had been in out car. Of course the guy denied it and got all defensive.  Then he pulled the race card on is and said he was accused because, "You white people think everyone looks the same out here."


Then the guy fro the store who came up to Elder Bodda said, "Look, he's right over there! He's walking by the gas station with the cane!!". So we apologized to the man many times (although he drove away all grumpy).  We ran over to our car to see if anything had been taken (we had time to get him if he did. I mean he was walking with a cane for crying out loud). Elder Bodda had left his iPad sitting right in the open on the back seat and my camera was in my back pack, (which was wide open AND my gps was accessible as well!)   We checked the car, and ALL OF IT was still there!  He haven't taken anything!  We felt so blessed!  I, however, just felt sick at the thought of what could have happened.  I mean when I first heard about it, my heart and stomach dropped and just that sickening feeling took over.


We're all good though because again, nothing was taken. So we go back into the store and we continue shopping.  We passed by a lady who was stocking the shelf and she says to us, "So which one of you is the cook?" Elder Bodda (trying to being "funny) said, "Oh he is! Can't you tell?!" And she was like "Ha I'm just saying." Later though, I turned to Bodda and asked, "Did that lady just call me fat?"  Elder Bodda was like, "No I just made that joke. I don't know what she was talking about." Then it dawned on me, she was calling us gay!! Freaking insult to injury! I tell you what! I was not a happy camper!!  So I was just kinda grumpy for quite a while.

 Well that has been our week! Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed the update on my mission! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Gold

Highs and Lows...(06/24/2014)

Hey guys!

So this week was.... Okay.   Started off the week with a pretty fun zone activity. It was water games! So we had a slip and slide and a water balloon toss and water balloon fight. Me and my roommate Elder Archibald were the cooks for zone activity!  It was super fun to cook for a large group. Elder Archibald has a really good recipe for burgers that you have to marinade overnight. The inconvenient part though is that you have to wake up every three hours to flip the burgers, so it's not the funnest recipe to use. In the end though the burgers are super delicious!

Then Tuesday we had a low. We had an appointment later that day with Abraham. We had previously taught him the first lesson, which is the restoration. The entire time he seemed to be enjoying it a lot and seem to be really taking it in. The spirit was really strong so we thought the lesson went well!  We Invited him to read the Book of Mormon, which he said he would do. We also invited him to be baptized at the end of the lesson. He did not want to have another baptism, so we just invited him to read the book of Mormon in the hope that we could help him to understand the purpose of being re-baptized.

Well unfortunately, Abraham give us a call and basically told us that he had read the Book of Mormon but that he didn't feel anything. Elder Taylor asked him if he did read with a sincere heart and real intent and he told us that he had read, but that whenever he read the Book of Mormon, he felt like he just wanted to read the Bible. Also, he didn't read it with a sincere heart, wanting to know.  So I commented and said, "Well that's why you didn't receive an answer, Abraham. Again like we mentioned, in the promise that is in the back of the Book Mormon, one of the things that we need to have while reading the Book of Mormon is a sincere heart.  This means that you need to be open to the promptings of the Spirit to give you an answer that you are looking for. If your heart isn't in it then you wouldn't receive an answer because you weren't willing to receive one in the first place."  Then he started making excuses as to why else he couldn't  read the book. First he said It doesn't makes sense, and then he said it was just way too confusing for him, then he said he couldn't say the names. So we countered each excuse with "well what's confusing?" Or "what doesn't make sense?" Or "what names can you not pronounce?", all trying to help him, but each time he couldn't pinpoint a real issue.  Then he said well I wouldn't be able to make it to the appointment anyways because my aunt is about to come pick me up and we won't be back till later tonight. So we said that we could reschedule for another time so we can help them understand the Book of Mormon. Then he finally came out and just said, "No I'm done with the book, and I don't want anything to do with it!  I'm done reading it.". So we just told him thank you for your time and that we wish him the best in life. Needless to say we lost that investigator :(. I just hope he comes to know of the truth someday. Whether that's now in this life, or the one to come.

Then, on Wednesday we had the awesome opportunity to participate in the Mission Temple trip! It was pretty cool though because a few weeks prior we had done ordinance work for family names that we had found in our own family history line. So I have all of these family file names that need ordinance work done. Now I'm able to take those family names instead of having the temple provide names, or from another Elder. If I find two more, I'll have just the right amount to take one name to the temple for each temple trip I have left before I go home. I'm pretty excited!

