NOW THAT'S A HAMBURGER!

February 10, 2011 Wednesday

Yesterday morning we went to teach James Mikaere. He’s the fellow who bore his testimony in church Sunday. He’s really a nice guy and trying hard to change because his 2nd marriage has fallen apart. We reviewed the first lesson about the restoration and especially the Book of Mormon. He hasn’t done a lot of reading even though the elders taught him the 1st and 2nd lessons. But he is solid. He’s trying now to quit smoking and really wants to have a good relationship with his kids. I think his drinking was a big problem for his family. Right at the end of the lesson, his son, Jay, came in. He’s 19 and was friendly. It would be great if we can teach him too. We told James to bring him to church.
Last night we went to the mission leader’s home for dinner and a first discussion with a young man who is engaged to marry a member girl. Dinner was great—Australian hamburgers. They served bread instead of buns and that became a challenge since bread doesn’t hold together as well. Here’s what was there to put on them: thick meat patties, fried eggs, caramelized onions, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, and all the regular mayo, ketchup, BBQ sauce that you wanted. They also served fries, but remember that they call them “chips” over here. After dinner we gave Ben the lesson. His girlfriend was there also. He’s a uni student planning to become a math teacher. He took the lesson really well and we felt the spirit as we were teaching. We had to leave right after the lesson, but they stayed and talked about the church with the mission leader and his wife for another hour. They said he was excited to start reading the stuff we’d given him: The Joseph Smith pamphlet, the Restoration Pamphlet, and the Book of Mormon. School starts next week, so he didn’t schedule another lesson, but he did tell them he would see them on Sunday.
This morning we visited Yingping. She was happy to see us. We had called her and offered her a blessing before her test on Saturday. We explained a little bit about it and then Orson gave her the blessing. The spirit there was very strong and she felt it. She always says she feels things but wonders if it’s her imagination. We told her for sure that it was the presence of the Holy Ghost she felt.
Then we went to teach the Sotos, the young couple that was baptized in October and November. What a privilege that was! These two have had just a ton of problems for years. After the birth of their baby 7 years ago, the mom went into a serious depression which combined with his problems made it necessary for them to live with her parents for the first 3 years of their daughter’s life. When they moved out, the daughter stayed with the grandma. Rod had had a lot of contact with Mormons and finally asked for missionaries to visit them. Pauline, who’d had no religious background, just ate it up; it took Rod a little longer because he had been “researching” all the big questions of life for 10 years and had all kinds of theories of his own. But they did recognize it as truth and were baptized. Since they’ve been in the church, they’ve brought their daughter into their home and are loving being parents. Both of them have also started studying to improve their lives. They recognize it as true blessings from the Lord. We spent an hour talking about the first two principles of the first lesson: God is Our Loving Heavenly Father & The Gospel Blesses Families. They just ate up what we talked about. Once again the spirit was incredibly strong and they asked if we could come back to teach them twice a week. (It’s the New Member Lessons that we are doing with them.)
This afternoon we went with Brother Prall to visit a neighbor family of his. They are from Burma and are refugees. The parents are in their 50’s and they have 5 kids. The children are all studying. It was very difficult to communicate with them and eventually everyone except one son wandered off. He spoke English the best. The family is Baptist. There are many Christians in Burma because of the English who ran the country for many years. The country now is controlled by a dictator who has the backing of the army and it is pretty much a communist state. They attend a church here that conducts services in the afternoon on Sundays in a language they all understand. We left a “17 Points of the True Church” with them. It would be very difficult to teach them because of the language barrier. Even talking with and understanding what the son who spoke the best English said was very difficult.
It’s been a good couple of days. The Lord has blessed us so much.