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!