Then there was another low. That same Tuesday night my sinuses started drying out at the very back, but it wasn't a normal dry sinus feeling.  That night I went to bed and it was a little worse in the morning. So I went all day (even through the temple) with dry, burning, stinging sinuses. Then Thursday I woke up with a small head cold. Then Friday it just wiped me out. So I took Friday to rest up. I started feeling better on Saturday.  Sunday I felt a lot better, all I had left was just the sniffles. So we went hiking for p-day and had an awesome time! Then we got home and I started feeling sick again.  I took it easy and we played Settlers of Catan. Then I woke up this morning feeling horrible, having congestion, a cough and crap in my lungs.

Last but not least.....TRANSFERS!!!! So I am staying in College Park, but, Elder Taylor is not!  He will be going to the city.  We find out tonight where he's going and who I'm getting as my new companion. My zone leaders told me that they both really like him, and they both really like me, so we should like each other. I guess we'll see.

Well this has been my roller coaster of a week! I hope everyone else's week was better! If not, then there is always this week :) I love you all! Have a great day!

Elder Gold

Elder Archibald and I showing our Gourmet Cook side

Zone Water Activity!

Fire and Flood precede the Second Coming...(6/16/2014)

Hey everyone!

I apologize for not writing last week! That Monday, we were having a missionary party and it went on forever.  By the time it ended, I had no time to write and then I just didn't have a spare moment the rest of the week.

Last week was crazy though!! Ha! I swear it was the second coming over here!  :)  First of all, last Monday, we were in our apartment getting ready to go out and start working when I smelled something like a BBQ outside in the front of our apartment complex. I looked out the front window and I see smoke, but no grill. Then as I was looking out the window, I hear a guy yell "Fire!!". So I ran into our roommates room and told them about it. We all finished getting dressed and went down to the parking garage. 

When we got down there, it was filling with smoke quickly.  We looked around the corner and the entire garbage chute area for the apartment was on fire!!!  A guy tried to grab the fire extinguishers to put it out, but he went through three of them and it still didn't go out. Now keep in mind that 20-30 minutes has elapsed, and the Fire Department still hadn't shown up yet. Finally they show up and and they told us to leave and go out front, which we did.  Then all we could do is wait until they told us we were good to go back in.

Then! On top of that, later that week, we had a downpour of rain for like a good 20 minutes straight!  There is this big canal this that goes down part of the main road, and that completely filled up and was heavily flooding the streets!  We had an appointment we had to go to, so we had to drive through it all! I was dumb and didn't even think to take pictures of it.  While we were driving though it, there were cars everywhere that had stalled because of how high the water was!   Even our car almost stalled, but The Lord blessed us to make it through safely. 

It was absolutely crazy how much water there was!  By the time we were done with our lesson, the rain had died down and the water went away. So it was all good in the end :).

Speaking of lessons! That lesson we went to was for Stephon! We were teaching him about the commandments. He also got baptized this past Sunday!! We had a bit of a hiccup though when we were supposed to teach the last commandments to him. He had to reschedule the first appointment because of the weather. Then he dogged our rescheduled appointment. So we had planned to teach him the rest of the commandments on Friday so Saturday he could have his interview with the District Leader.  Well we ended up teaching him and having his interview the same day. Oh! Also some of the Elders thought they saw him smoking while walking to the lesson/interview! So we had to go over the commandments and sneak in there the question of if he had a problem with smoking. He said he didn't, so we went ahead with it.  And thus he got baptized! Ha!

We also had a lesson with a man named Abraham! He was a referral from the Spanish elders. He is a super spiritual guy and loves talking about Christ!  He even loved the lesson on the Restoration!  However, for some reason though he refuses to be baptized. He said he doesn't want to be baptized twice. He said "It's like I took a shower once already today, I don't want another one".  We even re-explained the apostasy and basically told him that the baptism he had wasn't valid, (not in those words, but yeah), and he still said no. So we'll try to see what's really holding him back from from saying yes.

We also had the awesome chance to get our own family names prepared and take them to the temple to do their work. That was such an awesome experience! I loved being able to do the Confirmations! That was awesome! And being baptized was a blast! Ha!  I love doing them! They will be doing it again before I go home, which I'm really grateful and happy for :)

Well that has been pretty much my past week or two! I love you all and I hope everyone is having fun and staying safe! Have a great week!

