Dear Everyone,
I had a solid week! We have some way cool investigators right now. We met a man named Steve, I don't know his last name but we call him Steve Fish because he had rotten fish in his garbage can that smelt really bad. He grew up Catholic, but since doesn't practice anymore due to some inconsistencies and corruptions that he sees in it. He seems very sincere and very honest with us. He also knows a lot of information about reformers and such, but we had a really successful first lesson with him and he said he's going to read the Book of Mormon, so I hope he does.
The lady Heidi we have been teaching since I came here we found out is praying wrong...so we have to go back and teach her how to pray correctly. We would have taught her then but we had another appointment to get to. I told her that if she didn't make any attempt to come to church within the next three times we saw her we wouldn't be able to come see her any more. I was hoping it would motivate her, but I think that just made her made. Oh well, we have other people that are willing to follow through with their commitments that need to be taught.
We met a man named Locklin this week. We were walking down the street contacting people and he walked out to his car. Looked at us and said, "Hey! I want to talk to you two, but I don't have time right now, come back and see me." We noticed he was drunk, but said ok, here's a card with our number gave it to him and then he drove away. We came back the next day and he was crazy drunk, I think I could have got buzzed off of his fumes drunk....He started talking with us and told us about 4 times that he was in the military and that he was dealing with post traumatic stress. He had pills that they gave to him to take for it but they counteract when taken with alcohol, but that he can't stop drinking. So we decided to teach him how to pray and that that might help him out a little. So we started talking to him about it and some friends showed up and that was the end of that conversation basically.
We decided to come back the next day, we came and he was drunk again so I asked him straight up, "Do you want to stop drinking?"
He said, "Yes, I do, I need Jesus in my life."
I said, "Ok, then we start by getting rid of all the alcohol you have. Will you go pour that out outside? (Pointing to the beer in the living room)"
He grabbed it and poured it out. We then asked any other alcohol in the house he said, "Yes, everywhere!"
We then said, "Ok, get it and lets pour it out."
He responded, "I want to do that with my girlfriend."
Long story short we told him that we couldn't teach him without him being sober and left after saying another prayer with him that he talked all the way through while I said it. I left his house thinking to myself he'll never give it up now.
We showed up the next day, no one answered.
We showed up the next day, He came to the door, said, "You all gonna haftu come back. I'm sick"
We showed up the next day, no one answered.
Finally the next day...yesterday, (Sunday) we show up and he comes outside smiling. He looks at us and says "HEY!" He was completely different, aka sober. Turns out that, the same night that we asked him to get rid of his alcohol he did it! He gave his debit card to his girlfriend said go buy some nice decorations we're going to do this right, after they dumped it all out. She left and never showed up again. He called her and she didn't answer. He woke up the next day and found his card on the porch, 300 dollars had been withdrawn and she was gone without a trace.
Turns out things ran deeper than we thought. He was buying drugs and alcohol for all these people. He deleted all his old friends numbers from his phone, told them they were welcome at his house so long as they were sober and not looking to get high. But if they weren't willing to do that they should not call him ever again. He was sick and vomiting for three days getting his body back into normal order after those three days we taught him about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and now he has committed to a baptismal date of November 24th. He is going to be going to the churches addiction recovery program, and is fighting hard to get his life back in order.
I used the title "...by your fruits ye shall know them..." because the two peoples baptismal dates we had to drop where the two people I thought were our miracle investigators last week. But they did not put forth any effort. Locklin has altered his life in a 60 degree turn by his works alone and the other 120 degrees are surely by the grace of Christ. I could drop a whole strain of scripture right now supporting the concept of the Grace of Christ, but that is what I want you all to research this week. See how our actions are so weak in comparison to what Christ does for us. Look up grace in the Bible Dictionary, the definition is soooo sweet. I know that the Lord loves us, God sent Jesus Christ down here for us and that we through Christ can be with our Heavenly Father again. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
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