The Day of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Hi Everyone!

I'd like to share an experience I had this week on Monday, which starts with a lot of frustrating tracting in some rich neighborhoods in Basalt.

Basically we tracted for 3-4 hours in houses that were easily a half-million a piece, and we weren't finding much success or many happy people (interesting how that works, isn't it? :), but we did happen to run into a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses!

In total we ran into them 4 times, and each time had a conversation with them and had to pretend we didn't realize they were prodding us to bible-bash, instead just bearing testimony and being polite. Getting near the time of our dinner appointment, we decided to take a break and tract in a trailer park, so we did and found a variety of people, which is the great thing about trailers.

We talked to an English lady and offered service, and she said she didn't need anything but there was a lady across the street who was sick with MS and might need a hand. So, we went over and talked to her, and as luck would have it she was a Jehovah's Witness and although she didn't need any help she was so excited to be able to talk about religion with someone that we decided it was a form of service to listen to her and take the Bible and magazines she was trying to give us.

I threw the bible into my pack and forgot about it, but left wondering why we'd been talking to people of that particular religion all day.
After that we went straight to our dinner appointment, a family of a brother and his two teenage sisters who's parents live in Honduras and haven't been with them for a long time.

The youngest sister, she's like 15, went to California to be with her aunt and her family for a few weeks, and she'd gotten back like 10 minutes before we got there. We started talking to her about how her trip had been and she told us that her aunt's family were Jehovah's Witnesses, and that they'd been trying to shove their religion at her non-stop the whole trip! She'd even been to their church a couple times, and had a couple funny stories about it all.

We started talking about our experience from the day, talking to so many people of that faith, and pulled out the magazines and bible we'd gotten. She recognized one of the magazines, which she'd been given and had actually just been looking through!

Being a little concerned about it, for the spiritual thought after dinner I pulled out the Jehovah's Witnesses bible I had and shared two scriptures, one in 2 Thessalonians 2:2-3 about the Apostasy, and the other in Acts 3:20-21 about the "restitution of all things", in other words the Restoration. I showed how even in their bible it was clear that there would be a time without the truth, and that God would eventually have called a prophet to usher in this final dispensation.

Then I bore my testimony that I knew the church was true, not because I'd proved it with the bible but because I'd prayed and received answers that it's true and so it doesn't matter how persuasive the arguments of men are, we can be sure of the truth and not have to worry.

The spirit was really strong in the room, I felt it bear witness as I gave my testimony, and I realized why we'd had all those conversations and been put through a hard day!

It was so worth it to feel that sweet confirmation of the Spirit of the truths of the Gospel, and I knew that it was exactly what the girl had needed to hear and feel after that faith-testing experience!

Everything is going pretty well, we're hoping to get more of the inactives back to church soon as the summer tourist season comes to a close, so many people can't get off Sundays and it's really been a challenge for the missionary effort. I know that the Lord will bless us though as we keep trusting him and working hard, He has plans for these people and will use us as instruments in His hands if we do our best.

I'm so grateful to be a missionary, and I love the Gospel! I hope you all have a great week, don't hesitate to share what you know to be true with anyone, because this is really what brings the greatest joy and happiness in the whole world! Take care!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis