Manoz

May 22, 2010 Saturday Afternoon

Tonight is the ward “get-acquainted” party. I wasn’t feeling good this morning, so we stayed home while I slept. Orson spent a couple of hours calling inactives on the list telling them about the party, then I did it for an hour and a half. We’ve arranged a ride for one of them. Orson found one who accepted a visit and I talked to several who were quite friendly.
This afternoon we are going to teach Manoz again. We’ve seen him everyday since Wednesday. Thursday, he didn’t seem as receptive because he didn’t see a need for the Book of Mormon. He’d read the 4 chapters in 3rd Nephi and it seemed the same as the Bible. So he wondered why we needed it and wouldn’t commit to baptism because he saw miracles in his own state of India. We weren’t as happy as we were leaving his place the first day. On Friday, Orson was inspired to have him read with us the verses in 2nd Nephi about the Bible and how things were taken out of it by evil people. Manoz then opened up about the wickedness of the Catholic priests in his home state and also how the Muslims did many miraculous seeming things but how they were done through the power of Satan. He began to see more fully the need for a restoration and was willing again to pray to have that confirmed and about reading the Bible. It was good. He’s planning to come to church (he learned to say “ch” in English with his tongue too far forward in his upper palate so “church” sounds like “turts” when he says it. He’s talking to his friend in Brisbane about everything we are teaching him and the friend is very interested to learn all about it. Today we will try to get his friends address and phone # so elders can be sent to him also. His friend is still working in Brisbane and sending Manoz money until Manoz finds a job. Then Manoz will send money to his friend so he can come to Perth and they can live together. What a neat thing for friends to do for each other!
He gave us his friend’s name and phone # in Brisbane. The lesson went well. He struggles with the “King James English” that the Book of Mormon is written in. Tonight he came to the ward party. We had a member, Aaron Martin, pick him up. The bishop showed him the chapel when we first got there. The dinner was organized so we sat at a different table for each course. Manoz found a woman who was born in India, so he sat at her table. From then on, he seemed to do okay on his own. When we left, he was busy talking to our new DL, Elder Shurtz. It’s been cool and rainy all day. It doesn’t rain for long at a time, but we’ve probably had an inch and a half today judging by the ice cream “bucket” out in back.