Power of the BofM

January 23, 2012

Hi Family!

This has been an odd week.  We had the Republican primaries going on here in South Carolina and Mitt Romney came down to Hilton Head (about 15 miles away) so the whole county was buzzing with political talk.  We met a lot of people who wanted to talk politics over the past few days!  About the only thing we could tell them is that we are aware Romney is LDS, but other than that we haven't read the papers, watched the news, or followed him in any way, so we have no idea what his ideas and/or campaign platform are all about.  Most people don't want to talk with us anymore after we try and navigate to the actual religious side of things.  =D

It makes me wonder what it would have been like to be a missionary back in 1844 when Joseph Smith was running for president and the elders had the dual job of preaching the gospel and campaigning for him.  (I'm just glad they don't beat elders in the South with hickory clubs like they used to!)

Our progressing families all were distracted by other things this week and couldn't meet with us, so we focused a lot on finding and had some really neat experiences with that. One was a lady whose teaching record we found in our Former Investigators list.  The things written down actually made her sound aggressively hostile to religion, but we were going to be in her area, so we decided to swing by anyway.  We found Marly sorting hundreds of beer cans and alcohol bottles for recycling which gave us some apprehensions, but she soon cleared up they were her neighbor's and she was just helping them dispose of them all.  We got to talking with her and at first she was like, "yeah, yeah, I've heard missionaries already" but the Spirit just told me strongly that we needed to read Joseph Smith History, so Elder Housel and I opened up the Pearl of Great Price and started reading with her.  Within one or two minutes her entire outlook on our message changed 100%!  She was getting very excited and eagerly took a Book of Mormon when we told her about that and asked her to read and pray.  Good thing is, she is also a devout reader (like Judy) and will probably be halfway through the Book of Mormon by now!

We also found a Catholic, Philippino lady whose member husband is deployed right now and she's been getting more and more interested as well, so we have high hopes that good things will happen with her.

There is so much power in the Book of Mormon!  It always gets me so excited when people actually have a desire and a thirst to read it and know what it speaks of concerning Christ!  Being a missionary is so much fun; I think I could do this forever! 

Mom, I got a good laugh out of your hooker story.  The old saying "modest is the hottest" must be especially true in your case.  ;)  It sounds like Gabe has finally caught up to me size-wize; I'm hovering right around the same 135lb/29in waist. Good luck with the winter floods!

Photo of the Week:  Elder Housel and I were having some fun with time-lapse photos the other night after planning and I drew this one with my rear bike light.  It's the symbol we use for baptism (down arrow showing immersion beneath the waves).

Have a blessed week!

Elder M.

Baptism Symbol