Have faith, it works!

July 30, 2012

The subject says it all. We had a great experience teaching this week. We had been teaching a very old less active man for a long time. He has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the gospel, with just one tiny flaw. He is a homosexual. He says he cannot come to church and still be that way. He is the nicest older gentleman you could ever meet. He has all the correct ideas. He just marches to the beat of a different drummer.

Well the spirit got very thick in our lesson, and I decided to address the issue. I told him we all experience the natural man differently. Some people's natural man could be alcoholism. Some could be cigarettes. Some people get angry, some people's natural man is gossip. But just because someone is "prone" to a certain type of natural man doesn't mean you have to give into the cravings. For me, my natural man does not include drugs and alcohol. I stay away from those things because I have no desire to be a part of it. Satan doesn't waste his time on me tempting me to try drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. It doesn't work because that is not part of my nature, or my natural man. It's not true for others. For others that is a big problem. But the principle is the same. Kind of like what Dumbledore says at the end of Harry Potter 2, "It is not our abilities (and I'll add our nature) that determine who we are, it is our choices." Though Harry was by nature a Slytherin, he chose to be in Griffindor. He thought about this long and hard. Our nature doesn't determine whether or not we can be in the church, it is our choices. You can be by nature "gay" and still be a Mormon, just not a practicing one. Then I invited him to church. He waved it off and said "no, don't do that to me, I can't." but he turned away just as I noticed his eyes start to water. The spirit touched his heart, and I believe in time, he will understand this principle and one day come back. Then after a moment he said his family (who are all faithful members) have been trying to get him to come back for years, and he is amazed at the amount of love he is receiving. He said we have helped him a lot. Faith works. All he needs now is time.

In other news we have been teaching another less active lady named and her nonmember boyfriend. They love having us over. And the Relief Society President says that she has been sticking visiting teachers on her for years and she believed she will never come to church. Well this last Sunday they came to church and stayed for the whole three hours and loved it. Her boyfriend even said that he now believes that there could be modern day prophets. HAVE FAITH. Well that's my spill for this week. Have an awesome week!

Elder Bringhurst