Monday, March 22, 2010

Ocala, FL Letter #5 March. 22, 2010

Hello family & friends,
Things have been great here in Florida this last week! St. Patrick’s Day was a blast! The Irish Soda Bread came in one piece and was totally awesome!! Then for St. Patty's day dinner we had some wonderful ward members cook us corn beef and cabbage! Woot!! It was really good, boy we really enjoyed that!!

Lately we have been teaching this part member; his name is Shaun. He is a pretty sweet guy and he really likes World of Warcraft. As we were teaching him about the Plan of Salvation, a scripture came to my mind. The scripture reminded me that I should “teach people to their understanding” (I think it is somewhere in 2 Nephi 31). Anyway when we were explaining to Shaun about the different degrees of glory I told him the telestial kingdom has a lvl cap (World of Warcraft talk) and you can only go to 50. The terrestrial lvl cap. is 70 and Celestial has no lvl cap. lol I thought I did pretty well with that analogy and he seemed to like it, and understood better what we were trying to teach him.

Also this week the Spanish Elders ran into a guy named Chris that said he wanted to know more about our church. However, since he was English speaking they didn't teach him a whole lot. They gave us his phone number and his address. That same night we were having a ward party, (at the party they were going to have a play about “A week in the life of a Mormon”), so we called Chris up and invited him to come. He did show up and he had a blast! The food there was amazing- everyone was suppose to bring food from a different country so there was Japanese food, Turkish food, there was a palm tree stew, and frog legs! It was all really good! Afterwards Chris said he had a blast, so we asked him if he would come to church the next day, and he agreed.

So at 9 o’clock Chris was there and even brought a friend. They were both sitting through Sacrament meeting, which was less then exciting. Oh my goodness; no offence to the speakers but for 19 year old kids -I don't think it was that great. I mean they were falling asleep (I was having trouble staying awake myself), but after the closing prayer I turned to them and asked, “So are you guys ready for class?” They looked at me like I was stupid and said "We just had class man!" I felt kinda bad for them- because we didn't mention that church was 3 hours oops... but I promised them that class would be fun. They were like "I hope so."

I took them to the Young Men’s class and I grabbed Harrison (a member that was going to be in the same class with them) I told him, “Promise me they will have fun” and he said he would make it fun!" They did have fun and really enjoyed the class, being with kids their own age was good. However then I told them there was one more class. They were amazed and started talking about how hungry they were, and that they wanted to go home. Somehow I managed to get them into the other class. I just decided to hang around outside of their class (cause there was no more room in the Bishops office, where the class was being taught). While I was sitting there thinking (about them) Rogers came by and was like; “Blair before they leave invite them to be baptized” (well that was already one of the things I was actually thinking about.) I told Elder Rogers that I had been thinking that same thing so we talked about it for a while. I told Rogers that I didn’t know if they would want to be baptized into a church that is 3 hours long, ha-ha! But we both thought “What the heck we will ask them and see.” So after they got out of their Sunday School class I asked Chris and Jarell to follow me into the gym for a minute. I asked them, “If they liked church?” They said that it was “really good”, (which kinda shocked me that they would say that).

I explained to them that the “feeling of goodness inside them right then” was the Holy Spirit testifying to them that this was God's church. I went on to ask them if they would both be baptized next Sunday. They thought about it for a second, and then I said “Trust me it’s not that hard “so they both said yes! I also explained to them that as missionaries we are their guides for them; to help prepare them to be baptized. I told them about the word of wisdom and law of chastity and they said they were good with all of that stuff. Then later that same night they came back to church for a youth fireside. Now we have two baptisms happening this Sunday, which is way sweet! I am pretty excited for all of that!!

So that’s what the main events were for this week. The library is totally packed today so I am making this quick. Talk to everyone next week.

Love from your favorite Elder,
Elder Blair

0 comments: