Two Agnostics, an Atheist, & a Christian; and eight companions!

Hello everyone! Happy p-day!

So things have been going well here at UGA. I guess I'll give you the lo-down on our current progressing investigators: We're teaching two agnostics, an atheist and a christian who's recently come out of a slightly bitter period of her life. 

-Robb (agnostic #1)(but no longer an agnostic--he's pretty set in his belief in God now =]) is preparing himself to be baptized! Woohoo! Oh, and he came to church for the 15th(!!!) time on Sunday. Needless to say, he's a slow roller. Since my days with Elder Williams we've been trying to set a baptismal date with him, and somewhat recently he's decided he wants to be baptized on his birthday. The only problem is he won't tell us what day his birthday falls on. I'll tell you what, Robb's definitely one of the most unique people I've ever met, and I love him to death. Thankfully, he did reveal to me that his birthday is in July. So that's great. Gives us a ballpark to shoot for.

-Tori (agnostic #2) is an entomology major (insects--cool huh?) who is probably one of the most introspective people I've ever met--she's totally in touch with her emotions and picks up everything we teach her quite rapidly. We recently gave her Moroni 10:4-5 to read as homework and asked her to find out what the 3 things that bring answers to prayers are. She expressed to us that she really does want to know if these things are true, so she feels she has a sincere heart. She then told us that whenever her answer comes she fully intends on following it, so she knows she has real intent. Then she said, "But as I think about 'having faith in Christ,' the only thing that comes to my mind is... bummer! Because I don't think I've got that at all." So we spent a good amount of time teaching her the doctrine of faith, which helped her a lot. And she's been praying sincerely (and commenting on how much easier prayer is becoming since she gave her first one in a lesson a few weeks ago) for what's probably the first time in her life to know if God is real. 

-Michelle (atheist) prayed vocally for the first time in our lesson last week. We showed her The Restoration video, and her comment at the very end was, "That was beautiful." And we talked about God, and his distinction from Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost (which made much more sense to her, she commented, than the trinity), and how we prayed. And we invited her to say a prayer. And she struggled internally for about 10 seconds. I'll tell you what, nothing allows the spirit to bear testimony like silence. And she said she'd try! And she did. And it certainly topped the charts of sincerest prayers I've heard. So we're going to try and get her to come to church this week--we feel like that's the next big step.

-And Jane (christian) is trying to sort out what she believes amongst all the different denominations. She grew up with a christian background, and we've been teaching her slowly but surely. She's been to church twice (we originally contacted her at a bus stop on a Saturday night and invited her to church the next day. And she went!), and she's already expressed that she feels like she's getting answers to her prayers. She does want us to meet with her husband and teach them together, and we're going to try and set that up this week.

 What's really interesting is that all of them were only initially interested in our message as much as they wanted to learn about the Mormons and what they believe. But since then, they've actually made progress in their spirituality and applying the gospel in their lives. So the seeds are growing--we just have to help them to recognized that!

So things are going well. Training is slightly tough (but something I'm used to) because I'm back to running the lessons on my own until Elder Barrett gets his feet on some solid footing. But he's well on his way, and he'll be a master at teaching by the spirit in no time. His greatest strength is his willingness to talk to anyone, which is great--especially here at UGA. Interesting fact: Elder Barrett is my 8th companion in Georgia (Elders Blum, Demille, Bradley, Bodily, Gneiting, Emmett, Williams, Barrett). My 11th total on my mission. I guess I just fly through companions...  (remember, he was getting two greenies at a time for a while there...)

Oh, we also taught a girl named Ashley this week from The Church of Christ (not the LDS branch-off, but a completely different church). It seemed amazing to me as we discussed the gospel that she believed exactly what we do as pertains to faith, repentance, baptism and enduring to the end (which truly is surprising, here in the south). In fact, the only real difference in what we believe is that the priesthood authority had to be restored to the earth! Pretty amazing. She had great questions about he Book of Mormon--What's the importance of The Book of Mormon? Do you have to read it in order to be saved? My response: No, but who wouldn't want to read more of God's word? And we read 2 Nephi 29:8*. And she was like, "Oh. That makes sense." It was great. We then bore testimony of the Book of Mormon, and how we can come to know that Joseph Smith was who he said he was by reading it and asking God if it's true. And she really understood the importance of discovering whether or not the authority is truly necessary, because she commented how she'd have to be baptized again if it all was true. Sadly, we won't be seeing her again for a month or so, because she's going to be traveling for the rest of the summer. But we'll be praying for her.

Well, those are highlights from the week. Love you all very much! Glad to hear all is well back at home!

Elder McGregor


*2 Nephi 29:8
Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the ^atestimony of ^btwo nations is a ^cwitness unto you that I am God, that I remember one ^dnation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two^enations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also.