Okay this week was great.
We went on exchanges and went to this park called Park De La Cité. Beautiful park.
And for some reason that day the park was filled with Chinese people.
I was a little way off and I saw my companions talking to this guy. I walked up and I heard the guy say,
"I only speak Chinese"
(or something like that, I'm paraphrasing.)
And I immediately just blert out that good 'ol NIHAO.
And me and this old kind Chinese guy start having a conversation. I tell him we're missionaries and that we believe in God and asked him if he does. He said he didn't. It didn't get really anywhere, but it was cool to use my language.
We walk down the road a bit and see a bunch more Chinese people doing taichee. (However you spell it)
Hearing Chinese people talking and having a good time made me happy cause it felt like I was in China again.
I was the only Elder who spoke Chinese at the moment so I had to trust that the Lord would put the right words into my mouth.
I talked to at least 5 Chinese people. It was awesome. We got 1 email, the rest were well aged people who don't really believe in having cell phones on them. Lol.
(I haven't been using my language that much recently) I knew it was the gift of tongues cause I was surprised that I was speaking with a lot of confidence. I was like... this is not normal.
I may have not spoken the best, but I didn't feel afraid.
ALso we have a new friend named Richard.
He is from another church, but that's not stopping us from at least sharing what we believe.
Elder Loveland met him a while back at the park and got his number. He was a bit difficult to get in contact with cause it took us about a month or so to finALLy meet him in person.
We finally meet him at the church and we give him a chapel tour. We talked about the Book of Mormon and how it is like the bible. He was really interested.
We eventually sat down and talked for like 40 minutes. He shared his testimony about how and when he recieved a testimony that God was there for him, and then asked us when was the point in our lives where we recieved a testimony of Him.
We all shared and bore testimony. I told him that nothing insane happened to me, but that I have felt that pure joy and peace when I was in need of it. And the feelings I felt when I prayed and asked if the Book of Mormon was true.
Afterwards we talked more about the Book of Mormon and compared it to scriptures in the Bible such as John 10:16
16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd
The coolest part of that lesson was near the end when he said,
"Man, if this is all true.. Then this would be amazing!"
That literally made me so happy. We bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and that it is the word of God as well as the bible (as far as it is translated.)
We are going to give him a French Book of Mormon this week
This family is wonderful. They have 3 sons 2 daughters. Younger son and daughter are not baptized yet.
To sum it all up really shortly: The dad doesn't want to force it on them, he wants them to choose. Makes sense, totally agree. But we still have to be careful how we approach it cause we do not want to offend him or make it feel like we're pressuring his kids.
But a lesson before he said that we can still teach them about baptism. So that's exactly what we did.
It was a wonderful lesson, the kids are also super smart and intelligent. The younger son asks super good questions. And in my head I'm like "he's ready!" And the otherside of me is like "patience"
In our next lesson we are going to invite the kids if they want these blessings, or in other words, if they want to be baptized. But before we invite them, we're going to text the Father and ask him if it's okay if we extend this invitation to them (just to be safe)
'Twas a good week. And no I didn't invite anyone to be baptized this week cause a lot of our friends were busy. But having that mindset made the week SO much more fulfilled
PEACE
—ELDER JOHNSON