Hello Everyone!
8/11/14
So this was one of those "could have been better, could have been worse" weeks. But oh well, let me give you a little summary of the positive things!
We started out the week monday night doing an interview with a guy who is writing a book about Mormon missionaries. He wants to write a book about 2 young guys serving a mission in a foreign country so he can portray how people endure trials and opposition for the things that they beilieve. He mostly just wanted to get to know us personally so he could understantd what makes Mormon missionaries tick. I think there's a chance we'll see him again for more interviews. Pretty interesting experience, I'd be interested in reading the book once its published haha.
Lets see... What else did I do this week... We did a handfull of exchanges like always.
Tuesday we went to Tour and did an exchange with the elders there. I got to work with Elder Wells and we had a GREAT exchange. We taught a ton of lessons, found some new amis and even fixed a baptismal date! We had a first lesson with a guy on a park bench and he was asking us a ton of questions about baptism... so we eventually just asked him if he wanted to prepare to be baptized on a certain date and he said yes! It was pretty cool because we both knew he was going to say yes even before we asked the question. Just goes to show that there are people out there already prepared to accept baptismal dates... even during the first lesson.
Seeing Tour was super cool. I love being able to travel the mission. I'm super lucky!
Also this week we had some more quality lessons with Alain and Célia. Man they're super golden. They still have a couple big questions that they want answers to before they get baptized... but they are the definition of "sincere seekers of truth"
One thing really struck me this past week...
Alain said in one of our rendez-vous that he doesn't know if the church is true or not... but that he knows the church is good and he wants to believe that its the true church of God.
That desire to believe is pretty big.
There are a lot of people out there that don't believe in a lot of things. For example, in France TONS of people don't believe in God. But that "desire" to believe makes Alain a little more unique.
There is a good scripture in the Book of Mormon that says
Alma 32:27 "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."
On my mission, I've met a ton of people that don't believe in God and don't care to find out if He exists. Those people tend to not change. Its the people that are humble and searching that truly gain a testimony that He is there.
That's what Alain is doing. He has a couple weeks of vacation ahead of him and he says he is going to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover during his vacation to find out if its really true.
Pray that he'll find the answers to his questions! I know he will because God gives answers to those who humbly and sincerely seek them.
I hope you guys have a great week,
Elder Davis