9/19/16

This week has been pretty wacko. I'm pretty sure the Adversary know good things are coming. We had the ward come and visit Ralph and give him letters and it went great, he was overwhelmed with love. But later that night he felt confused and lost, and we got a voicemail the next day saying he didn't want to join the church anymore. We zipped over there as fast as we could and he talked and by the end of our time with him he felt much better. Its a thing to have Satan kick up his game a notch after a really spiritual experience
The rest of the week we had more people try to bash with us than I've ever experienced. It gets really old because these people are ignorant and in the end they really don't know much about how Christ's church should be run. One guy told us we were Satanic. hmm, obviously he's never attended our church in his life, even though he LIVED IN UTAH FOR 30+ YEARS. The second incident was very ironic. We went to the East Pete Fair with the Doyles, who are awesome. David wants to join the church. Here's David and I, (also I only took off my tag because I was about to ride a awesome ride that you go upside down. I'm positive the churches insurance covers, "Rickety fair rides made in the 60's that have a rusty chain to hold you in." )

We got there and a snooty guy told us we can't solicit. We told him we were there for the rides and games. Then he told us if we're wearing a name tag we're soliciting so we can't be here. Is this not the state in America where freedom was founded?? Good grief, so we stayed and didn't bug anyone. When we we're going to leave a dad with a stroller and his cross shirt came up to us and gave us cards and then started asking us questions. The cards just preached hell to non believers. So the two guys with tags who weren't soliciting got solicited by a guy in normal clothes. Ironic.
The guy was going off about being saved by grace alone in Paul's gospel and how if we don't follow that we're going to hell. He asked what my thoughts were and I said, Cool, I don't really care to argue with you. (I wanted to go play basketball) but I appreciate you trying to help us in what you know. That was that and we were done, I wasn't having it that day.
The last guy was in Dollar tree and his concerns were so easy. I read you worship Joseph Smith. Nope. Jesus is your Savior and the Son of God. Yep! Then he told us the bible is all we need. That's it. A comparison to this pathetic encounter is like a punk 14 year old kid going up to the Ace baseball pitcher Clayton Kershaw and telling him he doesn't know how to pitch and that all he needs to do is throw fastballs. It amazes me that people are too ignorant to ever think,"Hey maybe I don't actually know everything about God." Anyways..some people.

The end to this week was great. On Saturday we went down to Frederick Maryland and got to hear from Dallin H. Oaks. It was great and he was an awesome guy. His jokes about the election were spot on and he's a favorite now for sure. Its nice to hear from someone who has actually talked to Christ compared to people who drive me nuts arguing. It was also a good time to see a bunch of my friends. On Sunday we had the Philadelphia Temple Dedication, which I enjoyed immensely, except the camera shots and workings in general. Half the time when we were watching the choir sing it just focused on the white teleprompter that was blocking half the people. But anyways, life is good.

Elder Simmons