Elder Greenburg/ Week 2

Things have been okay this week. We're slowly building up the area little by little. Last Monday night I had my first Bible Bash. Well, we didn't really engage too much because that's just not how we are. It was with a younger Pastor from a church called "Harvest" and they spread a bunch of anti-Mormon crap around. We knocked on his door thinking it was a former investigator named Eric Green, but he opened the door and they were having bible study, so there was like 10 of them in there. But he just stepped out and spoke with us for about 20 minutes. He wasn't like yelling and getting mean, just really pointed in his questions. He was totally baiting us too.
He'd drop lines like, "Don't you believe that...oh, what's his name..."
And we'd say Joseph Smith, and he'd be like, "Yeah! That guy" like he was pretending not to know who Joseph Smith was. He was trying to prove that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon and that in Revelation it says that you shouldn't add things to the bible, and how it was dumb that we believed that we would become Gods, even though it says that in the bible.
I felt pretty useless because he would quote all these parts of the bible, and I don't know the bible very well. McClain did a lot of the talking. Then the next day on Tuesday we had another bash with a kid named Austin and his dad. Austin didn't hardly say anything, but his dad, Doyle, might as well been a bible scholar. He kind of deep six'd it at the end, though. He went off on how the bible is really just a numbers game and how there are three's and seven's all over the place, yada yada yada. That's two bashes in an 18 hour period, though. It made me want to go and study the Bible front to back, but in Preach My Gospel it says that a testimony, The Spirit, and the Book of Mormon are the only three things you need to teach and help the Spirit to convert, so that's what I've been focusing on. I've found that testifying simply is the key. You don't have to speak elequently, just open your mouth and let the spirit do the talking. Elder Bednar said in an MTC address that when you're doing what you're suppose to, and you're doing your best, don't worry about trying to follow what the spirit it trying to say. Just open your mouth and the spirit will testify of your words to be true.

We haven't had a ton of lessons, and our numbers are still kind of low, but they're improving, so that's good. We came into this area with a referral, and one part member family. We invited Rafael and his family to church yesterday and they were going to come, but Radael's mother in-law is in the hospital, so they couldn't come, and our other family The Bishopp's didn't come either. But we got two of the Bishopp's kids on date for baptism on the 30th! So hopefully they'll be able to keep that. If we get Rafael and his family on that day too, that will be 7 baptisms in one month, and our zone goal is 30. That's two more than what we committed to have. I hope that's how it goes down, but it's in the Lord's hands.
It was kind of a drag because all of our appointments fell through yesterday, but we had a lesson with a less active family later last night and it went great. We talked about the Atonement and how church was important. At first it didn't seem like it sunk in, even though McClain and I could feel the Spirit. We were wrapping up and asked if the had any questions, and the daughter who is about 18 kind of hesitated and then burst out crying and asked if we could come back. So we're going to teach them next Sunday as well. She was saying that she was thinking of going on a mission, but I'm pretty sure that she's going to go now.


 You probably won't hear from President Smart directly unless crap goes down. He's pretty busy with 200 missionaries in the mission, but it's odd that he has time for every single one of us and knows us personally. That's what the spirit can do.

I think that's all I have for now. You could send that cardigan I wore at my farewell if you want, or any of them should do. It doesn't matter.

I miss and love you guys,
Cody