Monday, August 10, 2015

Week in a bottle (2)

Ok so there's no bottle, but you kinda hoped there was didn't you?

This week was pretty busy for a couple of reasons.  Lots of stuff coming up suddenly this week giving us some much-needed lessons.  Also some days with absolutely nothing allowing us some time to explore and see what's in our area: (Warning pictures ahead!)
(soooo far....)

(the farm)


Really beautiful!  

One of the best parts of this week was our service project for a lady whos farm is the one pictured above.  Super fun as we had to get rid of wasps nests... without protection...haha lots of running and throwing rocks, pretty sketchy!

(the elders wading through the river...)(Collage of the day)

Another cool experience was to be able to teach our less active and also give him the sacrament this week, he is an 85-year-old man who is basically confined to his home, he lives on the 3rd floor of a place with no elevator and it takes him practically 30 minutes to get down the stairs to go anywhere, shuffling extremely small steps.  He was great and being able to give him the sacrament again was awesome.  He was extremely happy, he hadn't taken it in years!


Finally, on Saturday we met with our progressing investigator John (I swear I'm trying to meet with Koreans, but they all really don't like us too much.... haha).  But we tried to teach the plan of salvation, but it seemed his mind was on another topic, Authority.  He tried weaving the topic into our conversation about God and such and after about 35-40 minutes of this he finally asked his real question: "So are you saying that all the other churches, no matter how good they are or big, don't have the authority to do the work of God and perform his ordinances?"

Now I am pretty sure you can imagine, that at this point this is a very big question for him, the answer might keep him on or dissuade him from investigating anymore.  Yes, that's right.  He's been baptised somewhere else, and that's very important to him (for you returned missionaries this is a very District-esque feeling of someone about to get disappointed).  

So what do I say?  I can be sneaky and try to make him feel like the other churches are good, or I can avoid the question entirely, but that's not me, nor what the spirit wanted.

"The Other churches are great, but if you want me, to be honest, no they don't have the authority to baptise and it be recognised in Heaven.  I'm sorry"

Then a scripture came to me (after the lesson when I was reflecting)

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ

Well, there we go, what am I? Not ashamed to tell him that no, your baptism didn't count and that yes, you will have to be baptised again.  I wasn't mean about it (like I kinda seem here) and I was very encouraging in telling him that his other baptism was a great show that he wanted to follow Jesus christ and that he had faith and repented.  But we will see, he opposed our baptismal invitation but said he would continue reading the book of Mormon.  Which is great!  We hope he continues to progress and find out the truthfulness of the book of Mormon.  

Well other than that not much else happened this week, I have made a better commitment to myself to pay more attention during church services even though it's in Korean instead of reading the scriptures or doing something else during church.  It's for us to learn too, even though it's in another language.  Plus it helps us get better.

So we are excited for tomorrow and for the rest of the week, it's going to be pretty busy and we are already winding down another transfer!  Only 3 more after this, I'm officially past 3rd base and rounding home!

Pray for me not to be trunky!

Elder Yamagata

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