Love.

Elder Gold

Street Contacting with Elders Archibald, Taylor (companion), Rummler and Gold

Stephon and Family on his baptismal day

Stephon and Elder Gold

Book of Mormon question and answer time...(6/2/2014)

Hello there!

 

This past week went great!  We had four lessons total. 

 

We started the week out with a lesson with Stephon. We went over to his house to see if he had any questions about what we had taught him so far or about what he was reading. Well he didn't... Ha!  So we just read with him and helped explain the scriptures that we read. It went really well :). Stephon is really excited to learn about the gospel and even more so about his baptism. 

 

Then this past Wednesday we had a meeting with Stephon and Brother Bills. Our appointment was set for 7 o'clock, but because of miscommunication, Stephon was about half an hour late to the lesson. So we ended up picking him up and bringing them to the church for our lesson. The lesson went really well!  We taught him about keeping the Sabbath day holy. He had never really heard about the way we believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy, so it was really cool to see him interested and willing to follow this "new" commandment. He understood it all very well, and even had some really good comments that showed his understanding. So we committed him to start keeping the Sabbath day holy and he readily agreed! He is so well-prepared for his baptism on June 15! We're all super excited for him!

 

Then on Friday we had a lesson with one of our investigators named Matt. Matt seems to be a pretty cool guy!  He has a couple motorcycles, a Corvette and some other really nice old cars. Matt has been meeting with missionaries off and on for a while. Our lesson was going to be, The Restoration.  When we got there though, he expressed a very big interest in just reading from the Scriptures so he could begin to grow in faith and understanding of the Book of Mormon. We ended up reading Alma 32 and Ether 12 with him and he really liked those chapters a lot! The entire time we were reading it he was mentioning how beautiful and how spiritual those verses were. It was really good for him also because they verses we read showed him how to grow his faith and the things he can do with his faith after it's grown. 

 

We also read Moroni's promise with him and told him that when he prays he needs to have those three things present, i.e. Sincere heart, real intent, and faith in Christ.  He really liked that a lot :). He said he would begin to study the Book of Mormon and to build his faith in it, so that was awesome!

 

We also had the opportunity to go and visit Solomon this past Saturday!  Solomon is from Africa and has been meeting with the missionaries for a while too.  Last time we were there we committed him to start reading and studying from the Book of Mormon and he said he would.  So we went over there on Saturday and followed up with him. He told us he hadn't started reading it yet because he doesn't see the purpose in the Book of Mormon when we have the bible. Then he started asking us questions like "are the apostles of Christ like Matthew or Mark or Luke in the Book of Mormon?" And "Is there anything in the Book of Mormon that contradicts the Bible?" Another question he had was if he would find the same sayings in the Book of Mormon that he does in the Bible.   He wanted to know if there was any secular historical proof of the Book of Mormon. So we spent about an hour answering his questions and trying to explain the purpose Book of Mormon. 

 

In the end he asked "So what would be your recommendation to know if the Book of Mormon is true?". Haha!  We were like, "Really?" Ha!  Just kidding we didn't say that, but we explained how he could come to know for himself. So this time he really committed to read and study from the Book of Mormon. 

 

Then today for P-day we went to China Town!  Ha that was interesting.  We went to a tea shop and got HERBAL tea.  Ha. Then Elder Taylor bought a knife and Elder Rummler bought a throwing knife. I bought a tea cup and some chop sticks. So all in all today was a fun day! 

 

Well I hope you all have had a wonderful day and a wonderful week to come!

 

Love,

Elder Gold

Gaining answers from the Book of Mormon (5/26/2014)

Hey everyone!!

So In my last letter I totally spaced something huge that happened!!!   This might lead you to be like "well how could you forget to put that in your letter?!", Ha!  Well, I just did, so get over it!  :)   ANYWAY!  Two Saturdays ago we had the awesome opportunity to have Elder Ballard come to our mission and to receive council on how to improve in our missionary work. It wasn't a rebuke by any means, it was simply constructive advice. He basically told us that we just need to get out there and talk to people! Then he committed us to talk to at least 10 people a day. Ha I also had no idea how funny he was! Elder Ballard has an awesome sense of humor! The church we were in was so packed though. They invited our mission, all of the Baltimore mission and all of the D.C. South mission. So the church was full from the front row of the chapel to the stage in the cultural hall. It was way awesome :).

