Brendon's Louisville Kentucky Mission: Joyeux Noël, Krismasi Njema, and a Merry Christmas to all

It's been a few weeks and for that I apologize!! To start off, we had been quarantined since Wednesday of last week so not much has happened since then.

Beginning of December:

Not a whole lot happened sadly. We tried to get in contact with all the people we've met recently but didn't have a lot of success. Although on Friday I went on exchange with Elder Glenn in the Lexington west area, and it was awesome! We had multiple Swahili lessons, and I was successfully able to add a few points here and there and testify of the truthfulness of our message. Elder Glenn also used a lesson format I really liked. It included reading from Christ's sermon on the mount about false prophets being like wolves in sheep's clothing. Which begs the question, how do you know if a prophet is true? Well Jesus gives the answer: "by their fruits ye may know them". And of course, the fruits of a person are their actions, their legacy, the good or bad that comes from them. And with Joseph Smith we can show a lot of good fruit including the Book of Mormon, the church and its many global humanitarian efforts, and that his teachings have led to happy and loving people all over the world. I loved using that lesson because a lot of people think there are no more prophets, or they see them as no more than another pastor. But by showing the things that prophets do we can help our friends see what they are really are.

First week of December:

We were able to meet with a few of those people I mentioned earlier. The first is named Phillipe, he's a super cool guy from Togo. He's looked into many religions including inviting evangelists of various faiths to talk with him. He has some background in both Christianity and Islam and didn't agree with the idea that there are more than 1 God. But we were able to explain the God head and he agreed. When talking about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon he was quite interested and wanted to read and understand what we taught. In the end he was impressed with us and wanted to know how to become a missionary too. Even going so far as to ask "where did you get your training, what's the address? I want to go learn what you have." 😄 I'm really excited to continue meeting with him and hope we can visit again this week.

Another woman we met with is named Denise. She has been here for a while and works for a hospice. When we were talking with her and introduced the BoM I asked if she had any previous knowledge or experience with it. Her answer was no except for what she had heard that "Mormons are bad and worship a different God and their book is evil". She said that she never believed it and now that she's met with us, she knows it's not true.

Lastly, we found someone who had been taught by missionaries years ago. She said she had moved to America 15 years before and after being in a local church for 10 years she had a bad experience which made her leave. She was then taught by missionaries sometime after but was stopped taught at some point. It was an interesting experience to hear the perspective of an investigator because to her the missionaries just stopped coming by without saying anything. But I can imagine in the head of those missionaries that they were thinking she wasn't progressing or not interested, and they decided to stop teaching. It made me think if there's anyone, I've done that with, just disappeared and never returned without telling them.

Also, this was transferring weeks. I'm staying here with Elder Felix for a third transfer together! A trainee is coming to the north Lexington area, so we spent Friday with Elder Gerlach in the north.

The second week of December

Last week truly started off with a bang. Tuesdays are often really slow because people aren't available, and we often go door to door with no answer. But this time we got in with a man named Alli. He only speaks Swahili and a little English; we knocked this door because we were aware of someone here who spoke French and/or English. Sadly, he wasn't home, but I decided I wanted to try a Swahili first lesson. We sat down and I shared a very simple "this is the story of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, if you're interested, please read it" ha-ha. He was pretty open and said we should come back when the other guy is also home so we can communicate better. Then right after we decided to knock on a door that we had only seen kids home at before. Surprisingly they opened the door and let us right in. We sat down and there was a man and a woman. The man said he spoke some French but he left shortly after we got there. The woman also only spoke Swahili and I did basically the same lesson as before. Sadly, this time the response was much less positive; she wasn't very interested and said she likes to learn about Jesus at church. But I was so proud that I could have a full lesson, very basic but still full.

On Wednesday we finally met again with the Angola family. We sat down and read D&C 22 regarding second baptism because that's their hold up. We discussed their hesitations and then read Mosiah 18 where it says that if you desire all these blessings you need to be baptized in the church. Then we continued talking and they were pretty set that they had already done it and were good to go. I did my best to emphasize that they had made the right choice and showed their willingness to God but that he has so much more in store for them. Baptism and coming to church are so much more than "being saved" God has more promises, more blessings for those who are baptized by the authority of the restored priesthood. We then asked where the Bible says people can't be baptized twice and showed them acts 19 where twelve men rebaptized by Paul. We finished with the promise at the end of the intro to the BoM, that if they pray about its truthfulness, they will know it is true, Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and the church of Jesus Christ is His kingdom on earth today. They said they believe all the first 3 so we invited them to pray about our message and the church and call us when they receive an answer. It's hard to see people hit hurdles because I want them to come and know what I know to be true. But sometimes we need to leave people in God's hands.

Wednesday night we learned we would be quarantined until Monday. My grandpa also died that day I was with Elder Gerlach. We haven't done much this week, but I did get to watch the funeral which was really great. But now I'm ready to go out and work hard leading up to Christmas! I know God lives and loves us, he sent his son over 2000 years ago so that we can be forgiven and follow Christ back to our father in heaven. I know through restored truths that Grandpa Arlan is in the spirit world teaching those who never knew about Christ. I am currently serving in the same capacity as him in the gathering of Israel on both sides of the veil. And I am loving it.