God is SO good!

Hey guys! Today was probably one of the most exciting days I've had in ministry here so far. I woke up this morning and knew we had quite a few things planned for the day, but I didn't know what was going to happen.

So, we started out the day skyping Allie, which was awesome to talk to her and just hear how things have been going with her and sharing what God has been doing in each of our lives.

Kelly left this morning for Chicago for a few days, so it's just Aubrey, Colleen, and I, as well as the team that's here from Oklahoma.

After Aubrey took Kelly to the airport, we got together and read some of the Book of Mormon in preparation of meeting with the Missionaries this afternoon. The conversations we've had with these two missionaries the past few weeks has been incredible. God has definitely been honored and glorified in and through our conversations.

The past couple weeks we've really just been discussing the Trinity and how much the Book of Mormon supports this concept. We started out with more of that conversation, and then we moved on to discussing epistemology but little did we know, God wanted these missionaries to see that His glory and His honor are more important than ANYTHING else. That's exactly what God got across through our conversation. 

We began to talk about the characteristics and the nature of God, and explaining the differences between the god of Mormonism, and the God we worship. As we were discussing, it became evident just how small the Mormon god is. In fact, they claim that god is subject to higher 'eternal principles' or eternal laws. Colleen went on just describing the differences and explaining that this foundational difference is where most of our doctrinal disagreements come from. She showed just how BIG our God is. It was incredible to see God just pouring the right words right into her mind. Praise Him! At the end of our conversation, the missionaries said that they really enjoyed how much Glory we gave to God. We said that if God didn't deserve that much Glory, if we were submitting to a god lesser than that, then he isn't worth worshiping.

After that, Aubrey and I got together to plan a Bible Study on Galatians 2, which is such a packed scripture that directly refutes the LDS idea that your works are what gain you merit before God. We ended up having Nathan, a Mormon guy who hangs out all the time over, and then some of our Christian friends here (Ron, Evelyn, Joe, and Jennifer). In addition we had a guy named Edwin who considers himself ex-Mormon, but he's still clinging to a lot of the LDS beliefs, including exaltation, or that you can become a god. It was good to have him there because he has a lot of truth and isn't afraid to speak his mind. We had a lot of good discussion over Galatians 2. 

However, the greatest miracle of all is that God brought our friend Ryan over. He originally intended on just coming over to pick up a few things he left here, but decided to have dinner and stay for the Bible study! Ryan is an interesting character, and it's really tough to judge where he is at spiritually, because he really enjoys arguing. He was baptized LDS a couple of years ago, and believes some of the same doctrines of the LDS church (exaltation being one of them). However, at times he seems like he's a moral relativist, so I find undertones of Agnosticism. Tonight, as we were going through the text, he starts asking questions like, "If obedience to the Law is not what pleases God, then how can we live a life that pleases God?" He also asked questions like "What does it look like to follow Christ, to believe in him?" At the end, we asked for prayer requests and after praying, he asked "Why do you pray to a God who is all-knowing and completely sovereign? It's not like your prayers will change His mind will they?"

It was a miracle that God has allowed us to meet with these missionaries, and that He brought Ryan and Edwin to our house, and just a further confirmation of how much God loves these guys. He loves them so much, he brought a guy from Iowa, a girl from California, a girl from Indiana/Ohio, and a girl from Denver/Chicago area to come here and share the Truth with them! That's pretty awesome! What a cool God we serve.


Ooh, and another miracle God's been doing is that he's pursuing our friend Becky as well. Becky is a ward missionary (basically the ward we go to has told her a to try and convert us to Mormonism this summer. Through that, Kelly and Aubrey have been meeting with her and having honest conversations about the Book of Mormon and the Bible. They made the agreement that Kelly and Aubrey would read parts of the BOM if Becky would read Romans.Through this Becky has a desire to know and understand more of the Bible!!! This is super uncommon for Mormons, who usually show little to no interest in the Bible. They've also been able to discuss Joseph Smith as a person, and whether or not he was a prophet etc. Praise God for opening doors for the Gospel to go deeply, your partnership through prayer has been incredible!


