This week was way awesome!

We were planning on having a lot of investigators at church again, but the family that we were planning on coming got sick, so they couldn't make it, and so I was sitting there in church, we only had one investigator with us, and I was just kind of bummed, cause no one else came that said they would. After the sacrament though, in comes that 16 yr old, Joseph, the one from Nigeria! And he was kind of shy cause he was late, but we called him over. He stayed, and the other investigator couldn't, and he said he would like to go in with the other youth, so he did. Then in gospel principles, there was this one guy who just came to church because his girlfriend is a member, and invited him to go. But she isn't in our ward, but he lives in our boundary! He is only 17, but looks like he's in his 20's, and really smart, and asked the best questions! We got all his info to go back and visit him. 

We also had a great lesson with Joseph, and gave him a Book of Mormon, and I seriously think he would be the kind of person to read a lot, I really hope so!

We are talking to SO many people, it is crazy, I seriously have no fear of talking to people, it is a lot easier with a name badge on though ha. But we ran into a lot of foreigners this week, most of them end up being priests or nuns, but they are still way nice. We even talked to a french guy! And he gave us his address and everything!!!! But the writing was pretty bad so we couldn't read it, so we were kind of bummed, but you know what happened, we ran into a different french guy the next day! Seriously what are the odds. He said he had never heard of our church but he didn't believe in God, so he didn't want to give us his address, which was kind of a bummer. I thought how sad that has got to be, no belief in God, but maybe a seed is planted, and he will run into some more missionaries. BUT, he was able to read the writing from the guy the day before, so we still can give that as a referral, Blessings! 

A sad/cool/weird thing was I could not remember french. It was so frustrating! I knew Je meppell or however you spell it, but that was it, only tagalog was popping into my brain. Not that I was ever that good at french, but seriously, ugh. I really should've studied harder or tried to always remember it haha

One thing that I have seen a lot is people choosing religion because of family. Like majority of people here are Catholic, so they are baptized as babies, and everyone tells us, "I'm Catholic" but then they tell us they don't go to church there, they don't really do anything, basta, they are Catholic... But also, it is very common for people to be married, and one of them, usually the girl, but sometimes the guy, will switch religions like it's nothing. This is why conversion is so important. True conversion does not go away when a better circumstance appears. True conversion is a process, and it takes prayer, and studying the scriptures. Before being baptized, we have to meet qualifications for baptism, we have to repent, and we have to understand that baptism is a sacred promise with our Heavenly Father. We need to always be striving to converting ourselves, to always examine how we can do better, and better understand gospel principles. Changing religion for family, marriage, or political reasons is not true conversion. Even if we have family that is of a faith, and we are born into this faith, we should strive to become converted, not just go through the motions. I read in Matthew 10:37, "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me..." We need to be converted to Christ on our own, we cannot rely on other's testimony to carry us. 

Another cool thing, is we downloaded a bunch of talks on mp3, just to listen to, and they are so awesome. I am so grateful for modern apostles and modern prophets in our day. I seriously learned something new from each talk, even when I played it back a few times. We are so blessed to have this modern revelation for us in these days. 

I hope everyone has a great week! 

-Elder Rock