Monday, October 17, 2016

The Mandate to Share the Truth

¡Buenas tardes!

I hope everyone enjoyed General Conference! I loved it! They were speaking to me!

Spanish Lessons with Hermana Clark:
 
 

​Futura misionera- future missionary. As in, "This future missionary happens to have the same last name as my companion, so she borrowed her nametag to take a picture with me. She'll be a great missionary someday."
Generación- generation. As in, "We refer to a group of missionaries who arrive in the mission together as a generation. Only two of us got here in my generation, and we went to mission leadership council together this week because we're both Sister Training Leaders now. It was fun to remember the day we got here."
La Doctrina de Cristo- the Doctrine of Christ. As in, "The general authorities taught us a lot this weekend about the Doctrine of Christ. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can all be clean of our sins through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. This simple doctrine is essential in our lives and ever so important to remember."

I have two stories for you today.

We saw our investigator whose baptismal date is quickly approaching, and we taught her about tithing and fasting. She understood the commandments really well and believes that the promised blessings really come to those who keep them. We asked her how she's felt about everything we're teaching, and she told us that she feels like it's all true. She says that before she hadn't been so open and whenever she listened to the doctrines we're teaching she would think in counter-arguments according to what she has learned before. As she's been listening to us though, she's opened up a lot and she says that she's realized how correct everything is. She says that she's seen how what we teach relates with what she teaches in her profession as a psychologist and she feels like it's right. We're looking forward to seeing her more this week!

We also found a new investigator this week. We actually met her several weeks ago. We were walking to an appointment and we saw a loose dog further down the road that looked like it wanted to kill us. She and her husband saw us and pulled over their car and offered to take us past the dog if we were scared of it. We were, and we felt okay about getting in their car, so they gave us a ride. In the time we were in their car, we got to know them a bit and she told us that she was Jewish and her husband was Catholic.
I had never met a Jewish person here. We were surprised. They told us more or less where they lived, but we didn't set an appointment.
A couple weeks later, we ran into her twice in other places. Once she told us where she lived and the other she gave us a ride and showed us her house, but didn't have time to receive us. We went by the day after, but she was a bit busy. She showed us some of the decorations in her house though and explained a bit about her beliefs to us. It was cool.
We finally managed to visit her to teach her a bit yesterday. Since we met her we've been studying and praying, trying to figure out how we could best explain our message to her. We really didn't know what to do because just about everyone here is from one Christian denomination or another, but they all believe in Jesus Christ. In all of our studying, my companion and I came to the conclusion and had the impression that we should teach her about the Book of Mormon.
So yesterday we gave her a Book of Mormon and read the first chapter with her. It was the coolest experience to see how she understood it and related so differently. She understood well that Lehi was one of the prophets who was sent to prophesy about the destruction of Jerusalem. She knew who King Zedekiah was. She understood the historical context so well. She read the chapter with us and said, "so these people were Jewish?" We told her that they were and read a bit of the introduction with her and extended her the invitation to read it, ponder on what it says, and pray to know if it's true. She was so interested and she asked, "how much does this book cost?" When we told her it was free, she didn't believe us. The look on her face was priceless.
She's going to start reading it this week and we'll see her on Sunday. We're excited to see how it goes.

If you missed conference, watch it here!

Especially the words of the prophet:

"It's not enough, however, merely to believe in Him and His mission. We need to work and learn, serch and pray, repent and improve. We need to know God's laws and live them...we are blessed to have the truth and we have the mandate to share the truth."

Have a great week everyone! Thank you for your continual support and prayers!

~Hermana Hannah Jo Clark

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