So, this was a very interesting week. To start things off, I'll talk about my new son! His name is Elder Beaufeaux. He's from Heber, AZ, and is the 2nd of 8. He's 19, and took a few college classes from home before leaving for mission. He's a great guy, and is doing very well. He's very humble, and wants to do missionary work, as well as be a missionary (yes, there is a big difference). I admit, I'm quite surprised that the Lord has blessed me with two humble missionaries. I was kind of afraid that I was going get one of those hard-headed missionaries who are only here because someone sent them, rather than having a sincere desire to serve. So, I've been unexpectedly blessed once more. I am also really enjoying this wonderfully inspired training program. It truly is inspired by God, and I'm excited for it. It's taking some time to adjust, as it's a very new system, and the packet thingy has some obvious growing pains, but we're doing well.
As for the week, the main thing has to do with an investigator. Now, I don't want to use his name, but I'll call him Kofi - that's not his real name. It's not even his real day name. Anyways, we were teaching "Kofi" and I don't want to talk about too much detail, as I might have mentioned it before, so I'll skip to the point. He came out the other day with the problem that his daughter's "boyfriend," you could say, paid the knocking (right to court her) to another man - not her father, Kofi. Now, this is an incredible insult; there are few things that could do more insult than this. However, Kofi let it be for some time. The problem became worse, however, when his mother-in-law, a fettish preistess (yes, that's a real thing; some kinda traditional culture thing. I wont go into it here; most people dont like the fettish though), was found to be the cause of it all; she had directed the boy to pay the knocking to the other man. This man was really smug about it, and all sorts of other cultural things played in here, which finally resulted in Kofi wanting to beat the man when he saw him next. He was stopped, but his anger was such that he went and paid a local oracle (yea, we have those here) to curse the man and his family.
Now, at this point, most of you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking "Riiiiight; he cursed him. Ok." But this is a real deal here; it is in their beliefs, despite their Christian religion. It's very hard, but they do still have traditional beliefs in smaller gods, as well as belief in God. They just feel God is more powerful than all the other gods, and that curses and stuff are from Satan. Now, before you laugh too much, know this: the man Kofi cursed died soon afterwards. Regardless of what we believe, Kofi was certain that was due to the curse, and he felt responsible. He has been going around all these years with the fear that he killed that man - and in all honesty, he had that intent in his heart, regardless of the reality of such curses - and now he fears that, unless reversed, he will be the cause of death for the entire family. He stopped going to church because of this some years ago. When we first started teaching him, he felt something and decided to start church again - this time, at the Lord's Church. However, certain problems arose, and it's caused him to question himself again. He feels he's in a dark abyss (my words) where Satan has such powerful hold over him, and because of how wicked he is, we can't go to Church and worship God, nor read the scriptures nor handle anything holy. We shared this scripture with him:
"And behold, ye shall meet together oft; and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not; But ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name... And ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world" (3 Nephi 18:22-23,25).
We discussed that God commands all of us - liar, thief, transgressor, or stripling warrior - to come unto Him, that we might feel and see His love. We helped him see that Satan is wanting him to leave God, to keep him from coming unto Christ. He kept mentioning that Satan is like a bad animal, and we expounded that. Satan IS a bad animal, and God is a good animal; the two of them are always fighting within us. Then we mentioned that the one which wins is the one we feed.
He thought about that for a while, and then turned and looked at us, and started to chuckle, and said "You aren't going to give up on me." "No," we replied, "we're not. So long as you are willing to do your best, we are going to be right here to help you." We discussed for a bit longer, and left him Alma 7:11-12 to help him see how the Savior has felt all his pains and sorrows, and is there to help.
We ended there, and got a call later on Saturday. He told us that he had read the two places we left (3 Nephi 18 and Alma 7) and was so very thankful for them. He understood them very well, and felt the Spirit, and would be coming on Sunday. The best part? He came! Sunday, we saw him at Church, and they gave two talks in Sacrament about repentance, and the lesson in Elder's Quorum was on - yup! - repentance. It was incredible how the Lord tailored everything to his needs.
I share this with you, because I feel that so many of us feel unworthy to come unto the Lord. So many of us feel that we have gone too far down that dark and dangerous road, that broad and wide path that leads to misery and endless woe, in order to come unto the Lord and beg for forgiveness. This is a terrible lie! We have never gone too far down the road, strayed too far off the strait and narrow, for the Lord to bring us back. Satan would have us believe that we are not worthy to come unto the Lord, for "the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray" (2 Nephi 32:8). But as the Lord has said, "ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see." As Nephi puts it, "if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray" (2 Nephi 32:8). The Lord has made this promise: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). Heavy laden includes the weight of guilt and sin. If we will come unto the Lord, He will give us rest; He will forgive us our sins.
For all of you out there, be you members of the Church or not, believers in Jesus Christ or not, this promise is for all. I testify that these things are true. What do you have to lose? What could possibly keep you from putting these things to the test? This promise is for you; it always has been, and always will be. Yea, I would exhort you, even as Mormon does, that ye would "pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons [and daughters] of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure" (Moroni 7:48).
You do not have to start out a true follower of Jesus Christ for these blessings to come upon you. Even as Alma said, "if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words" (Alma 32:27). If you can simply desire to believe these things; desire to receive that rest, that release of guilt and depression, and come to love yourself for who you are; if you would simply desire that, then you can begin to believe these words. You can begin the experiment, and come to know the truthfulness of these things for yourself. Yea, even you can "have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise" (Moroni 7:41).
