On Saturday, Elder Ayre and I went to meet a lady we met on the street the other night. We pulled up to McDonald's (because she wanted to meet there) and, as Elder Ayre and I walked in, we saw our investigator and two other people sitting with her. We went and introduced ourselves to them. One was an older guy and he introduced himself as Pastor Ralph. The other person was his wife. Pastor Ralph wanted to come with this lady that we had met the other night and find out what we were all about.
As the discussion started, we were able to resolve some misconceptions that Pastor Ralph had about the Mormon church. As we each told one another what we believed, we were able to find similarities in each religion. Pastor Ralph is a non-denominational Christian and has a great love for the Bible. We both had a central belief in Christ and we both believed the bible to be the word of God. However, he did believe in the trinity... that was one of the differences that we have. It was still okay because we were just trying to build bridges of understanding between the religions. After about an hour of this discussion, while trying to balance talking with Pastor Ralph and talking with our investigator, we were able to end on a good note -- leaving the Book of Mormon with our investigator and bearing testimony that she shouldn't just take our word that this was true but instead pray to God to know if the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Elder Ayre and I were PUMPED coming out of the lesson and can't wait to meet with our investigator again and also have good discussions with Pastor Ralph. Hopefully we'll be able to meet with him separately though so that there isn't so much confusion.
One other miracle, and cooler experience we had, was coming out of a lesson on Friday. We were getting ready to head to our next appointment when we received a call from a number that we didn't recognize. We answered the phone and the man introduced himself as Jay. He said that he didn't know who else to call and that we had left a card with him when we met him on the streets a couple of months earlier. He expressed that he felt as though he had hit rock bottom, so we offered to meet with him the following Sunday. We went over to his house on Sunday night to meet him which resulted in an amazing lesson. We got to know him and he just expressed how badly he wanted to change his life and find that hope that had been missing. He had a rough childhood and is now just trying to find work again. He feels like he has nobody to count on right now. We left him with a Book of Mormon and bore strong testimony that this book could change his life and bring him closer to God. Elder Ayre and I look forward to meeting with him in the next couple of weeks.
I know that the Lord puts his missionaries in the right place at the right time. I have seen that throughout this whole week and I'm glad the Lord trusts Elder Ayre and I enough to put these people in our path.
Love, Elder Calile
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