Week 52 - One YEAR mark

Ed Hass came up to me and asked if we would come by and give him a blessing at church.  He is an active member that passes out programs that also smokes.  In fact both our program passers are smokers.  The Blessing was one to remember.  The spirit was so strong there and this may sound weird but I recorded how long I felt that strong spirit.  The spirit is always with me as long as I am worthy of it but it is soft most of the time instead of strong.  From that blessing I felt that strong spirit for 30 minutes and I was swallowed up with joy, I was just all smiley.  It was interesting though that Satan tried right away to drive the spirit away.  5 minutes after the blessing a car drove by and a man opened the van door standing up and shouted "God hated missionaries"!!! The comment didn't  faze me at all in fact I thought about how ridiculous that comet was especially at that moment when I felt the spirit so strongly, which is a testament that God Loves missionaries.  In life we can see that so many times that after you have a great spiritual experience that Satan tries to drive it away.  There are plenty of examples like Jesus fasted 40 days and then was tempted, the persecution that followed Joseph Smith after the First Vision, and my favorite example is when God shows Moses all his creation and then Satan himself confronts him. In these instances you can see that they resisted temptation by focusing their thoughts on God and also remembering the spiritual experiences that happened before Satan tempted them.  I believe that Satan does this to all of us especially as we are making leaps in the Gospel. This has happened to some of investigators my investigators especially when they have a baptismal date. I was reading in the beginning of Mosiah today and saw how important it is to keep a record especially a spiritually record.  (Mosiah 1:5)  It said that if Lehi did not bring the plates that they and their fathers would have dwindled in unbelief would surely be like the Lamanites who know nothing of the true nature of God and his Commandments.  It is important that we take the time to write down and remember our spiritual experiences for us and our posterity that we our faith may be strengthened and not dwindle in unbelief.  I need to do better because i hardly write in my Journal and I know that I will regret it someday.

We met a Tattoo Mormon.  He owns a shop and everything.  He is Cool and has a Testimony but is taking a break from church unfortunately due to his grandson living with him who does not like Mormons because when he was younger he was bullied by Mormons.  It is sad also that he is making poor decisions which he will be humbled by in the future. 

The Dale's came to church today.  They are Recent Converts that just moved from Oregon and were baptized a month ago.  We talked to them and we found out that he used be a member of the RLDS church which surprised us. Their story is kind-a of crazy they just moved from Oregon and now they "live in the Forest” according to the Relief society president.  They came to us and asked if they could have the new member discussions.

A bunch of appointments cancelled this week which is disappointing.  We still had a great week filled with spiritual experiences. We taught a bunch of less actives in which we hope that we can reactivate.