Goodness. I love this time of the year.
Well, I would first off like to tell you of a cool experience I had this week. We were going out visiting people with this goofy old guy in our ward, but we love his guts. He is just the friendliest, most spiritually-centered person you'll have the pleasure of meeting. Well anyway, we went to go visit one of our investigators, and he told us that he had a question about the nature of God. So this good brother asked our investigator if he had a pen and a brown bag. So I let him use my pen. He started taking apart my pen and began explaining something to us. He said, (and this is me greatly paraphrasing) "There is essentially two main theories of how the world began. There is the belief in the Big Bang Theory. Which essentially says that there was organized chaos which all of a sudden worked itself into an entire universe. And from that a planet formed that was capable of supporting life. And from there a single celled-amoeba formed (he is explaining this all the while shaking the bag with the pen parts in it). And that formed into a two cells and then to a four cells. And so on and so forth until we have a human being. Now according to the Big Bang Theory, and according to its statistics, we can shake this bag a certain number of times and the pen will come out as a feasible working pen. Let's see if it worked." And he dumped the contents of the bag onto the desk and nothing had changed. He then said, "Now we as humans are far more complex than a pen. I believe that we were created. We were with our Father before we came to this Earth, and he sent us here as fallen, imperfect individuals to become a more dignified, sanctified person. Now the biggest difference between big bang theorists and creationists is that the one needs Christ and the other does not. Big bang theorists believe that we are just here. That there is no real reason to be here. But creationists NEED Jesus Christ, because only through him can we become better people. Only through him can we go on and learn about him to become more perfect people. And in religion I have found a home. Because it shows me that I can learn to bridle my emotions, to learn to distinguish between good and evil, and to learn how to become as my Father in Heaven is."
All in all, it was a rather spiritual lesson. And when you look at it, it only makes sense that we have a Father who is there to love us and help us become a better people, like any father would.
We also had a small miracle. On Wednesday, our mission instituted walking Wednesdays, so we spent the whole day "fasting" from our car to try and help out the work. Although I spent a good chunk of my mission walking, it has been a while since I hit the pavement. And even though I can say it felt good to be at it again, I can't lie and say my dogs weren't barking. But we spent the whole day trekking around Kalihi trying to find people to teach. Unfortunately no one was home, which made things worse. There was a few times that I was thinking, "Why are we doing this?" But we kept our spirits up! We also had a lesson with one of the guys who we are helping return to activity to look forward to that night! So we just kept our hopes up for that. This man texted us out of the blue, and told us that he wanted to come to church. He's a really really nice Samoan guy, and just has a strong desire to come unto Christ. Well anyway, his fiance was having a hard time with the whole "Mormon" thing and was nervous about the church. But we have been praying really hard for her heart to be softened to the gospel. So we had started teaching Nation (the Less Active guy) the Plan of Salvation and were about ten minutes in when we heard footsteps coming down the stairs. At first I got excited thinking Santa had come early, but in fact it was his Fiance! EVEN BETTER! She just slipped onto the coach next to her soon to be hubby and just carefully observed the things we were teaching. My companion and I kept teaching, and in fact thought what we both agreed was maybe the best lesson we've ever taught on our mission. The spirit was so strong, and the words were flowing out of our mouths. It was amazing! By the end of the lesson, Nation's fiance and Nation were just lighting up with the Spirit. They were smiling and we both could tell she had loved it. I know that it was a small miracle produced from the honest prayers of Nation and the diligence of my companion and me.
Anyway, God is good. I love you all! The Church is true. And Christmas is the best. Or rather Christ is the best.
Aloha,
Elder Gleave
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