This is a story from Elder Weaver of North Ogden and his companion Elder Medina who served together in Coatzacoalcos. I will paraphrase the letter which was written in Spanish...
"One afternoon we went out to contact a reference we had been given. A man approached us and said that he wante to talk with us right now. We went with him to his office. He said that he knew who we were and said that he wanted us to convince him using the Bible. We thought, 'Que chafa' but went ahead and presented him a brief lesson on the apostasy and the Restortation. (Chafa is chaff and the phrase is slang for 'what a waste' and referred to the man, not the Bible) We told him that everything we teach relates to the Bible. He asked where this Book of Mormon comes from in relation to the Bible. I remembered Ezekiel 37:15-19 and explained this scripture. The man argue about the scripture. His name is Eduardo Juarez Castillo.
"Hno. Eduardo had visited our church. He was offened, however, because one of the missionairies there devalued the Bible. So, we began to reinforce the apostasy but he didn't want to understand. We pushed through the lesson and invited him to pray to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and taht the Book of Mormon was the word of God. He said, 'Okay, I'll do it and I hope I get an answer becaue I really want to know. I really want to be with you because this is one of the best organized churches I have attended.' (Chafa?, maybe not) We set an appointment for the next day.
"He said that he had received no answer to his prayer. But, he asked us what the steps were to receive baptism and we told him to study the gospel, that his might be a trial of his faith and that he should continue studying and praying. He said that htis is not a game with him. We told him to humbly pray sincerely and with intent as described in Moroni 10:3-5. He said, 'I think that I am not humble.' We told him that he should kneel and pray, that his baptism was being prepared for him.
"He did not progress and said that he did not desire baptism. We dropped him for a short time and later returned. We visited him again. For the third time we shoed him the movie, 'The Restoration.' Finally he got it! He said that it was true and that he wanted to join the Church. Then he told us that the Jehovah's Witnesses require you to read the Bible four times before you can join. He also said that he was one of their pastors and had been so for 14 years. He joined that church 38 years earlier. In the end, he asked us to come back and teach is family."
No comments:
Post a Comment