Read the Book of Mormon. Go to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Pray unto God, that you might come to know of His glory. Do these things, and you will receive His promised blessings. For, as Alma said, "if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst" (Alma 32:41-42).
I know these things are true. I love you all. Take care, and God bless!
--Elder Collings
As for the week, the main thing has to do with an investigator. Now, I don't want to use his name, but I'll call him Kofi - that's not his real name. It's not even his real day name. Anyways, we were teaching "Kofi" and I don't want to talk about too much detail, as I might have mentioned it before, so I'll skip to the point. He came out the other day with the problem that his daughter's "boyfriend," you could say, paid the knocking (right to court her) to another man - not her father, Kofi. Now, this is an incredible insult; there are few things that could do more insult than this. However, Kofi let it be for some time. The problem became worse, however, when his mother-in-law, a fettish preistess (yes, that's a real thing; some kinda traditional culture thing. I wont go into it here; most people dont like the fettish though), was found to be the cause of it all; she had directed the boy to pay the knocking to the other man. This man was really smug about it, and all sorts of other cultural things played in here, which finally resulted in Kofi wanting to beat the man when he saw him next. He was stopped, but his anger was such that he went and paid a local oracle (yea, we have those here) to curse the man and his family.
Now, at this point, most of you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking "Riiiiight; he cursed him. Ok." But this is a real deal here; it is in their beliefs, despite their Christian religion. It's very hard, but they do still have traditional beliefs in smaller gods, as well as belief in God. They just feel God is more powerful than all the other gods, and that curses and stuff are from Satan. Now, before you laugh too much, know this: the man Kofi cursed died soon afterwards. Regardless of what we believe, Kofi was certain that was due to the curse, and he felt responsible. He has been going around all these years with the fear that he killed that man - and in all honesty, he had that intent in his heart, regardless of the reality of such curses - and now he fears that, unless reversed, he will be the cause of death for the entire family. He stopped going to church because of this some years ago. When we first started teaching him, he felt something and decided to start church again - this time, at the Lord's Church. However, certain problems arose, and it's caused him to question himself again. He feels he's in a dark abyss (my words) where Satan has such powerful hold over him, and because of how wicked he is, we can't go to Church and worship God, nor read the scriptures nor handle anything holy. We shared this scripture with him:
"And behold, ye shall meet together oft; and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not; But ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name... And ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world" (3 Nephi 18:22-23,25).
We discussed that God commands all of us - liar, thief, transgressor, or stripling warrior - to come unto Him, that we might feel and see His love. We helped him see that Satan is wanting him to leave God, to keep him from coming unto Christ. He kept mentioning that Satan is like a bad animal, and we expounded that. Satan IS a bad animal, and God is a good animal; the two of them are always fighting within us. Then we mentioned that the one which wins is the one we feed.
He thought about that for a while, and then turned and looked at us, and started to chuckle, and said "You aren't going to give up on me." "No," we replied, "we're not. So long as you are willing to do your best, we are going to be right here to help you." We discussed for a bit longer, and left him Alma 7:11-12 to help him see how the Savior has felt all his pains and sorrows, and is there to help.
We ended there, and got a call later on Saturday. He told us that he had read the two places we left (3 Nephi 18 and Alma 7) and was so very thankful for them. He understood them very well, and felt the Spirit, and would be coming on Sunday. The best part? He came! Sunday, we saw him at Church, and they gave two talks in Sacrament about repentance, and the lesson in Elder's Quorum was on - yup! - repentance. It was incredible how the Lord tailored everything to his needs.
I share this with you, because I feel that so many of us feel unworthy to come unto the Lord. So many of us feel that we have gone too far down that dark and dangerous road, that broad and wide path that leads to misery and endless woe, in order to come unto the Lord and beg for forgiveness. This is a terrible lie! We have never gone too far down the road, strayed too far off the strait and narrow, for the Lord to bring us back. Satan would have us believe that we are not worthy to come unto the Lord, for "the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray" (2 Nephi 32:8). But as the Lord has said, "ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see." As Nephi puts it, "if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray" (2 Nephi 32:8). The Lord has made this promise: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). Heavy laden includes the weight of guilt and sin. If we will come unto the Lord, He will give us rest; He will forgive us our sins.
For all of you out there, be you members of the Church or not, believers in Jesus Christ or not, this promise is for all. I testify that these things are true. What do you have to lose? What could possibly keep you from putting these things to the test? This promise is for you; it always has been, and always will be. Yea, I would exhort you, even as Mormon does, that ye would "pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons [and daughters] of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure" (Moroni 7:48).
You do not have to start out a true follower of Jesus Christ for these blessings to come upon you. Even as Alma said, "if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words" (Alma 32:27). If you can simply desire to believe these things; desire to receive that rest, that release of guilt and depression, and come to love yourself for who you are; if you would simply desire that, then you can begin to believe these words. You can begin the experiment, and come to know the truthfulness of these things for yourself. Yea, even you can "have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise" (Moroni 7:41).
Read the Book of Mormon. Go to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Pray unto God, that you might come to know of His glory. Do these things, and you will receive His promised blessings. For, as Alma said, "if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst" (Alma 32:41-42).
I know these things are true. I love you all. Take care, and God bless!
--Elder Collings
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