Wow, can we just start off by saying that conference was
A-MAZ-ING. Honestly, how do people hear these men speak and then just not line
up at the baptismal font? I especially enjoyed the priesthood session as well
as the talk by Elder Lynn G Robbins. He is becoming one of my favorite speakers
along with Uchtdorf and Elder Oaks.
The weather here really nice and I'm enjoying the work. I just found out I'll be staying here for another two months as zone leader. I am so dang happy.
Something that is a little less spiritual that has been
going on for about a month here in Chile. So apparently there is some medium or
something that received revelation and printed it out and published it online
as the letters of salvation, or some crap like that. It seems that they target
young people through social media, give them a list of scriptures and ideas
from the Bible, and then send them out to fight with pretty much everybody. These
people have cornered a lot of members and most of them just walk away or tell
them to get lost, but many have also been affected by the information and
things they say.
They yell at us in the street and say terrible things, but
we are pretty used to that so to be honest I just thought they were Catholics
or Anglican. I had no idea it was some new non-denominational religious
movement. Well I did a division with another companionship and went to a
different area for a few days while Griffin stayed in our area. The Elder I was
with, Elder Gonzalez, has a broken foot and can’t leave much so we studied a
lot in the apartment and left from time to time to go to lunch and stretch our
legs.
On our way to lunch we walked through the main square of the
neighborhood and were just lucky enough to walk through a crowd of these
preachers. They started yelling about Joseph Smith and our Mormon bible – blah,
blah, blah, and we just kept walking. We were still walking when one screamed
to the crowd who was there listening that those who are of false faiths run at
the sight of the truth and that is what we were doing. I have honestly never
argued with anyone here as a missionary because I have never felt the slightest
inclination to do so. However when they said that, something just exploded
inside. I was SO angry and I was very surprised because being that angry was
irrational.
I looked at Elder Gonzalez and he was already turning around
and walking back. I told them they had already attacked us twice and that we
were willing to walk away, but if they kept going then the biblical promise of
being attacked three times would come to pass and they would be destroyed. To
which one responded by opening his Bible and condemning us, our saints, our
families, and pretty much anyone who had ever laid eyes on us. They talked
about the Sabbath day and the Law of Moses and false prophets and many other
things.
I picked up two of the Bibles they were using, handed one to
Gonzalez and then we went to town. Short version: We taught the plan of
Salvation and the doctrine of the three kingdoms of glory, that modern revelation
is real and that Joseph´s ministry was prophesied over 3000 years ago. We
destroyed the whole Saturday is the Sabbath thing and preached the true order
of baptism. We established the reality of an apostasy and the need for a restoration
and then finished with a prophecy from Jesus Christ himself - the wolves that
attack the just. Then with the Bible proved they had either called Christ a
liar, which is punishable by being stoned to death, or that they had disobeyed
Christ´s law, also punishable by being stoned to death.
The leader of these guys didn’t know what to say and just
started spewing out random crap. We responded by bearing our testimonies of how
hard their hearts were and commanding them in the name of Christ to repent or
to go away and continue serving the devil until Christ decides to strike them
down. We told them to pray and ask God if these things were true and told them
they were false prophets. The leader took his Bible back and stormed away and
the other 10 guys that were with him left quietly as well. We told the people listening
that the people who are of false faiths run at the sight of the truth. Then we turned
around and went to lunch.
The church is true. We can come to know it the easy way by
praying and asking, or the hard way by looking for every single answer in the Bible
and being humbled by the Lord. Either way, it is still true.
Elder Rich
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