Monday, August 19, 2013

We Need the Book of Mormon. 7/29/13

I have so much to say, but I will try not to bore you all with mindless details. :) haha. This week has been awesome.

A sign we saw in a store... a little extreme, I think.
First things first, C---- is being baptized this Friday! We are so excited for her. She quit smoking, drinking iced tea and drinking coffee cold turkey, in a matter of 24 hours. We gave her the church's 15 step stop smoking program and she is amazing. We love her so much.

Also, we met another golden investigator this week named Z----. Z----- is almost 19 and was referred to us by her boyfriend who lives in New Jersey. They met online and when he told her about the church, she was immediately interested. She's one of those investigators that the Lord has prepared from the very beginning. Everything we taught her just seemed like a reminder of what she already knew--even though she'd never heard any of it before. She truly is golden, and she's being baptized on August 10th. Her boyfriend will be in town that week, so we're excited. She's coming over to Sister A--'s house tonight for dinner and games, and we're also going shopping at Charming Charlie and stuff a little later on today.

Z--- is amazing!! Seriously GOLDEN.
Another miracle from this week: On Thursday night, the ward hosted a cute thing called GRITS - Girls Raised in the South. A lot of the young moms in our ward are here from Utah with the security sales team, so the ladies wanted to give them a good taste of the south. They had cooking demonstrations, recipes, and Sister N---- even taught us how to be southern ladies. :) haha. So fun. After everyone had left the church, Sister Wilson and I stayed behind to open the church for a ward mission leader from another ward. He was proposing to his girlfriend in the chapel that night and needed to get into the church. So we let him in, and while he was proposing, someone started banging on the back church door, so I ran to check it out. It was two girls, M--- El-- and C---, who had been baptized a year ago but were completely inactive. for the last week or so they'd been talking about church and wanting to go back, then they drove by the church building at 8:30 at night and saw our cars there. They decided to go and see if they could find the missionaries, and voila! There we were! Seriously, it was a miracle. We would've never been at the church that late if that WML hadn't asked us to stay there, and we would've never met the girls. They told us how much they missed church and that they really wanted to come back, but needed the missionary's help. Also, one of them has a non-member sister who we are now teaching. We've been over to visit them several times now and they all came to church on Sunday. C---- had to work, but hopefully she can come next week. Seriously, a true miracle!
GRITS cooking demonstrations.

I'm in love with the South.
In total we had 4 investigators attend church and one less-active. So awesome. Another thing I learned this week was how much we NEED the Book of Mormon. It's not just a cool book that we're lucky to have. Pres Holzapfel said it perfectly when he said "Look at how many religions there are! Look at how people interpret one book in so many different ways. That alone is proof that the Bible is not enough on its own. We need a second witness of Jesus Christ, to clarify and testify of his doctrine." The Book of Mormon does not add to or take away from the Bible. It's simply a record of prophets, teachings, and believers, just like the Bible! The Bible takes place in Jerusalem and Israel, and the Book of Mormon takes place in the Americas. God loves all His children, so He wanted all parts of the world to have his gospel. Between the two books, they testify plainly and clearly of what He wants us to believe. The Bible lost many of its plain and precious parts after being translated so many times, so it's missing some pieces. But the Book of Mormon was translated ONCE. It's the missing part of the puzzle that answers so many questions, and I am so, so grateful for it. I'm grateful that between the Bible and the Book of Mormon, we have the fulness of Christ's gospel. It's been restored to the earth today, and we have it! We have prophets (Amos 3:7), we have apostles (Ephesians 4:11-14), we have Priesthood (Mark 3:14-15), and we have the Book of Mormon, the record of Christ's other sheep (John 10:16) which comes together with the Bible to testify of Jesus Christ (Ezekiel 37:15-17).

It's just such a cool testament to me. I already knew that this was Christ's true church on the earth, but seeing the scriptures in the Bible confirm it is so powerful. I love this gospel and I love being a missionary.


Please pray for C---- and Z----!

Sister Edwards

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