3 February 2014 -- YES

   One of the highlights this week was teaching a lady named Sara. She is a sister of a member of the church who lives literally a 30 second walk from the church. We went to this member's house to have lunch and guess who was there?, Sara. After getting to know her a little bit she told us that she wanted to learn more about her sister's religion and wanted us to teach her about it. (This normally doesn't happen). So we mark an appointment with her that week and gave her a pamphlet of the restoration to read until our next visit. And when we showed up later that week to teach her, she had read the whole thing and had many questions ( This normally doesn't happen). She understood everything about prophets and apostles and the church of Christ but when Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon came into the picture she became very confused and didn't know why or how. 

   She really couldn't get a hold of it and wanted the answers and she asked us sincerely to explain it (This normally doesn't happen). She wanted to know details. So we gave her details. We taught in a way that I've never taught before. When we were talking about the Book of Mormon she still didn't understand exactly the purpose of the book, or why God had this book written. Then I remembered something that I read in the Book of Mormon a few weeks ago. It talked about how Lehi was a decendent of the tribe of Israel, the covenant people of God and how the promises were with him too! So I started to explain this to Sara and how Lehi brought with him a record of his fathers or the Old Testament (This normally doesn't happen). And that right there was the game winner, the Grande Salami, the final stretch! It seemed that everything clicked for her. 

   She said she always wanted to know how God treated the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. Why would God forget about some of his children and make covenants and promises with another group of his children. After that moment it was easy to see that her heart was opened and she just listened in concordene with everything that we taught. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. That it is the word of God, written for us, that we may know for fully the nature of God, who he is, and how he loves us.

   The only problem with Sara is that she works every Sunday. 24 hours and goes to college during the week. She is a nurse and is going to law school! So she is super busy and can't come to church with us on Sundays. But God really is Good. We were waiting at church for our investigators to show up and out of nowhere came Sara! She said that she really wanted to see what the church is like so she switched her shift with a friend and will start working on Sundays this coming week! She came to church! And Loved it. The members really took her in well. 

   She really liked the testimonies and the prelude, "Ye Elders of Israel" sung by four missionaries... Yeah out of the blue a lady asked us to sing a prelude and we choose "Ye elders of Israel". It was really good except for the last word of the last verse. I totally said the wrong word! Haha oh Well :) I love being a missionary!

ELDER RALPH