The Church Is True... but the e-mail service isn't always,

Sorry about the late letter, but yesterday the ldsmail.net site was down, so as a result I only have about 20 minutes or so to type. Massively annoying. Rejections and people telling us that our message and our Church is full of it I can take. But when the rejection is coming from our email service...that makes the blood boil more than the Brazilian heat. Hopefully the e-mail system will learn how to serve the Church better...

Anyway, this is a pre-written letter that I wrote last night and am typing very quickly, so if stuff stops making sense at a certain point, that´s why.

First off, no problem with only a letter from Levi last week. I figured that it was a technical problem, not you guys forgetting the poor gringo here in Bauru.

Very little time, so just one experience. We did a trade last week, and I worked with Elder Davis, an American, and the newest American besides me. He has about 7 or 8 months out, and is fluent, so I hope I can be like him, language-wise in 8 months. We´ll see.

Anyway, we went to a teaching appointment. A pastor in fact. It was supposed to be a resolving concerns thing, but it quickly turned into a Bible bash. We weren’t making any headway with scripture references in the Bible. (Turns out that he was using a different translation than the one that we have, so half the references weren´t working.) So I started using script’s from the BOM, and he had less to fight with. He would always just answer, "I have the Bible, and that´s all I need." So, I showed him the verse in Nephi where it talks about people who say that. He read it and was like "That´s interesting, but God has revealed his word in the Bible." The appointment continued like that, and after about the 3rd time of him telling me to, "go pray and renounce these false things that you´re teaching and call your prophet in the United States and tell him to get you out of here, with the cancerous sun, and come follow Jesus, because right now you´re a lost soul."

I got sick of listening to that, So I said "Look, I don´t speak the language very well, and obviously you know a lot about the Bible, and I can´t find a response that you´d like to your doubts about us. All I can say is that I know that the BOM is true and contains the fullness of the gospel." At this point his ears perk up and his repeats, "Fullness?" I say, "Yep" At this point he points at me and says, "Then I will read to see if you are correct." He said it in a way that was obvious that he will look for what he can to not believe the BOM, but at least he accepted the challenge.

But this brings me to the point of my story. It was a great feeling to put everything on the BOM, because it can support it. I didn´t have the slightest hesitation telling him that it contained what it contained. Now, based on his reaction to the challenge, it seems that he´s going to read it just to spite me and try to find some error in it. And no doubt he´ll find something to disagree with in his mind. But I felt satisfied with my effort. Most likely I´ll never see him again since he´s not in my area, but I´d like to find out what happens.

In short, that was one of the good experiences out here.

Some days the things that happen are a pain, and it seems like a bad day. Bad times like when the Internet doesn´t work on P-day, and your companion has been playing the "Sons of Provo" soundtrack for 5 weeks straight, and people aren´t understanding your Portuguese. But the good times like having good investigators seem to outweigh that.

So I hope everyone is good. I hear that Nate has his ups and downs in his mission, and that makes me feel better to know that someone else has hard times in their mission.

Well, enough insight/babbling from me for today.

Times up, and I´m tired of listening to this guy next to me listen to Maroon 5 and Kelly Clarkson. ‘Til next week!

Excelcior!

-Elder Luke Heperi