This past week we had a lesson with Stephon, one of our investigators. He was scheduled to be baptized last Sunday, and I was lead to believe the he had been taught pretty much everything and was just missing some of the commandments. Well we get into ward council and I find out that he hasn't been taught any of the commandments and that someone was planning on teaching him all the commandments in one lesson. So I told them no, that you can't do that because there is way too much to cover to do it in one lesson. So we canceled the baptism. 

Like I said earlier though, we did meet with him and we came up with a baptismal calendar for him. A baptismal calendar is just basically a calendar that you put future meetings, other achievements and goals on until the day of his baptism. So we taught him, with the help of a member, obedience and to pray often. After that the member just kinda took over, which was awesome!  He shared the a great scripture.   Mosiah 18:8-10, 

 9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand aswitnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

 10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

The member really broke it down for Stephon and went through each one of the things.  Then, he asked Stephon, "Do you have all of these desires?".  Stephon said yes to all of them. And then the member asked him "Do you believe that the Book of Mormon is holy scripture and the word of God?"  Stephon said yes. Our member missionary then asked him, "Do you believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and that he restored Christ's church, which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?" And Stephon responded "I most certainly do!". After the member asked all these questions, he would ask "why? Why do you believe that?", and have Stephon share his testimony.  When Stephon shared his testimony, it was always about the logical side of things. So I then asked Stephon, "Have you been able to pray about everything that you have been taught so far and have you received an answer to whether or not it's true?" 

He told us that he had been praying and that he did receive an answer that it was true. I asked him to share with us how he felt when he received that answer and when he prayed about it and he told us that when he did receive an answer he felt peace, comfort, love, and joy. He said it was hard to explain what it felt like, but it was something that he never felt before. All in all it was a very spiritual lesson.  We found out that he for sure is ready for baptism :)  His new baptismal date is for the 15th of June!

So then we also had the opportunity this week to meet with another one of our other investigators named Solomon. When I was first told about Solomon, I was told that he was a very stubborn kind a guy and that when he was invited to church he told us that we had to go to his church first and then he would come to ours. So, at first we dropped him when I arrived at the area because we can't go to other churches. Then the other day we ran out of things to do, so we stopped by his house. He's is a very nice man!  He's a very religious man in the sense that he's a strong believer in Christ. Like he told us "If you love Christ and strive to follow him, then you are my brother or sister in Christ!". He also told us a couple stories of how he was sick and paralyzed completely on his left side and how while he was in the hospital and angel came to him in the form of a doctor and she healed him. He said that he can only deduce that it was an angel because when he went to go back to thank the doctor for healing him, no nurse or doctor in the hospital new who he was talking about and told him that there was nobody in the hospital who looked like the angel that worked there. 

Anyway we had a great conversation with him and in the end we taught him about the book of Mormon because he didn't really know what it was when the elders first gave it to him. He said that he skimmed through it a bit but never really read it. So I bore my testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and invited him to begin to actually read it. He had a couple questions about it.  One question was out of so many Christian religions why is our Church the only one that accepts the Book of Mormon as scripture and no other religion does? Also, he was skeptical about believing that it was scripture because at the end of the book of Revelations in the bible, it says to not add or take away from this book. 

So to answer the first question I told him that the reason they most likely don't believe it is because number one they have most likely never read  the Book of Mormon, and two, if they professed to have read it and not believe it to be scripture, then they haven't read the book with a sincere heart, with real intent, and having faith in Christ, which is what the challenge and promise of Moroni suggests to do.  To answer the second question Elder Taylor told him that the book of Mormon isn't "added" scripture, he said that he looks at it as a continuation of the scriptures. 

Then I jumped in and explained that if we were to put the Bible in chronological order as it was written, that the book of Revelations would actually be somewhere in the mid to latter part of the bible.  Some of the Gospels, (meaning like Mathew, Mark, Luke, or John - you know some of the most read and treasured parts of the bible), were actually written after Revelations and that would mean that those would be invalid scripture as well.  I just told him to keep in mind the things the bible teaches and look for it while reading the Book of Mormon. Then he asked if the Book of Mormon talks about Peter James and John and all of those guys. This gave us the opportunity to explain more about the Book of Mormon.  We told him that their names aren't specifically mentioned, but it talks about how Christ called 12 apostles. In the end I bore my testimony of the power and divinity of the book of Mormon and invited him to read it. He said that he would actually read it and not just dkim  through it this time.  We have a return appointment with him this Saturday and follow up on his reading to see what he thought of it.

