False Doctrine Pizza Party

False Doctrine Pizza Party:

We got this referral a few weeks ago from one of our active members about 2 potential investigators living with one of our less active members. The first time we went with the former mentioned member, the second time we went alone and set a date with the woman. She had never been baptized before which was great because we got to bypass the 99 lessons that end in "je suis deja baptisé." But it also has it's cons where they don't really care about the church, or doctrine or enduring to the end. All they want is to be baptized, and they aren't really particular about who does it. This woman also has like 3 or 4 kids that she wants to get baptized too. 

We showed up on Saturday to teach them the plan of Salvation and it was just the woman (we'll call her Nancy) and the man (we'll call him Roi) we were just about to start with an opening prayer when in walked an army of children with a lone adult carrying some pizza. I didn't recognize him at first, his hair had grown longer and poofier, his beard was long like a Muslim's. In fact, he looked almost nothing like the way I remembered but he made eye contact with me, set the pizzas down and approached me, shook my hand and without looking at my name tag said: "It's nice to see you again... Elder Murdoshay."

How did this guy almost know my name? There was only one possibility, this was him, Brother N (name changed). Fear shot up my spine like a lightning bolt, I'm not going to go down this guys rap sheet but let's just say he was not someone I wanted to Tango with, I'd met him once and that was enough for me. 

The kids were circled about the pizza like Hyenas each taking turns nipping at a gazelle until it died but Brother N barked at them, "NO ONE EATS PIZZA UNTIL THE MISSIONARIES LEAVE." And then promptly went and chowed down on half a pizza and a 2 Litre bottle of Big Red.

The kids all gathered around us and actually started asking legitimate questions about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith etc. Meanwhile, Brother N was eating very loudly from the other room. One kid asked, "what's the Holy Ghost? I thought Ghosts weren't real."

We explained to her that the Holy Ghost was like Jesus' partner and that he tells us when stuff is good and when stuff is bad. Then Brother N rejoined the group and pointed a finger covered in pizza crumbs at the girl and demanded, "what is the Holy Ghost?"

She responded almost verbatim what we said but Brother N cut her off, "No, wrong! The Holy Ghost, that's the POWER. Everyone wants the Holy Ghost because that's what makes you powerful. Joseph Smith who was he?" He asked, the girl responded that he was a prophet. "Wrong again! Joseph Smith was born in New York (nope.) And he got the power of the Holy Ghost so the Americans threw him in prison (kind of, not really). Joseph Smith is a God (uh, no.)"

I wanted to speak out against this false doctrine but I also didn't want to get cut so I held my peace and just prayed that the kids didn't believe him. 

Later, We were reading 2 Nephi 31 and we talked about what we can do to prepare for baptism, one of the kids said, "read the scriptures" and Brother N jumped in, "Yes, yes the Book of Mormon! Written by Nephi... Moroni... those guys. You need to read them because those prophets are important. Like uh take Moroni 10, Moroni says, "don't take my word for it, listen to the Holy Ghost." (True, surprisingly) but then we read about speaking with the tongue of angels and he said, "Yeah, once you get the Holy Ghost you get to speak in tongues like us adults lopa gtoih froigh mioa mia hoy minoy (he was speaking in "tongues")."

We were holding back both laughter and sadness as we tried to get the conversation back on track but it was too late. The good news is, the kids weren't buying any of it only Nancy and Roi were on board with N. Then he said, "I want you to take my kids to church tomorrow with Nancy." 

"How many kids?" We asked

"Not many, only 7." 

The thought of boosting our church attendance combatted with the logic of finding a card that could hold at the least 9 people and we left with a feeling of despair and also confusion.

The Move:

We got a text from one of our 8th ward members that said another member was moving and needed help. We had stuff going on for the next 3 hours but after thag agreed to help assuming that there  Would be an army of Elders quorum but she. We showed up around 7:20ish it was apparent that we were the only help they had got or would get all day. They had gotten the notice to move the day before because of an emergency job change so everything was hastily packed up, we began moving boxes into the truck with their Less Active son and his girlfriend. At first it seemed pretty easy, I used to work in a warehouse after all so heavy boxes came naturally to me but I soon learned that my back was still recovering from the car crash a few weeks ago and I had to strain to lift anything over 30 pounds. As the night wore on, the loads just got heavier and heavier and soon we were carrying furniture. Even though I was almost useless Elder Shiday went into bezerk mode and just starting lifting the heaviest things possible despite his blood clotted leg. I had never really talked with these members before, but by the end if the night we had become good friends with them and the less active son who was wary of us at first had really opened up and talked about his friends on missions. We stayed at their house wbich was about 30 minutes away from ours until about 9:20 making sure the heavy stuff got down to the truck before we left. Service really breaks down walls and builds relationships. I've seen it in this instance, we helped some random people on the street move in last week and it turned out that one of the roommates was a Less Active and now the other roommate is taking the discussions. It really works.

Je vous aime,

--Elder Murdoch 

Happy 4th