FYI: Before I haven't said names of investigators, but it gets a little confusing trying to re-write what he put and have it make sense without names. So, I'm going to just do the first initial instead!
My week was good! New comp is great. He's a funny kid. Investigators are great! We've really been blessed. We have some great investigators. W's baptism is this Saturday, J's is the 25th, and Y's is the 1st! Can't believe it's been six months!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your testimony. It's really the only thing I wanted from you all. I told some others, a testimony is found in the bearing of it. I learned that first hand. We were teaching
Y (19 year-old, Haitian girl). She hasn't been sure that the Book of Mormon is true. We had just taught a pretty spiritual lesson with a guy named M just an hour before. I was still "spiritually shell-shocked" and hardly talked during this lesson with Y, just listened. Near the end, after Elder Pratt bore his testimony, she turned to me and said, "Allez-y Fraley, Je vous écoute." (according to google translate, this means "Go Fraley, I hear you.")
Gathered my thoughts, then spoke from the heart, what I BELIEVED to be true.
"Le Livre de Mormon est vrai. Tous simplement." (google translate: "The Book of Mormon is true. All simply.")
I just ended it there. She looked a little shocked and didn't say anything. Looked down for a moment, looked back up and with a puzzled look said that for the very first time, she knew with a certitude that, "The Book of Mormon", was true.
Her confirmation of the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon helped confirm mine. I believed it to be true and the spirit not only confirmed it to her but also to me. I went from BELIEVING to KNOWING just like that. My testimony was found and strengthened in the bearing of it. The simplest of testimonies.
Sister missionaries took our appartment for now.
Everybody is doing great!
Cool talk on trials that Pres. Mehr sent to all of us:
From Elder Maxwell regarding the three types of trials and tribulations in our lives.
Type I
Some things happen to us because of our own mistakes and our own sins, as contrasted with suffering brought on because we are Christian. Peter makes this distinction very well: "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf." (1 Peter 4:15-16.)
Even indecision—about whether or not to be a believer—can produce its own unnecessary trial and sorrows, as President Brigham Young observed: "As to trials, why bless your hearts, the man or woman who enjoys the spirit of our religion has no trials; but the man or woman who tries to live according to the Gospel of the Son of God, and at the same time clings to the spirit of the world, has trials and sorrows acute and keen, and that, too, continually." (Journal of Discourses 16:123.)
Type II
Still other trials and tribulations come to us merely as a part of living, for, as indicated in the scriptures, the Lord "sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45.) We are not immunized against all inconvenience and difficulties nor against aging. This type of suffering carries its own real challenges, but we do not feel singled out.
Type III
There is another dimension of suffering, and other challenges that come to us even though we seem to be innocent. These come to us because an omniscient Lord deliberately chooses to school us: "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth" (Hebrews 12:6); "Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith" (Mosiah 23:21).
Abraham, for instance, had his faith tried as he took Isaac up to Mount Moriah. The Lord later described this as a deliberate chastening experience for Abraham. (D&C 101:4.) Fittingly, Abraham, who was later to become a god, learned through obedience what it was to be asked to sacrifice his son. (D&C 132:37.)
A good friend, who knows whereof he speaks, has observed of trials, "If it's fair, it is not a true trial!" That is, without the added presence of some inexplicableness and some irony and injustice, the experience may not stretch us or lift us sufficiently. The crucifixion of Christ was clearly the greatest injustice in human history, but the Savior bore up under it with majesty and indescribable valor.
Paul indicated that "there was given to me a thorn in the flesh." (2 Corinthians 12:7-9. Italics added.) Use of the word given suggests that Paul knew wherefrom this affliction came. Further, as it must be with anyone who seeks sainthood, Paul had to be "willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him." (Mosiah 3:19.)
Elder Fraley
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| At a Boulangerie! (A Bakery) |
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