This week has been an interesting one, filled with great things both good and bad. Monday evening, we started talking to somebody who works for a megachurch down here. He said that he works in their "healing department." He said he had a prompting from The Spirit that one of us was suffering from left shoulder pains. When we said that neither of us was, he quickly said that it was actually chronic headaches. Obviously, neither of us are. I told him that I did have a bit of a sore throat though, and so he said he would pray for me. He placed his hand on my chest and began to pray, which was a little weird, but I'm not ever going to say no to a prayer. It was weird though- as he was praying, he was asking God to heal my throat, and as he did so, my throat started feeling better. It helped me understand that God answers the prayers of all his children, not just the ones in his church. However, as soon as he started commanding the disease to leave my body, my throat started hurting again. Because he didn't have the authority to heal me himself, his attempt to do so did not work. Had he simply prayed for me, I have no doubt that my throat would've been immediately perfectly fine. However, since he didn't have the Priesthood, he couldn't bless me himself.
Later in the week was really awesome, because the Blue Angels were in the area. They were out practicing their maneuvers before their big show, so we got to see them do all sorts of tricks (they even did a barrel roll!). Fortunately, others were outside watching them too; the Blue Angels combined with the cooler weather we've been having lately made being outside so much more appealing to them. That meant that we were able to have much more success for those days than we did on others. Going up to people on the street and talking with them is SO much more effective tracting. The planes flying around also made for a great conversation starter.
When our area gained the other ward last week, we gained a new set of investigators as well. Something bad that happened yesterday was when an investigator of ours who we just gained (who has a baptismal date!) suddenly tried to drop us. We went over to her house and talked to her after church, and she said she had some concerns, especially about the three kingdoms. So many people get hung up on that, it bugs me to no end. People just need to understand that if they know Joseph Smith was God's prophet, they will believe in things like that, or the Word of Wisdom, or that the Book of Abraham was inspired, or eternal progression (seriously, Texans out here HATE that and attack it to no end), etc. and the way that they can know that is if they read the Book of Mormon. Seriously, EVERYTHING as a missionary depends on the Book of Mormon, and if an investigator's not reading it, they'll never gain a testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. Lindsey (the investigator with the baptismal date) said that she does want to talk with us and resolve those issues if possible though, so we're excited for that, and we're meeting with her again tonight. We're praying that it'll go well and that she will feel the Spirit again. We're worried that she might have had Favorite Missionary Syndrome (where an investigator gets really attached to a certain missionary and converts to them instead of the gospel), but we also know that even if she does, she can overcome it through Christ.
I hope you all have a great week!
Elder Jensen.
This is a map of the new part of my area.
This is the entirety of our area, old and new area included
A member sent me (Mom) this picture. She was impressed that he was on his second
large potato. I reassured her that he loves to eat!!
