Dinkytown week 15

We were able to teach a friend of a member last week, Brother F. He asked to meet with us after one of his favorite band members died and he realized the afterlife freaks him out. He doesnt understand it and sometimes he gets anxiety at night and cant sleep because he doesnt know what will happen after we die. So we taught him the Plan of Salvation. He LOVED it! WE shared a lot of scriptures and the Spirit was pretty strong. At the end he said, "i feel peace right now. This is true. Thank you so much." It was sweet :)

 

I also had probably one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life on tuesday. I was on exchanges in Shoreview minnesota when a member called us and asked us to go help give a blessing to his nonmember son in law who will die within the next 2 weeks of lung cancer. His wife is less active. So we drove to a hospice center and the member sat down and taught the son in law about the temple and told him that he would do his temple work next year. he also told his daughter to get worthy so she can be sealed to him. She started crying and said that God was telling her she needed to. Then the member explained to the son in law that after he died he would be taught the Gospel and he needed to decide right now to accept it. my companion annointed the son in law and the member gave a blessing. In that blessing the member told the son in law that God was pleased with the life he had lived. He had been kind and compassionate his whole life. the member blessed him with a knowledge that God loves him. At this moment the Spirit broadsided me and I was completely overwhelmed. I feel like i felt an smal, small portion of God's love for this man at that moment. I realized even more fully that God loves each of his children equally. No matter if they are Christian or not. it was an incredible experience. i was humbled.

 

A funny story of the week was when a man wearing ONLY those super small running shorts ran up and hugged my companion as my companion was talking to a chinese guy. The chinese guy got a little freaked out and ran away. I think my companion freaked out too. haha. oh man. i love this place. So nutty.

 

On friday night I GOT TO GO TO A VIKINGS GAME!!! We got permission to bring our investigator, Brother MW, and we went with some members of the ward. It was SICK! Gotta love football :D we definitely had a super sweet time. We handed out a few mormon.org cards and told a drunk guy that we were not actually hiring anyone at the moment but told him to call us later. So it was a pretty good night. And the Vikings won.

 

Brother MW should be getting baptized this saturday! Woot! We had a lesson with him last night that went well. At the end of it this super old guy with a walker that had john 3:16 on the front of it walked up to our investigator as we were getting up to leave and started yelling all this anti at him. He wouldnt even let us open our mouths and just kept screaming we were a cult and some pretty ludicrous stuff. Luckily, MW is a kool kat and he just said the old guy was off his rocker and didnt pay any attention to it. He said, "anyone who believes in Christ like you do cant be a cult." phew.

 

My thoughts this week have rested a lot upon Charity.

1 Corinthians 13:8 "  Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whetherthere be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away."

 

Charity never fails! What does this mean? As I pondered and discussed with Elder Wall i feel like this scripture can be applied to motivation. When our motivation is anything but Charity and the pure love of Christ, we will falter. We will not accomplish what we were sent here to accomplish. We will not influence the lives of those God would have us minister to. That scripture says that everyone fails, but Charity. If our motivation in life is to better ourselves, or get rich, or whatever it may be, it is not Christ centered and therefore we will not become who God would have us be.

 

i love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Damron