October 27, 2014

This week we met a less active member of the church named Matthew. He believes that the church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet….but his attitude towards how that applies to his life is pretty skewed. He told us that he isn't interested in coming back to church, but that he wants to "stay in touch" by meeting with us so that when he meets his wife and gets married in the temple and raise his family in the church, he'll be ready to live the gospel. He said that his life was too far from where it was supposed to be to come to church, and that when he was ready to stop partying he would repent. It was really sad because we knew he wasn't as happy as he could be, and that the day he was waiting for would never come because he wan't preparing for it.

Well, we were sitting there thinking about what we would share with him and the thought came to my mind, "we need to get him reading the Book of Mormon. Really reading it." The Book of Mormon could correct his understanding of how the atonement, repentance, and living the gospel really work in our lives. We read him 2 Nephi 25:26 "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophesies that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." We told Matthew that the Book of Mormon isn't just some boring "require reading" that his parents made him do as a kid. It is literally the source we can turn to to find out how we can receive not just a remission of sins, but for all the other blessings Christ has in store for us because of His sacrifice. Matthew was really quiet and we could tell he was actually thinking about and considering what we had told them. He promised that he would try to read the Book of Mormon every day until our next lesson.

We also saw Zach this week again! He is amazing. He keeps reading the scriptures and praying every day even though he doesn't feel like he's gotten an answer yet. But he knows it takes patience. We read with him the story of Aaron and the king in Alma chapter 22. In the story, the king desires so much to know that there is a God that he is willing to give up not only all of his sins, but all of his kingdom and worldly possessions. We talked about how we're not asked to give up all of our belongings, but gaining a testimony does require sacrifice and a willingness to keep the commandments. He believes that! He is really putting forth effort and we know he will receive an answer.

Sister Boll