MORE ABOUT TONY

September 14, 2010 Tuesday

It’s been cloudy and a little windy the last couple of days, and today we woke up to rain. We’d been planning to go tracting this morning, but the rain slowed that idea down. We were sitting here studying when Tony, our camel guy, showed up. He cracks me up. He’s in his work shorts and shirt and carried in a bag which he set on the table. He pulled a big bottle of water out of it and a banana then came over and sat down. We asked about his baby and his wife, etc. They still haven’t decided on a name for her. He showed us a photo of her on his phone. You can tell she’s got Maori in her; she has a ton of black hair. We chit-chatted some more and then he asked us where the title “Elder” comes from. So he got a great lesson on the priesthood and church organization. Then he asked where the money comes from to pay for us to come over here. He was surprised to find out we were paying all our own expenses. Then he looked at all the church videos we have on a bookshelf here and asked where the money came from for all that. So Tony got a lesson on tithing. That led to fast offerings and the humanitarian work the church does. He acted like he was getting ready to leave but then asked, “Is it true that men in the church used to have more than one wife?” Well, that led to a great discussion of the fact that God can command anything at any time and then on into eternal marriage. We read some scriptures from the D&C that spoke very bluntly about the need for a man to be married and married by the proper authority if he wants his marriage to be eternal. Tony’s a smart guy. He didn’t say anything and neither did we, but we are pretty sure he got the message he should marry the mother of his two little kids. Finally, he sat up straight and said, “Wow! Thanks for the teachings.” We let him know he can come any time. He’s told us he has to learn at his rate, so we think these drop-in visits come when he’s ready for more. He’s such a good man. We are sure praying he’ll get a spiritual conversion with all this. He told us he and his family are headed to Perth in a couple of weeks so we gave him the address to the mission office and temple so he can see the temple. We also gave him President Cahoon’s phone number. He always asks about him. Then after Tony left we called President Cahoon to let him know he may be getting a phone call from Tony. He was excited.