"Yes, I Eat Shrimp!"

All right. About his week. We had a lot of really cool experiences with some of the members in our ward and some new investigators! I'll start with an amazing experience that we had yesterday! There is this young couple (not yet married) that have been attending our ward for a while (the international ward). The man, Mike, is a member, but his girlfriend, Wilma, is not. They have been coming to church for the past couple months, but because hey live outside of our mission boundaries, the elders here have never taught them. We talked with them last week and finally coordinated where we could meet in order to share with them. Yesterday after church, we were finally able to share with them for the first time. It was one of the most amazing lessons of my life. Wilma has been taking online lessons for quite a while and she's been taught the first three lessons, reads the book of Mormon consistently and has already gained a testimony of it's truthfulness. She told us a story about her experience with the Book of Mormon. She expressed to us that she went weeks without missing a day of reading. She loved it. However, she was afraid to ask if it was true because she felt like if she found out that it was true, she would be abandoning her belief and everything she grew up in. She stopped reading and was filled with guilt. She said a prayer and said, "If the Book of Mormon is true, please take away this guilt. If it's not true, leave the guilt." The next day, she attended church, read the Book of Mormon and the guilt went away. She had her answer that the Book of Mormon was true. That was only the beginning of the testimony that she now has the book of Mormon is true. She's an amazing person and really wants to know the truth. She'll be baptized on October 4th. 

In one our wards we have a part member family that is extremely wealthy. This last week they invited us out to dinner. Holy crap, it was one of the best dinners I have ever had. They took us to this Italian restaurant that was really nice. This member was a regular at this restaurant so we were taken very good care of. Before we knew it, we were getting served all different types of food. We ate shrimp (yes, I eat shrimp. It was the size of my fist and it was amazing), buttered corn, chicken wings, and other things. They were only the appetizers. Then came the pizza. It was baked in a brick oven and was just amazing. One of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. We ended the night with some amazing ice cream. It's was a great night. That's one of the really good things about the wards I’m serving in right now, they love feeding the missionaries. I sure love these wards. 

We had MLC this past week. It was great, like always. We spent 2-3 days prior to the meeting to prepare everything. We had to prepare slideshows, handouts, agendas, transportation, everything. It was epic. It turned out really good though. President and Sister Ostler have a love for music so we spent some time doing "music appreciation." They are allowing us to listen to a wider variety of music now, which is great. It's amazing the effect that music can have on us. President Ostler said, "Music is so powerful because it communicates directly to our emotions." That is so true. Music is a very powerful tool that can be utilized by the Lord, or a weapon wielded by the devil. The music we listen to can affect us in ways that we don't even realize. Hopefully, the music we listen too builds us up and doesn't break us down. “Mo Tab or die.”