So then for P-day we went bowling! Ha I think I played the best game of my life that day!  We played three games and the first one I bowled a 113.  Then I decided to mess around the second game, so I got like a 93. Then the third game I got a score of 102. It was a ton of fun :).

Well that is my wonderful week! I hope you had a wonderful week filled with the spirit! I hope you all have shared your testimony with someone this past week! I love you all, and have a wonderful rest of the week :).

Love,

Elder Gold

A new area...New Challenges... (5/19/2014)

Helloooo Utah!

There is going to be a lot of stuff that I'm going to have to catch you all up on, because I didn't send a letter last week (Mother's day Skype). 

First off, transfers happened and I have finally left Patuxent! This is a bittersweet thing for me. That has been my favorite ward out of all the areas I've served in, but I was down there for so long that I don't mind the change in scenery. I'm no longer training Elder Fisher, he is now with his "breaker" ("breaks" him of any bad habits I may have taught him) or his second companion still down in Pax. 

I'm now in the College Park East area.  College Park East is kind of a mix of Hyattsville, Greenbelt, Mount Rainier, Berwyn Heights, Bladensburg, and Riverdale Park. My new comp's name is Elder Taylor from West Valley City Utah! He's a pretty cool guy :).

The other thing that I like being this area is that I'm really close to my old area the Glenn Dale Singles Ward. So it's pretty cool to see a few of the old members from that ward that I used to work with. 

I really like my new area and it's been great to get to know the Ward Members so far :). One of the first people I met was a woman named Rosemary Sims. She is probably one of the most spiritual people I have met! She has the strongest relationship with her Heavenly Father and her Savior Jesus Christ. She recently went into the hospital for surgery to remove cancer. I met her the day after she had the surgery. The entire time we were there she was praising our Savior Jesus Christ and her Heavenly Father and giving them thanks for this trial that she was going through to help her to learn and grow.  She was grateful for the opportunity to overcome her trials.  It was really great to be in the room with her because the spirit was extremely strong.  We could feel the love radiating from her and also we could feel the love of Jesus Christ for her. 

We also got to meet with a family where the parents had recently been baptized. I guess they haven't been coming to church recently and have been kind of falling away, but we're hoping to change that and help them come back :-)   I don't remember their names right now because they are African names that were kind of difficult to remember.  :)

There is also a crazy lady in our ward! Ha. The other day we woke up and we had missed three or four phone calls from her and had two or three voice mails from her. Every single time she calls she says the exact same thing. She says "you all are invited to come over for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, beverages, and snacks in between." (Said in African accent).  She is very sweet in wanting us to come over so often, but we aren't able to go over as often as she would like.  

So then today for p-day, we went to a park called Great Falls Park. It was super awesome! I'll be emailing pictures later, but it was super fun.

When we first got there most of the trails had been shut down because a few days before we had a pretty bad rainstorm and I guess a lot of the areas in Maryland had flooded.  A lot of the trails, I guess, flooded as well so they shut them down until they were clear.  We ended up just walking around the park having fun, taking random trails, messing around in the woods and exploring.

We were walking back to a certain area so we could climb rocks to see this huge rushing river and one of the trails that had been previously closed (right next to that) was open! So we took what was called the "Boardwalk" and walked over to the Great Falls. I tell you what! That was the coolest thing ever! I mean it wasn't so much of a straight down waterfall, but more like a cascading waterfall.  There are some pretty good drops and there was a ton of water! Today was just a super great day, because while we were there standing watching the water there was a nice misty breeze coming off the water and the day wasn't too hot. I also took some video that I'll be sending home.

Oh! I also had the opportunity of feeding a goose today! Elder Taylor had brought some granola and there were a couple of geese on one of the main trails.  As we walked past them they didn't do anything, so I asked Elder Taylor for some of the granola. I knelt down and one of them came over and started eating from my hand! It was pretty fun :-).  (See pictures below).

That was my fun week! We have a lot going on this upcoming week, so I can't wait till next Monday to let you guys know how it went :-). I hope you all had a wonderful week as well and that you all had an opportunity to share your testimony with somebody this past week. If you didn't this past week try doing it this week, I promise that you'll be blessed for it :-).

I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week :)

Love,

Elder Gold