November 2, 2009

Well, family,

It sounds like y'all's holiday was great! Mine was as well, we had a ward trunk or treat and I was able to meet a few more people from the ward that I hadn't yet. We also entered in the Chili contest and won the prize of: Chili that puts hair on your chest! I think it was meant to be a compliment, but everyone actually really liked it and Sis. S***** (who is like our mom out here... she's incredible) even asked me for the recipe. Me and her were having a show-down to see who would win and we both ended up getting different prizes. We spent the rest of the night at the S*****'s playing Phase 10 and passing out candy. I almost taught a lesson to some trick or treaters but decided that I'd let them off easy.

I am absolutely loving this ward. They really trust us and really want to be involved in helping us find people to teach. We've been used and scheduled by them a lot this week. We spoke and sang in combined young men's meeting and seminary this morning and have been asked to speak on Wednesday night at their new PMG/Mission Prep classes. It's a super great youth group and we're going to get them involved in inviting. One of my favorite members that I've met this week is Sister L****. I'm not sure if I mentioned but she's from Centerville and is the older sister of Jessica Miller. Anyway, she lives super close to us and is incredibly missionary minded and gave us two referrals, she's great! Also is Bro. B********, he's one of our 2 ward mission leaders and he's one of the kindest most loving men in the ward.

Things with investigators are going great, we found three new investigators this week (well kinda found, they were really given to us) one of which has a baptismal date for two weeks. His name is W******** P******* and he is a Part-Member situation. He was taught in Florida and went to church there and just barely moved up here so we've started teaching him. He was really already planning on being baptized so it really hasn't been as rewarding as finding your own. But still a great experience teaching him. Another investigator is J***** M****. He's 77 years old and very familiar with the church, mostly because he has family that are members, attended BYU and gone on missions but also because he LOVES the BYU channel (which he unfortunately just lost when he switched to Comcast). He's been sick this week and his wife has been dodging the missionaries so we went over with Sis. S***** and delivered some Homemade chicken noodle soup and finally met her. She was nice, but I think she's heard too much from her Baptist church, J***** said she'd been asking him questions, so hopefully she'll allow us to teach her. He pretty much knows it's true and is ready to make the change, he just wants to make sure that it's true, because he doesn't want to switch religions anymore. However, he doesn't want to switch without his wife so either we have to 1) convince her to listen 2) get him to be an example to her OR 3) have her pass away and do work for the dead (just kidding... we don't pray for those things, even though J. Golden Kimball mentioned that that's the only way he thinks we'll convert the South). Then there's L*****, he's from Ghana and he lives just downstairs. We're teaching him about the BOM and hoping to help him gain a testimony of it. He is an incredibly spiritual man and he's felt that God has saved him from some things in his life for a great purpose. He currently goes to an African Church in Atlanta, he fasts every Saturday because it was the day he was born, and just finished what he told us was a 2 week fast.... so he definitely won't have a problem with obeying the law of the fast ;) We're trying to get him to church and help him gain a testimony of the BOM, because once that falls into place, everything is SO much easier. Last of the investigators that I'll talk about is Steve C*****. He's a very nice man he has two high school aged kids and lost his wife back in June. He lives next to two members and was super impressed at how members of the church were the first ones to reach out to him. So this Sunday, we went to church with him so he would come to church with us. Boy, was it an experience. He goes to a huge mega-church called Browns Bridge. It is an auditorium church that has 3 different campuses. It's a whole production too. It really was like a mini amusement park. There's a place for the kids that's like a Sesame Street thing and then teenagers have a hang out crib. And then the main sermon (3 different packed sessions probably making thousands of dollars a session) which was started out by a comedian guy who was kinda dorky singing songs like Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 and 'Working at the Car Wash' Then we had a Coldplay/5 for Fighting/Counting Crows type band who lead us in 3 spiritual rock songs complete with full band, an impressive array of lights (basically a light show) and some actually really nice lyrics. Then was collection and I can only imagine how much they make to run a place like that, all though, they actually have a lot of volunteers who help out too. Then was the main sermon. The series they're on is" @ work. Where they talked about the purpose of work, how it was instituted be God, and the message was really really nice. The think I thought was weird is that the pastor was broadcast from another campus and they broadcast it so it looked like he was on the stage as a creepy 3-D holograph, cool technology but kind freaky too. Well, everyone there was in real casual clothes and we were in our suits. It was kinda funny and super interesting to be able to smile and wave at people.

Well, that's only ONE of the other churches we went to this week. We also had the opportunity on Tuesday to go to a Holliness church's Bible Study. Have Greg fill you in on what a Holliness church believes but basically their big things are: Speaking in tongues, Grace of God, Praise God and Being filled with the Spirit. It's an all African American church and we were referred to as their "white friends" (even Elder Mensah who's from Ghana). Well, as we walked in the Lord's Prayer was being recited, which then turned into shouts of Hallelujah's and Glory to God, just a side note, if you ever attend a church like this, it is improper to stop and gather your thoughts or to even have moment when you're not speaking. If there is going to be a pause fill it with a Hallalujah, Glory to God, Amen. Okay, back to the story. After the Lord's Prayer/Praise fest we sang 'I've got a friend is Jesus' a classic negro spiritual. And then Elder Mortenson and I were invited to sing 'I Know That My Redeemer Lives' it was a very spiritual experience and as we walked down to our seats were clapped for, our hands were shook... we were basically celebrities. Well, the part of the Bible we talked about was Ephesians 4... lucky us. Well, we all went around and talked about promises of the Lord. Most everyone just said why they loved Jesus that week but it came time for our turn and the Zone Leaders talked about 'One Lord, One Faith and One Baptism. Then, we were running out of time, but I was able to stand up and share with them the promise that Moroni makes to us at the end of the Book of Mormon. I bore them my testimony that our churches are coming together (something the pastor had said earlier because we were there) and extended an invitation for a free Book of Mormon to anyone who desired to know if what we were saying is true. Well, we left and didn't get to talk to people after but I found out a few days later that Pastor Earl requested a Book of Mormon and one other person from the congregation. Pastor Earl's brother is a deacon in their church and he may have a baptismal date soon, we'll see. Anyway, all of this is in the Sugar Hill area so I'll let you know how that goes.

Love,

Elder Davies