Hey hey hey ya´ll!
Well another week of miracles back out in the mission
field. The Lord is blessing us like crazy right now, and I don't exaggerate at all
when I say I´ve never seen anything like this before at the mission. It´s just
like it says in Corinthians- we plant, we water, but God gives the increase. All
success and glory comes from him! We taught a record 35 lessons this week and
lead the mission in teaching. Doors were just opening left and right. We have 28
names we´re working with right now who are inviting us back to teach them again
as well as now 8 people with baptismal dates. The work just keeps going forward.
We´re finding most of our success as we stick to college dorms and work with
younger people and immigrants. They are really receptive to the message, and all
we need to do is bring the Spirit and teach with power and bam- the new
investigators keep coming. Our big focus is to get the members coming out with
us to teach now and to get all these people to church. The church has kind of a weird location, so it´s a struggle to get a bunch of college students up early
and coming, but we´ll get 'em there!
One of the coolest baptismal dates
I´ve ever seen set happened this week though. Well, actually two. The first was a
way cool guy from Iran. It´s illegal for him to become Christian, but he´s
wanted to all his life. He eats up everything we teach him and when we taught
him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and baptism we felt like asking him to be
baptised, and I think I got to the words, "Would you be..." before he just yelled
"YES!!!" haha. He has a visa that keeps him safe from having to go back though,
so he´s a valid candidate now. The other was a way cool Chinese guy, total boss,
he said yes before we even extended the date and then when I said, "Okay, we´ll
work hard and when you´re ready..." which he then interrupted by saying, "I´ll be
ready!" It was soooo coool!
All the success hasn't come without great
opposition though. We´ve had some hostile encounters with some free Christians,
Muslims, and a couple JW´s this week. It was pretty intense. We walked in to the
dorms to see one of our investigators almost in tears with a BOM in one hand and
New World Translation in the other asking a German man, "Which one is right?" The German answered back in Chinese and then turned and saw us, and, well, it
wasn't a good experience. Then while doing doors a huge black guy from Cameroon
let us in and within 10 minutes was demanding us to burn our BOM´s and not
blaspheme against God while yelling and pounding his Bible. Normally I´m pretty
calm in those situations, but for some reason I felt I should stand up and I
said very seriously, "By asking me to burn this book you are asking me to
blaspheme against that which God has already made known to me through the Holy
Spirit. Think twice before you say another word" He backed down and as we left
he said, "I know you´ll never come back and face me. You don't have the courage."
haha It was epic. We´ll see though. Bleh, I have about as many of these stories
from the week as the good ones haha, so I won't ramble on. It´s been intense
though, seriously a battle for the souls of the penitent.
Things continue
to be hard, but I´m working on being more optimstic about everything, and at the
end of the day, even though I´m dead, I love to get down on my knees and thank
God for everything. It´s frustrating how quick we are to forget the miracles we
see every day and His goodness, and how easy it is to let yourself get
discouraged, but perfect love caseth out fear so I know if we keep working and
develop love, everything will work out! Love all of you so much! Have a great
week!
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