In addition to this, the team that is here was able to meet with Dave, a self-proclaimed Mormon "Apologist" for about 2 hours and to share truth with him. I'll do another post on Dave another time, it's getting late here haha.

These things are just a small evidence of how much God loves these lost people, and how much He desires for them to know Him! Pray for that!

Continue to pray specifically for:
God to give us the words to say in our last meeting with Elder Savoia and Elder Walz

God to continue to give me opportunities to pursue and share truth with Ryan and Edwin

God to use Kelly and Aubrey to pour into Becky's life

Pray that God would continue to draw these people unto Himself, and that we would be good stewards of the brief time we have left with these people!

Also pray that as we depart, God would continue to place Christians in their path, who can build relationships with, and continue to share truth with these people.
Pray for God to be glorified in and through us!

It's been a while

Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry about that, I'll try to be a bit more frequent with my posting. Life here in Utah has been pretty good the past few weeks. We've just been hanging out here in Ogden the past few weeks. Last week we had a break from teams and were able to just spend some time together as an intern family as well as having a week of rest and relaxation.

We've still been able to do quite a bit of ministry at Temple Square as well as just overtly through attending Ward every week. If you don't know what Ward is, it's the LDS version of a church congregation/church service. It's 3 hours long and includes the sacrament meeting, a Sunday school class, and the elder's quorum/priesthood session for men or relief society for women. Sacrament meeting is the most boring of the 3 hours. They sing a few hymns, two or three members are selected to get up and give a message on a pre-selected topic. In addition, they partake of the sacrament, which is bread and water. It's a pretty gross perversion of communion, first off because they use water instead of wine because Joseph Smith got 'revelation' from god saying that water should be used. (I use a lower-case god because the LDS god and the Christian God are two completely different beings.) Second of all they just buy regular old wheat bread from the store and cut it into pieces. Then the 'priesthood' blesses it with a 'prayer' and it's handed out. Lastly, the entire purpose of the sacrament is to renew your covenant of baptism with God that you will be obedient to His commandments. It really has nothing to do with Christ, and completely with your own worth and obedience.

Sunday School is quite a bit better. We've been attending a New-Testament class right now, and we're going through the Book of Matthew right now. We're able to share bits of truth throughout the class, although sometimes the teacher will ignore and not call on us, since they don't like what we have to say. It amazes me how, when we do share truth, it goes right over their heads or they don't even contemplate it. Kelly always whispers or yells "BIRDS!" after the service, equating it to the parable of the sowers, where the seed falls on rocky soil and the birds come and snatch it up. Satan has placed blinders over these people's eyes and it's so frustrating to see truth ignored!

Elder's quorum is always interesting, and we're going through the Gospel Principles manual. To me it seems like we always talk about behavior modification or how we serve God to receive blessings, or how important it is to live worthily because as they said last Sunday, "God needs us to be the men and proper priesthood holders here on the Earth." I felt like shouting, "God doesn't need you. He's so much bigger than you can even imagine." That's the thing with the LDS, they diminish who God is by limiting Him to being a former man who is and will eternally be progressing and growing.

This past week was extremely encouraging. The Blue House played host to 22 Chinese people from California. Their servant heart was incredible. They came in with the mindset of service, and man did they serve. They were up at 6 AM every morning and went to work by 6:30 every single morning. They were able to paint the Blue House, fix several problems with the ceiling, and do some construction work on a fellowship room at Joe Filer's house. We as an intern family were very encouraged and enjoyed the brief time we had with the team.

