Monday, March 31, 2014

A Good Samaritan, and a Sad Scientist



(two letters)

Dear Friends and Family

We talk to a lot of people on the streets.  I can't tell you about all of them.  One time we were talking to a guy who was a big scientist.  He was unhappy with his life.  We shared with him a little bit about the gospel.  But he wouldn't accept it.  People talk to us as if we don't know anything about science.  What I learned from that guy, is that if every scientist was as closed off as him, we would not progress any further in science.  Everybody who has knowledge against the prevailing wisdom of the day is not usually accepted by society.  So people today are the same as they always were.  We reject truth when it stares us in the face.  I told the guy that although he has tried praying and going to church, he has never before in his life tried having faith.  Then we told him he would stay as miserable as he is now, if he dosen't humble himself and gain a little faith. 

Here is a nice story.  Elder Mikesell and I were finding along a busy highway.  We were trying to get to another place.  For some reason, the highway was empty for a long while, so we crossed the street because we thought we wanted to be on that side of the road.  After that, many cars started filling the street, and our side of the sidewalk ended.  We were stuck.  But then a man from Pakistan pulled up and told us to get in the car.  We got in, and he drove us to a safe spot.  What a nice guy. He was the good Samaritan to us. 

Our deaf recent convert gave us another referral.  She is awesome. We are meeting with them again this Monday.

I can't remember if I already wrote about this dream I had.  I had a dream where I was just yelling at the top of my lungs that the message I was sharing was important and true.  I was in a classroom shouting it in their faces, and nobody really heard it.  That's what it feels like a lot of the time to be a missionary.

(second letter)

I do not have a ton to write about since I just wrote on Wednesday!  But I will do my best to tell you about what happened the past few days.  In short we were out on the street finding most of the time. 

We had a zone goal this month to find 101 new investigators and we got 105.  That is a huge goal and I think we were all a little skeptical about achieving it.  New investigators is what we need now.  We got 3 new investigators this week.

This week, a return missionary named Brother Leung scheduled an appointment for us.  He actually served in Aberdeen just a few months ago.  It was his last area.  He scheduled a former to eat dinner with us.  It turned out, she didn't come.  So we just ate with Brother Leung.  He is a legend.  He is a native Cantonese speaker, so the language is not a problem.  He is the most hard working missionary the Hong Kong mission has seen in a long time (according to our mission president).  Yet on his mission he had no baptisms.  But after his mission he went home and baptized his mother who had been investigating the church while he was on his mission.  So it is a pretty cool story.  So far I can relate to Brother Leung in the baptism catogory. But something more important has happened.  The work is really set in my heart.  Elder Leung is home from his mission, and he's still doing missioanry work.  It really got in his heart.  I'm hoping that will happen to me, as well. 

Love,
Elder Phillips

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