Tuesday, we got new Elders in the district, two of which are greenies and another who's a former Zone Leader but is spending his last 4 weeks training. Most of the day was spent going to say hello to them and welcoming them to Georgia. Needless to say they were a bit overwhelmed, like all of us have felt. But they're great, and I'm going to love this district... I just know it!
Wednesday we decided to try and spend the morning doing service, before we had any real appointments. We went and moved a hot water heater for an investigator who has 9 dogs in her house. In fact, while we were there she stepped in some dog poop and rather than pick it up, she just changed shoes and went on her way. Then we went over to offer another investigator some service and his friend, who's a Messianic Jew (a Jew who believes that Jesus was/is the Messiah). Anyway, she started asking questions about the Book of Mormon and so I sat down and started to talk to her. Well, as I sat down I heard this 'RIP'. I kinda wrinkled my eyebrows but just continued to casually answer her questions. Well, I knew my pants had just ripped and I was devising a way that we could get out of there and them not notice. So, I finished helping her understand what we believe the Book of Mormon is, I invited her to read it and she wants "imperical evidence" first. Well, as much as I'd like to show her that, faith will be more necessary. When we got out to the car I examined it, and this was no small rip by any means. This rip came from the top of my pants, to where the belt loop was and extended all the way towards the bottom of my pocket. Well, we quickly made a stop at our apartment so I could change. Needless to say, our team-up who was with us got a real good laugh. To top off the embarrassing day, that night we had a dinner appointment and at the end we knelt down to pray and I realized... my fly was down the ENTIRE appointment. I just hope that no one noticed!
Don't worry this rough start didn't ruin my Thanksgiving though. It was a great meal at the S*****'s. We had everything that you could need/want and then some. We even had Frog-eye salad (Acini Salad)... and it was ALL good! The game was full of fun, laughs and expressing gratitude. We played Ping-Pong, Phase 10 and Catch Phrase. I felt like I was just at home which was a good thing... and made me a little homesick, but don't worry, all is well! I really loved Thanksgiving, it was a great day. I wrote down as many of my blessings that came to my mind in 5 minutes and filled up my journal page.
Well, Sunday was a great day! Some of my friends from the Spanish Branch came to our ward and afterwards we went to a park and had a little Spanish fiesta. It was so so nice to see them, and they said they're going to come and visit me in Utah when I get home, so one day, you will ALL be able to meet them. The other really cool experience we had was on Sunday night. We went over to visit Sister P*******, W********'s wife. She's been sick on and off and we started talking to her. Usually we don't turn off the TV because we don't want to be rude but, this time I asked her if we could turn it off, because it's always distracting me. So we did, and it was amazing how the spirit was able to be in the room. Sometimes I think I worry to much about offending people and don't think about whether or not I'm offending the spirit. Well, she really opened up to us and told us about some of the worries she's been having that she hasn't told anyone. We shared some scriptures with her that we've both found comforting and left her with a prayer.
Love,
Elder Davies
Re. "Messianic Jew":
ReplyDelete(le-havdil), A analysis (found here: www.netzarim.co.il (that is the only legitimate Netzarim)) of all extant source documents and archaeology using a rational and logical methodology proves that the historical Ribi Yehosuha ha-Mashiakh (the Messiah) from Nazareth and his talmidim (apprentice-students), called the Netzarim, taught and lived Torah all of their lives; and that Netzarim and Christianity were always antithetical.
The mitzwot (directives or military-style orders) in Torah (claimed in Tan’’kh (the Jewish Bible) to be the instructions of the Creator), the core of the Judaism, are an indivisible whole. Rejecting any one constitutes rejecting of the whole… and the Church rejected many mitzwot, for example rejecting to observe the Shabat on the seventh day in the Jewish week. Examples are endless. Devarim (“Deuteronomy”) 13.1-6 explicitly precludes the Christian “NT”. Devarim 13:1-6 forbids the addition of mitzwot and subtraction of mitzwot from Torah.
Ribi Yehoshuas talmidim Netzarim still observes Torah non-selectively to their utmost today and the research in the previous mentioned Netzarim-website implies that becoming one of Ribi Yehoshuas Netzarim-followers is the only way to follow him.
“The gospels” contains anti-Torah statements that the first century Ribi Yehoshua impossibly could have said. Since observers of “Messianic Judaism” don’t practise all of the mitzwot in Torah non-selectively, it is not proper to describe it as Judaism.
It is possible to be a Jew and believe that Ribi Yehoshua was the Mashiakh (the Netzarim Jews does that), but le-havdil to stick to Christian doctrines is not compatible with practising Judaism.
Anders Branderud