Prayer requests:
Pray for the people we've been able to meet with regularly: Ryan, Nathan, Kyle, Nathan, Tyler, Becky, Elder Savoia, Elder Walz, and the countless Sister Missionaries we meet on Temple Square every week.
Pray for the team that is here currently, and the last two teams that will be coming in the next few weeks.
Pray for unity among our team, that God continues to grow us together and to enjoy quality fellowship time.
Pray God continues to draw more workers to this tough mission field.
Pray for my focus as I'm growing anxious to be back to school.

If you have any questions or would like to know anything at all, feel free to email me at any time: casey.dague@gmail.com

God Bless!

God's love

One thing about God-He’s infinite. God isn’t confined to anything, and there is nothing that can rein Him in. And what that means is that His attributes have no end, either. They are as infinite as His being, and so much bigger than we can imagine. That includes His love. It’s so big, so intense, so unfathomable, that we would cease to exist if He ever revealed it in full measure to us. 1 John 3:1 says, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are…” That is the God we serve.

                That is the God that brought me out to Utah this summer, along with four other interns. The reason we came-His love. But not His love for us. His love for the LDS church and the people trapped within its walls of legalism and deceit, masked by serenity. God loves these people, with a perfect love we can only dream of. He loves them enough to use UPFC and weak, wimpy, unknowledgeable people like myself in showing the real Him to these people. That is why this place exists.

                His love has been revealed to me in awesome ways this past month, and I have seen firsthand the persistency with which He pursues people. It is so humbling to remember that a very short time ago I was that very sinner, running from a loving, pursuing Savior. God wants people to come to Him for His glory, and I can promise that He will not get discouraged, but will wait patiently (because His patience is infinite as well) no matter how many times a person turns his/her back. God loves…if nothing else, be encouraged by that truth.

Allie 

I love my summer family!

The past week has been a great and well needed time of rest and relaxation. The Blue House hasn't had a mission team for most of the week, so we as interns have had the opportunity to relax and spend more time bonding and growing closer together as a group. I've got to say, I'm really encouraged by my summer Blue House family living here with me this summer. They love Jesus, and it's so great to see His love flow through them.. It's also been nice to have Colleen's boyfriend Ryan hanging out a lot since it's me and 4 girls living here this summer. 

The Interns from Left to Right:
Me-


Aubrey - Aubrey is from Indiana and goes to Ohio State. She dated a Mormon guy and through that investigated and learned a lot about the Mormon church. God called her here to ministry for the summer.Check out her blog here


Colleen (Under the Statue) Went to college in Iowa, now goes to Denver Seminary. She has several family members who are Mormons, and felt God calling her here for ministry this summer. She will be here the entire summer.


Allie- Allie and I have known each other for a few years now. She and I go to Iowa State together and are involved in The Salt Company (A college ministry on campus). She definitely has a heart for Mormons and will be here until mid-July.


Kelly- Kelly is from California and came to Utah last summer for a short term mission trip and God called her here long term. She has been living in Utah since the beginning of the year and will be here for the entire calendar year. Check out her blog here.


Vicky(pictured below)- She and her husband Bobby were here for 3 weeks from England. They have a heart for Mormons and contribute to a ministry called Reachout Trust, which investigates and presents information on different cults from a Christian perspective. Check out Bobby's blog here.

It's definitely interesting how God has called such a unique group to come together and serve Him together, and it's been great to have the opportunity to grow closer as a family and understand the uniqueness God has gifted each of us with.


Anyways, on Wednesday night we have Bible study and so far we're going through the book of Hosea and just looking at God's love for His people, and how un-deserving we are of it. It's been really cool because a Mormon guy named Nathan has come the past 2 weeks and has really been presented with the true Gospel.
That's another cool thing God is doing. He has given us the opportunity to develop a Christ-centered community at the Blue House. We have community meals most nights of the week, pancakes Thursday mornings, Bible Study on Wednesday nights, bonfires, and movie nights. Through this God has been providing us with 2 Mormon guys, Nathan and Kyle, that have been hanging out a lot, as well as an Atheist named Chris, and many Christians. You can read more about our community here.