So this is what is going on in the mission. First, let's start of with some fun experiences. My comp and I went to a family the Rangel Manjarres. The father and mother are both members and where baptized about 15 yrs ago and went inactivate soon after their baptism. So my comp and I quickly realized that their conversion was not to the gospel but to the missionaries that taught them so when the missionaries left, so did their testimony. We decided that we were going to focus on having them read and pray for themselves. If they were doing these things, they would find the testimony that they lost. So we went into the lesson and we planned to focus on the Book of Mormon. We went to their house and started the small talk and just as we were about to say the opening prayer a man showed up at the door (I might have told part of this story before) with his Bible in hand and came and joined us in the lesson.
We we decided to continue with the lesson and said the prayer and started
teaching. About 10 minutes in the guy decided that he was going to
destroy the spirit that was present and said, 'I just have one question. How come you don't worship on Saturday? or in other words how come you don't
keep the Sabbath day holy because the Sabbath day is really Saturday.' And
that is how he disrupted our lesson. So we talked about that for a
little bit and it turned into a war. But hey, we are Defenders of the Truth. We were totally nailing him on the Apostasy. But we noticed something
even though we were teaching with scriptures and even though are points
were logical. The family still wasn't sure weather to believe us or the Adventistas. That is when we realized
that we were not teaching with the Spirit. It doesn't matter how well a
person can navigate the scriptures or how logical the points are that
the person is making. If the spirit is not there no one will be edified.
We were also basing a lot of
our teaching, with this family, in the bible to talk about the sabbath
day. But there are several problems with this. First the bible is not
perfect and second our message is that there is more revelation so if we
are not using the Book of Mormon we are not doing our job. This is what
one of the missionaries who I am living with said. As missionaries we
are fighting a battle and the scriptures are our weapons. The Book of Mormon is a bomb and the bible is a fork... and it is a little bit true. The Book of Mormon is much more effective.
So after we had studied a
bit more this topic and had prepared a killer way to destroy and finally
obliterate this false idea of the sabbath day still being on Saturday, we had
the impression to talk about why the mom and the dad decided to get
baptized in the first place. We discovered that they had never read
the whole Book of Mormon and they had never even been a time in their
life where they were reading the Book of Mormon every day.
That is why they didn't
really have a testimony. and so we talked with them about that. And we
didn't talk about the sabbath day and we based our teaching in the Book of Mormon and it was the only time I have felt the spirit with this
family.
But there is a good lesson
here for all of us. The Book of Mormon really is the key stone of our
religion. If we do not have this book in our life we aren't living our
religion. We gain a testimony through the Book of Mormon and we keep our
testimony through the Book of Mormon. If we do not read the Book of Mormon every day we will lose our testimony. Maybe not all at once but
sure enough a day will come when we will forget what we once knew.
If I want to learn about
math I have to go to the right source. I will have hard time learning
about math from a history textbook or from a Spanish text book. If I
want to learn about math I have to read a math textbook. If we want to
learn about God we have to go to the right source. That source is the Book of Mormon. We also have to invest the right amount of time into
studying the Book of Mormon. If I want to gain physical strength, I can't go to the gym for two minutes and expect results. I also can't go to the gym once a week and eat junk food all of the time because I still will not get results. I have to exercise for the right amount
of time and watch what we eat. It is the same with our spiritual
nutrition. We have to invest the right amount of time into reading the Book of Mormon. We can't read it for two minutes and expect good results
and we can't do it only once a week and consume all the junk that the
world has to offer.
Love, Elder Rallison
the scripture that I liked the most this week 2 Nefi 32:7
No comments:
Post a Comment