Hola a todos!
Some big news this week, I'm leaving Huercal-Overa! After only one transfer...which kind of stinks since I've just started to develop the relationships here with the people were teaching and our members. But, obviously the Lord wants me somewhere else now, so I'm going to a city called Algeciras! The really cool thing about this area is that it includes another city called Ceuta, which if you haven't heard of that (I can't imagine you somehow know about the international political relations of Spain) it is a small SPANISH city in the middle of MOROCCO. So once a week I'm going to Africa!! And everybody there is Muslim and speaks Arabic. We shall see how that goes. I'm so excited, though!
We made a *little* progress this week with our friends. We taught a lesson to Elia about eternal families and she completely agreed with what we were saying but the second that we mentioned baptism she once again said she wasn't ready. We pressed her why she was so hesitant, especially since she loves reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church. And she eventually told us she was waiting for a dream from God to tell her to join the church. I tried explaining that there are other ways we can know of the truth of spiritual things, like feelings of peace, and confirmation of truth, but she is pretty dead set on receiving a vision from God. Hopefully she'll receive it, because she has SO much faith. We can only pray and hope.
We also met with an interesting man this week that Elder Golightly had met on an exchange. He had originally railed on our church because he had been really traumatized by organized religion. But as he talked with us more and more he became more and more open to our message. We met him randomly one day this week in front of the church and had a conversation for 1.5 hours about the church and what we believe. We were able to testify of the plan of salvation, Joseph Smith, the power of the Holy Ghost, and more. He left still super skeptical but very much more interested, and told us he'd come back with even more questions. A lot of potential there!
We also visited this tiny little pueblo in the northern part of out area and it was absolutely beautiful. It was filled with tall trees and mountains and we loved it so much we stayed and did some door knocking and street contacting. We got very politely rejected at all of them. But we didn't care cuz it was BEAUTIFUL there. I'll attach some pictures.
In terms of spiritual matters, I got some cool impressions about the Book of Mormon while I was reading in the New Testament. In the gospel of Mark, Christ is out performing miracles, as per usual, when all of the sudden a bunch of unbelieving scribes come up and say that He could not possibly cast out devils by the power of God. Instead, they said, He was casting out devils by the power of Satan. Jesus turned back to them and said the famous quote, "...if a house be divided against itself, it cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end." It went against reason and logic that Satan would fight against his own demons, even more so use Christ as a vehicle for his purposes.
I thought about how this story applied to the Book of Mormon in particular. Many people have put forth theories for the Book of Mormon's existence, some of which include that Joseph Smith was inspired of the DEVIL. Whoaaaa, crazy, the Book of Mormon is Satanic! But for me, that makes completely, absolutely, undoubtedly zero sense.
Think about it this way: imagine Joseph Smith WAS being inspired by Satan to write it. He obviously is working to bring the children of God away from Him and break His commandments. And so what does he inspire Joseph Smith with?
"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ..." Moroni 10:32
That doesn't really ring as a nefarious Satan book to me.
Or how about: "I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell." 2 Nephi 33:6
Mmm, not quite. OK last try:
"And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved." Omni 1:26
Yeahhhh, no.
I am shocked that anyone would even try to say that the Book of Mormon comes from Satan. It logically does not make sense. But even more so, the Spirit has testified to me otherwise. I remember the feeling that I felt when I finished reading the Book of Mormon for our read-a-thon a couple months ago. I had felt so peaceful, so sure that Christ is my Savior, and that through Him I could be forgiven. I had wanted to drop every worldly thing that was holding me down and just follow Him. I'm not sure if the Book of Mormon was Satanic it would convince me so thoroughly that Christ is the Son of God and that He died for me.
The Book of Mormon is not of Satan. The Book of Mormon is not of men either. The Book of Mormon is of God. I'm pretty convinced of that at this point.
"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."
2 Nephi 32:3 (had to drop one more in there, sorry 😉)
¡Cristo vive! ¡El Libro de Mormón es verdadero!
¡Os amo muchísimo!
Elder Ritter
Fotos:
Da boys in the ascensor
Pic of an arch from that pretty town
Mountain pic
Calle pic
One of the members got a PEQUEÑITO PERRITO
