Monday, January 9, 2017

My Testimony

January 9, 2017

Hello Hello and welcome to another segment of, "The Life of a Missionary in the Best Mission There Ever Was" (for those of you that don't know...it's the CALIFORNIA FRESNO MISSION!!!)

HAHA Hope everyone had a great week!!

This week Elder Blume and committed 5 people to baptismal dates!!! We do this because we "Fear NO Man!" (for those of you that have read the Riccardi letter, you understand that).

On Tuesday we found a new investigator named Isaac. He has a pretty interesting conversion to coming to Christ. He attends a satellite church to the Nazarene church in Visalia. He and his wife are youth teachers there. Anyways, the other day he started texting us and asking about things that we are pretty sure he got anti-ed about and hardly gave us a chance to respond before sending something else to us!! Eventually we had just enough space to send a couple messages off to him and now we are going to see him tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure how this is all going to go down; but I know he wants to Bible bash (mostly cause the told us to bring our books and to be ready....) I know I'm not going to Bible bash, but I'm still a little nervous I guess. I want to testify boldly with the Spirit of the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. And if he doesn't adhere or listen to the Spirit, then we'll leave. I don't think he understands that there is NO Spirit whatsoever in Bible bashing. So pray for me and Elder Fernandez (we're going on exchanges in my area tomorrow) that we will have the Spirit with us in that lesson with Isaac. All I really want is to help this man feel the Spirit and not believe the anti stuff he seems to now believe. We'll see how it goes!! 

We also got to meet with Edward and Elida twice this week. They are kind of slowly progressing. They didn't come to church this week (Elida was sick so last night we went over and gave her a blessing!!). Elida read from the Book of Mormon but Edward did not. They do feel the Sprit when we read together though!! So that's exciting! We talked about marriage with Edward and the mood changed a little. Haha he started firing questions at us and then we got to talking about temples! So we left them to pray about getting married and baptism on February 11! Before we left, Edward said something along the lines of, "If I'm going to get married again, I'm going to have a big one and go out with a bang!" I love him. He's so awesome! 

I love all our investigators!! This week we also found a guy named Ricky who we are hoping to go have lunch with at the pizza place he works at today after emailing! We set a date with Ricky for February 18th. He's lived a crazy life, a lot of the people we teach usually have. But he wants to give it to God. Something he struggles with, as I'm sure a lot of us do, is that he knows that God has forgiven him of his past, but he has a hard time forgetting them. I'm excited to keep working with Ricky.

The Exeter ward had their fast Sunday yesterday, and based on recent events (he experience with Isaac), I decided that I was going to bear my testimony (well...actually the Spirit told me I was going to go give my testimony...).


SIDE NOTE: For those of you who don't know, I have this super irrational fear about getting up behind the pulpit. I'll do almost any other kind of speaking event without too much stress, but behind the pulpit at church; I feel as though hands are never colder and my stomach has never been so scrambled. So the fact that I voluntarily went up there and bore testimony is HUGE!

Ok sorry about that!! SO I went up to the pulpit and....I froze and ran out of the ROOM! Haha just kidding, I was so overcome with the Spirit. I went up there and I very boldly testified of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and I want to bear it to you guys too! 

I know the Book of Mormon is true with all my heart. I don' care what anyone tries to tell me, show me, etc... It's still true. You could give me physical evidence that the Book of Mormon is not true and I still wouldn't believe it. Because the Spirit DOES NOT LIE. GOD. DOES. NOT. LIE. 
I know without a shadow of a doubt that Joseph Smith acted out in pure, innocent faith when he prayed to god and asked which church was true. I know he saw God the Father and His Son, Our Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that because of that experience, my life has been changed forever. And if you don't know that this message is true, PRAY! Ask God, with REAL INTENT if it is true. I can promise you, that He will answer that prayer with a YES!! In one way, shape, or another, if we are humble and listening to our Father in Heaven, He WILL manifest the truth of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration to you by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And if you do know this message, it is our sacred duty as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to proclaim the truthfulness of this message to the world!! Or if we're worries about what the world has to say, which we shouldn't be, then at least tell your neighbors. As it says in D&C 88: 81, "...it hath been given every man that hath been warned, to warn his neighbor." We've all been warned. So we have an obligation to God to do something about it. 

I know that God lives, that He sent His Son to die for each and every single one of us so that we can and will live again. 

I love you all and hope you know that I know this church is true and that you know it to be true in your hearts too.

In the name of our Beloved Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Elder Richardson



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