Monday, September 21, 2009

sienuu! hello in mongolian :)

it's been a really great week! [L] is really solid for baptism on October 10! i was getting kind of worried because he had lots of concerns. you always get worried when they tell you they've been looking up 'book of mormon' and 'joseph smith' on wikipedia. who knows what's on there? he also saw part of the 'special witnesses' DVD at a baptism that we took him to, and he said it seemed like propaganda. not a good sign :) anyway i prayed a LOT about how we could help him and resolve his concerns, and we were able to have a powerful lesson yesterday answering all of his questions. at the end of the lesson he said he believed the book of mormon was true and joseph smith was a prophet!! his testimony is small, but it will grow. we had a great discussion about faith and nourishing his testimony and he's reading Alma 32 today. anyway, keep him in your prayers! he's an awesome guy and the gospel will bring him so much direction and happiness.

a highlight of the week was a visit to auburn on saturday to visit a recent mongolian convert! we've visited twice before and i've gotten quite close with them. [S] was the only one in her family to join the church. her husband was fine with it until he went back to mongolia for a few months and a fortune teller told him that his wife's new religion would be bad for his family. she has two daughters: [T] is josh's age and [M] is a freshmen in high school. they are so cute! we wish we could teach them the gospel but it's hard with their dad. did i tell you about last time we went over there and made buuz? they eat it on the mongolian new year. you basically make this dough, roll it into thin circles, put ground beef and onions in it, seal it up to make a little pouch, and steam it. they all teased me last time because mine all looked really ugly haha. so we made it again and i did much better! i have fun pictures but my camera is out of batteries so i'll have to send them next week. i've learned some more mongolian phrases and i THINK my accent is getting better. [M] still laughs at me when i speak mongolian though :)

one last cool experience. last night we taught [B] for the first time. a man he used to work with referred him to us, and we visited a few days ago and left a restoration pamphlet. last night we came back and he'd read it, underlining lots of stuff and had a lot of questions. a LOT of questions. hard questions! he wasn't trying to bash or anything, he was very sincere and respectful and interested. anyway it's hard to explain, but it was just a really cool lesson where i felt the spirit really guided us to be able to answer his questions. questions i'd never even thought of! he committed to read and pray about the book of mormon! we will see what happens :) anyway when i got home it just got me thinking about how i'm really a missionary!! i've come a long ways since april! i can teach :) not because i'm great or anything, but because i've learned to listen to the spirit (well i'm definitely still learning, there's still a long way to go). i'm so grateful for this opportunity to learn more about the Lord, his gospel, his spirit, and his children. i know that God truly has called a modern prophet to guide us. I know Jesus Christ stands at the head of this church, HIS church. I'm so grateful that the fulness of the gospel is taught in this church.

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