"We're gonna have to ride fast."

Not sure where to start! We started this week off a little sad because of how our baptism fell through last week, but we decided we were just going to work as hard as possible and find a ton of new investigators. We tried our best to talk to everyone we could and ended the week with 10 new investigators! My companion said that's the most he's ever had in a single week, and he's been out on his mission for more than a year! We were super blessed by the Lord to have many prepared people to listen to the Gospel put in our path this week. Our next trial is trying to figure out how to help them develop their own testimonies of the Gospel. 

With all of our new investigators we had a TON of lessons, making our week crazy busy.  We always have only a few minutes to ride all the way across town to get to our lessons. As a result, every time my companion looks at me and says, "We're gonna have to ride fast". He's said it so often that now we just look at each other and laugh before we start riding haha. On Wednesday we had 6 lessons along with our 2 hour free English Class. We had nearly no time for our studies as we were biking from one side of our area to the other for nearly every lesson! Saturday was even crazier with 8 different lessons. There was one 28 year old we found who was playing basketball and was dressed up like a gangster. We started talking to him and he asked us about Jesus Christ before we even mentioned anything about our Church! We found out he was super interested in getting to learn more and set up with them learning in the week. One funny thing that happened is in our lesson with him, we asked him to say the prayer at the end of the lesson for us, and he prayed to Joseph Smith instead of Jesus Christ...oops... we had a good laugh about it though haha.

One of our older investigators (we've been teaching him for about 3 months now), came to church for the first time this week and has finally started to read the Book of Mormon and pray on his own! This week will be a big tell to whether or not his really is developing his own testimony of the Gospel.

We also contacted a worker in a 7-11 who said he was willing to 'try it once' when we asked if he'd like to meet with us. If he liked what he heard, he'd meet with us again. In our lesson with him he went downstairs to get our drinks for us, and Elder Jorgensen leaned over to me and said, "We have 20 minutes to decide this guy's fate". We had no idea what we were going to share with him to make him want more. As we were going along in the 1st Lesson I felt prompted to stop at Jesus' life and read in 3 Nephi about when he visited the people in the Americas. After he read it we discussed it and at the end of the lesson asked him what he thought about what we shared with him, and he said, "While reading that scripture I felt that Jesus Christ really does live and if I believe in him then he will help me with anything I need. When can we meet next?". It's rare to have an investigator ask YOU when the next appointment is. It's amazing to see the power of the Book of Mormon in testifying of Christ and this Gospel. The Book of Mormon is the most powerful tool we have and is evidence of the truthfulness of this Gospel.

Other amazing people we met this week: 1) a 95 year old lady outside our apartment who called me a "Handsome American Boy" in her broken English 2) semi-pro baseball player who said that two days before seeing us on the street he had an impression that he needed to learn about Jesus Christ 3) A dad with two young daughters who we met on Friday in a park and he came to church with them on Sunday 4) an ex-convict and his fiance who want to have religion to build their family on 5) a 17 year old who we met on the street and was willing to sit down right then for a lesson in a nearby park and was willing to set up for another lesson later the next week. It's amazing the people the Lord is preparing and putting in our path to hear the Gospel!

A funny story from church this week, in our Gospel Doctrine class they were talking about how when new investigators come to church for the first time it feels like a foreign language and they can't understand anything...then everyone looked at me and laughed...but I didn't know why they looked at me and laughed until my companion turned to me and translated...good times haha. 

Elder Smith （施長老）