How are you doing? Sounds like you're chillaxing on a cruise in nice warm weather. The weather here is back to snowy. Ya good ol' Wyoming! Gotta love it. This week was pretty great. If I didn't mention before, we're in a trio for the next week because Elder Davidson (who has been with us for a week) had a companion who had to go home for back surgery. So he's been with us for a week and a half.
Cool Experience of the week: So we were visiting Less Actives and went to one's house. On the way we saw a potential's door was open, and said we would go back after we visited this family. The LA family wasn't home, so we went to this potential's house, and he let us in. His name is Alex Garcia. He's middle-aged, and a nice guy. He let us in and started talking and then asked us about our church. Elder Anderson told him a little about it, and he totally shot that down. He told us: "I don't believe in your religion. It's a man-made religion. I need God's religion. How could Joseph Smith be a prophet when the Bible never talks about him. Why do I need anything but the Bible, it has all the truth in it and I don't need anything else..." and so on and so forth. He kept saying that after anything we tried to tell him. Again, and again he kept denying the truth of what we were telling him. Finally, I felt like I needed to speak up and open my mouth. I did so, and here's a little of what I said--probably not word for word, but close: "Alex, we believe that the Bible and the Book of Mormon support each other. They testify of each other. The Bible in itself COULD NOT BE TRUE, if things outside of it did not happen. In Ezekiel 37, The Bible testifies of a book coming from Judah and from Joseph, In Malachi 4 it says Elijah the prophet will come before Christ's second coming, in the New Testament Christ testifies of "other sheep" that he must bring into His fold. These things had to happen for it to be true. I know that those other sheep were the people in the Book of Mormon, and that it is a true account. You know about the Holy Ghost, and I have received a witness from the Holy Ghost that it is true. So can you. All you need to do is pray and ask." It was intense, and I had words put into my mouth as I testified. The Spirit was so strong. Alex underwent a complete shift, and you could visibly see the change that the Spirit had wrought in him. He ended our lesson by saying he wanted to read the Book of Mormon and to come to church to try out our religion and see what it was about. It was one of the most intense experiences that I have ever had, and one of the most clear times the Spirit was in action.
I loved Conference, and especially Elder Holland's talk, Elder Eyring's talk, and Elder O. Vincent Haleck's talk on Vision. That was a direct answer to prayer. Don't have a ton of time. But I know the church is true. I have felt the Spirit testify again and again to me and to others of it's truthfulness. Let the Spirit in, open your hearts. I love Christ.
Love,
Elder Logan Bryan
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