The Mission Life

Dear everyone,

This week was great. We have had some success finding new people and have had some very interesting lessons, but especially the last couple of days have been really great.

So one of the interesting parts of the week was our lesson with Jean Claude and Elizabeth. The are an older couple, maybe in their fifties, and they have met with the missionaries once before. In fact, my trainer Elder Koplin found them before I had even gotten in to country. Needless to say it has been a while. They are very very devout in their FJKM church (The Church of Jesus Christ here in Madagascar), in fact, Jean Claude is a mpiandry in the church. I honestly don't know what the translation for that one is, but he's pretty high up. Anyways, we have taught them once or twice, but this time was very different. I might have kind of accidently approached the topic of Priesthood authority in not the most tactful way. I swear I really didn't mean to, but it happened. Before we knew it he had grabbed his bible. I promise that I really do try to avoid Bible bashing with people, but every once in a while my pride still gets the better of me and pretty quick he and I were going at it. We fought and shared scriptures back and forth for about 40 minutes, but it was strange, it was not like most arguments I've gotten in to. I realized that he wasn't trying to fight, he was just caught between what he had been taught his whole life and trying to understand this new concept. We brought it back to Joseph Smith, and pretty much just layed it all on the line for him. I told him "Look, the two of us don't both have the authority. Either you do or I do. Either you are called of God or I am. Don't you think it's important that we find out which? In the end it all comes down to the Prophet Joseph Smith".  He agreed fully and we both humbled ourselves a bit and he agreed to pray about it. Then we promised we would come back and bring him a Book of Mormon, which would help him to know. As we were leaving, he said to me that he hoped that he hadn't upset me, that this was just a very important thing that he felt he really needed to understand. Of course he hadn't upset me, but I was so impressed with how much that this man sincerely wanted to serve the Lord, no matter where or when.

I am so very grateful for the Prophet, Joseph Smith, and the restored Gospel here on the earth. I am grateful that our Heavenly Father loved us enough to restore it for us, even though we had rejected it so many times. Love you all, have a great week,

Elder Jensen

Scripture of the week: Articles of Faith 1:5