Family Unit.
Turns out I'm staying in Val dor for another transfer, big surprise!! I think I'm going to be here for a long...time...which is good, we just barely seemed to have earned the trust of the members and they are starting to give us referrals and take us home teaching. This is excellent. It's about time we got things rolling here.
So, not much has happened here. We had a meeting with this die hard catholic man who's mission is to convert the elders. Normally I wouldn't have allowed us to meet with him, because it's what other missionaries would call a "waste of time." But when it's too cold to go tracting outside and your mission president says "You'll just have to find another way to do missionary work," I see it as a good opportunity to practice teaching. If you can remember, the first time we met with this man, E. Johnson inadvertantly tried to convince him that Jesus was a sinner and a catholic. The opposite of our intentions. And this man, pwned him with the bible.
So we were hoping for a better outcome this time, it was good practice for E. Johnson to refrain from bible bashing. So we get there and the first thing I ask him is "So...about baptisms for the dead...what's the catholic's deal on that?"
He had never heard about that before, so we looked up some scriptures and read through them. He uses an "Easy reader simplified" bible. This is frustrating. Because he's just reading someone else's interpretation. So he tried to explain to us than when Peter spoke of baptisms for the dead, he was speaking of Jesus, who is dead, and we need to be baptized of him. In a last ditch effort, I said "Well, let's look at the french version, for some clarification..." (Mhe is bilingual.)
Lo and Behold, in french it says, basically "Why are we baptized for those who have died, those who are dead, if they rise not in the end?" AMAZING. I love french. The spirit was in the room, the spirit of truth befell this man as he looked at that scripture, and a couple other ones that we pointed out about the spirit world.
He said "Man, you guys are the best missionaries that have come across here, none of them ever showed me stuff like this. I'll have to talk to my priest. I honestly have no idea about baptism for the dead, I'll have to look into it. This is interesting."
VICTORY. He has no intention of changing, but I feel good whenever truth is revealed, it feels great.
Well that's about all that's happened, we had a couple meetings with the Albanian. She is super crazy, and loves to talk about God. She has a lot of questions about Satan and God and the symbolic meaning of the fall of Adam and Eve versus the fall of the angel of the morning. We're working with her.
Well that's about all, we're having fun and working hard. Trying not to get frostbite.
E. Holm
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