Impossible Not to Believe

This week I spent my studies focusing on Abinidi and Nephi, brother of Lehi, and how they "performed" on their missions. The phrase that stuck out to me the most was this one in verse 18- that it was impossible not to believe in his words. The final verse of this chapter says that, "many received baptism..." Ohhhhh, that definitely got me on the edge of my seat. So what did they do? How did Abinidi speak with such converting power in order to help Alma, a PRIEST of King Noah, gain a testimony (who later baptized more than 200 people in one setting) and restored the church? How did Nephi prepare the Nephites and Lamanites for the birth and visitation of The Christ in the Americas? I think I found part of the answer this week in these chapters - Boldness.

Alma 11-18 and the beginning of 3 Nephi give a lot of examples of how they spoke and the result of what they preached. The thing that caught my attention was how they simply, yet boldly taught repentance and a remission of sins. WHAT?! You mean I don't need to teach this and that and that?? Haha I finally realized how simple these lessons need to be. Obviously I need to teach everything before baptism, but the first and second visits need to be simple, bold, and focused on a repentance and a remission of sins. It´s the atonement of Jesus Christ BABY!!

So an update on the Pastors.

We had a meeting with the "Father" of the HUGE catholic church that is in the center of the city. He's always inside of the church, so we had no choice but to enter. I read over the missionary rules to make sure I wasn't going to break any rule before my companion and I entered. We first had to wait in this waiting room with other people that were waiting to confess (man it was so hard not to start talking with the other people there about how to truly receive a remission of sins). We later sat down with the Big Man in one of his offices and had a really good conversation.

We approached it like Ammon. We opened up the conversation more or less like this:

"We know you have a large influence here in Socorro and we were hoping we could help you reach more of the people here. You know probably better then we do, that there are thousands of people here that need the Savior in their lives. We are Representatives of Jesus Christ to bring the joy of His atonement in the lives of all of the citizens of Socorro. We would like to discuss with you some of our goals, and maybe your goals, and work together on this."

He was a little bit taken back by our conversation. We sat there and discussed various topics, finishing with the Gospel of Jesus Christ - Repentance and remission of sins. This was our chance to shine.

We gave him a Book of Mormon with a promise. We bore our testimonies as boldly as we could and then left him an invitation to attend fast and testimony meeting with us the first sunday in July. We said that people need to hear his testimony of Jesus Christ. HE ACCEPTED!! 

The only thing that held us back from inviting him to be baptized was the setting. If it wasn't for the rule that we couldn't preach inside of religious places, we would've.

No! Gotta go unexpectedly. Two more daughters of God returned to the waters of baptism this week! Two more families!!! YES! 

I forgot my USB that has the pictures of the baptism, but here's a picture on my companion's camera of one of the ladies that was baptized! Her marriage was saved thanks to MISSIONARY WORK!

Love you all!

Elder Welch