Well, to be honest... this week has been just a little bit hard. Because my companion has been 1. Really really homesick because of the natural disaster (mudslides and flooding) that happened in his hometown of Tocopilla. He was really discouraged the first few days of the week, because his family only wrote him a short note that said "the house is flooded... but all the family is okay." And then later the Mission President called him to see how he was doing... and The President called his family to see how they were doing, and so that made him feel a lot better. But then he got a really bad fever, and we havent really worked that much this week. A few hours each day. But yesterday we stayed inside the whole day after church. But don't worry he is feeling a lot better now.... I think mostly because its P-Day. :)
Anyways, the brightside for me is that I had a WHOLE bunch of extra study time!!! And I have seriously loved it. Because I have started reading "Our Search for Happiness" by Elder M. Rusell Ballard. And its seriously an awesome read!
One cool story that happened about this is this: We contacted a Jehovah´s Witness guy the other day in the street. (He is actually a missionary of their church. aka: it would be impossible to convince him of anything) And we attempted to share about the importance of the Book of Mormon. And he was all hard hearted and saying "yeah, lets say that Jesus did come to the Americas... what NEW things did he have to teach to the people there, that he didn't already teach in the bible?" Well... we explained, that he didnt really teach anything NEW. Because he taught the same doctrine that is found in the Bible. Its just there are things in the Book of Mormon that are not found in the Bible... or that are not explained very well. Because the Bible has been changed and altered so much (even some of the pure and plain doctrines have been taken out). He demanded examples....
And for some reason, in the heat of the moment, my mind seriously couldnt come up with a single reason. haha I felt like an absolute innocent fool. My companion and I seriously couldn't think of anything to say, I don't know why my mind didn't think of anything but... we just testified, invited him to read, and left. And seriously I felt so bad after that contact, just wishing I had had something better to say... and then later that very same night I was reading in that book by Elder Ballard. And there is a section that he literally says "I know some of you wonder why we Mormons focus so much on the Book of Mormon and not the Bible. We do CHERISH the Bible to be the word of God... but there are just some things that are not found there, that are found in the Book of Mormon. Or better said, doctrines that are explained more in depth." And he gave a list of a few examples.
1. Baptisms of children (Moroni 8)
2. The Fall of Adam (2 Nephi 2)
3. The Atonement of Christ (Alma 42)
4. The concept of Resurrection (Alma 11:43-44)
I was astonished to read EXACTLY what I wished I had known or remembered earlier. haha and the moral of the story... I dont think even if I gave those examples in that moment... that that really hard hearted guy would have changed, or even wanted to listen more. But I do know that It strengthed my testimony A TON from reading that book by elder Ballard. And I testify that the Book of Mormon truly is the Word of God. And it is the only book that contains THE FULNESS of the gospel of Jesus Christ. "Feast upon the words of Christ, for they truly tell us ALL things that we must do"
Yeah okay... I just want to ask everyone to please pray for our investigator Santos. He has a baptismal date for this saturday... and is basically just waiting for an answer to his prayers to go through with the decision. He freaking told us on saturday about this dream that he had. That he was at some sort of a party, and there were white roses and white baloons everywhere, and everyone was at these tables eating food. And he thought that it was an answer from God that he needed to be baptized. Then the very next day there was a party in his apartment complex.... with the same white roses and baloons, and food and everything. Then he realized that is WASN'T an answer from god. AHHHHHHH thats so annouying! haha
So I told him what I thought about the answer, and we invited him to keep praying and asking. And testified that the Lord would give him an answer that he would know was an answer to him! Please pray for him!! :)
Well thats about it for this week guys! Love you tons... and one funny thing is that this week we went to the grocery story to buy something, and literally 3 different abuelitas (grandmas) asked us how much something cost, or where the eggs were located, or something related to that because they thought we worked there, with our shirt and tie, and dark pants and sweater and name tags. haha. It was just something that made me laugh!
ok. les amo mucho! chao chao
Elder Hartvigsen
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