And she's really great. Her name is Sister Goldrup, and she is from north Salt Lake City. Sort of. She went to high school in London and lived in Beijing for 5 years. She actually went into the MTC the week after I did, but she got stuck there for twelve weeks. She is waiting for a visa to Australia so that she can go there and teach Mandarin speaking people. Purdy cool, eh? She's really great and is learning the ropes fast. And now I appreciate Sister Howard a lot more too. It's kind of a fun thing to train because the first couple days, your companion doesn't really know anything except how to teach. So you get to do everything. Which is a lot, but I enjoyed it in a weird sorta way.
This week's an adventure because we are working without a car for my first time. It takes a lot more coordination, but it's good. And the new elders we got in the ward (Elder Lawrence and Elder Brown, from Oakley, UT and Lehi, UT, respectively) are letting us use their bikes on the weeks when they have a car and we don't. They're all-stars.
J's been doing awesome. Last Tuesday, he was talking about how the Book of Mormon has cleared up a lot of questions he had about the Bible--like how it'll say to baptize in Jesus name in one place, but then in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And other things like that that he's wondered about for years. His main stumbling block at that point in time was that he really liked the book of Moroni, but recognized many of the verses as the writings of Paul (who he loves), and didn't know if the spirit he felt was testifying of validity of Paul's words or Moroni's. I wish more people had that sort of problem. He also asked our forgiveness for persuading a gal who was preparing to be baptized as a Mormon to not get baptized. He seems to be scared because he knows it's true, but he was preaching something else for the past 10 years.
But one of the many cool things about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is that if anybody has any questions, or any disagreements with our doctrine they can to ask God (with real intent) and He'll tell them. Nobody else can make that promise--the promise that if they ask God, truly wanting to know and being willing to change, that they will feel the spirit testifying of the things that we have said. It's true that we don't have a monopoly over the spirit and it's ability to testify of truth, or even a monopoly over all religious truth, but we do have all of it--the complete picture. And I really like that we don't have to do the convincing. All we have to do is to invite people to ask, and invite them to do the work to merit an answer, that they might feel of the spirit for themselves and know. Really know.
The sad thing is when people would rather cling to tradition and comfort than come closer to their loving Father in Heaven. But sometimes we struggle with that in our daily lives--clinging to our desires when Heavenly Father would have us do something else. I think of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies in Alma 24. They knew that it wasn't about how long they lived, but how they lived. It wasn't about their personal fears, but about the promises they'd made with God, and the reward waiting for them after this life. And love. It's always about love.
Love,
Sister Bowen
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