I had a pretty unique experience like this on saturday: We were tracting, and we tracted into this one house where a young man, about 22, answered the door, and almost immediately let us in. We went in, sat down, and one of the first questions he asked us was "who sent you here?" I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but I just told him straight that we were called by a living prophet of God to preach the gospel. He said, "No, if you were truly called of God to preach the gospel, then you would have been sent here by the apostles." We later found out that this guy was a member of a different church. They believe that there was never a great apostasy, and that even though the apostles were killed, the authority to run the true church continued through the apostles' spirits which were still around?!?! This guy then starts telling us that we don't have the Holy Spirit with us because our church was false because we don't have apostles or the Holy Spirit. I started to explain to him that an apostasy did in fact occur and that the Bible would have continued to be written by the apostles until today if there was not an apostasy, but because the bible stops and for many other reasons, there was an apostasy. Before I could tell him this, he cut me off and started to tell me all this crap about how the apostles did this, the apostles did that, and that we were wrong. The whole time we were with him, he was asking us questions to try and show us why we were wrong, but when I would answer his question, he would move on to something else. If I would ask him a question, he would always dodge it. These people are so stubborn--they speak like there's no tomorrow, but they don't listen for 15 seconds, and they will never stand and fight on a topic; they always run because they know that they will get beat. Then, randomly, this guy just calms down and says, "I want to hear your message now." There's no way that we were going to share it with him, but he said he really wanted to hear it, so I said, "okay, let us pray to invite the Spirit to be with us, and we will share something short with you" (I was going to be as bold as I've ever been by telling him that his church was an abomination in the eyes of God--something like that). He started freaking out and telling us that when he preaches, he doesn't need to pray to have the Holy Spirit with him, but that people know automatically that he does. Then he just started trashing our beliefs. He was swearing throughout our meeting, and as we were leaving, he used the Saviour's name in vain, and I gave him fire like there's no tomorrow. This guy was speaking blasphemies the whole time, and I was so close to dusting my feet. I didn't, but i would have received the slightest impression to, it would have been done without second thought. So yeah--then ended the hour so far on my mission. After that, I was shaking because I had never had so much crap shoved into my ears at once, but my testimony was as strong as ever. I knew with all my heart that what I am doing is true and that this great work will not be frustrated by a few hypocrites just because they say that they worship the Saviour Jesus Christ, but inside themselves, they seek to destroy those who truly desire to grow closer to the Saviour, even if they are a little lost on how to do it. The Saviour never turned away people who wanted to follow him, but they didn't understand it fully. He always tried to build their understanding and just to help them in any way they could.
I'm sure there was more that happened this last week, but after that experience on saturday, it's like my memory has been erased and only that dreadful experience occupies what's left of my memory for the past week. I love you all so much! The Book of Mormon is so true!
Elder Steed
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