May 21, 2007

Dear everyone,

Well hello once again. Good week. It really was. A lot of things are happening here. Elder Weeks and I are getting along fine. We dropped 2 investigators this week because we really weren't going anywhere with them. It's funny because both of them had completely different problems. One of them just wanted to study the Bible with us and never took the step of praying about the Book of Mormon (and from his attitude probably never would) and the other was an old man who just couldn't comprehend the whole "one true church" idea. He loved the Book of Mormon but wanted to continue going to his other church.

Elder Weeks and I have decided to try to work even closer to the meetinghouse in just a few areas. So we did some tracting close to the church and found a family to teach. We got in a few other doors as well. We tracted even part of the neighborhood where we live and we found and scheduled a time to meet with them tomorrow night. We also ran into a white Irishman named Eric in his 60s. He was a nice man, but come to find out he had a bad experience with some LDS missionaries 40 some years ago in Ireland and since then he's held a grudge against the Church and everything we believe. We only talked to him for maybe 15 minutes but I guess he is a missionary as well here in Zambia. He's very educated and smart, and he said he has read the Book of Mormon numerous times, but he kept on commenting about how it contradicts the "accepted greek texts" and the "hebrew roots" of the Bible. Of course he knows his Bible ten times as well I know it, and he speaks greek and hebrew much better than me, but we kept asking him about personal revelation and prayer and he just denied it. What's interesting is that I have met so many many people who know their Bible backwards, forwards, and even diagonally, but guess what? Every single one of them belongs to a different denomination. Funny how that works, isn't it? All of them claim to have studied Greek and Hebrew to better understand the Bible, but they all STILL disagree. It really makes "when they are learned they think are wise and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside" seem a bit more real. Personal revelation isn't closed to anyone. If Eric or any other man or woman knelt down and sincerely asked God about something in faith, he would give them an answer! But so many people refuse to believe it so it never happens. Anyway, I found that quite interesting. Moral of the story: "ask and ye shall receive." Inversely, "ask not and ye shall never receive." If we're following a true prophet of God, we can know for ourselves that we are in the right path.

I love being a missionary! Until next week. . . .

love you all,
Elder Mckay J. Moline

P.S. I've been teaching Elder Weeks a bit of piano. We took the old keyboard from the meetinghouse and brought it to our house and now Elder Weeks is pretty much a virtuoso pianist. He can play the top note of a few different hymns and can tear up the "heart and soul" duet with me, haha.

P.P.S. I got a package yesterday! Thanks, family! I've hardly eaten anything yet, but I am oh so excited to later today.