July 18th

Hey Y’all!

   This week has been a great one! On Wednesday I said good bye to Elder Riffenburg and Welcomed Elder Whitten to Pauls Valley! He is from Blackfoot Idaho and comes from a farm! He’s my second farm boy companion from Idaho and I love it! He's been out about a year and came here from Vernon Texas. I am so excited to work with him! He is a new Zone Leader which is fun. We get to learn together! 

   We've been busy and hard at work this week. We have lots of People that we visit and teach! Its been fun to see all the progression and miracles here! We had a crazy experience just last night!

    So last night we were walking. We are low on miles and figured we could walk for an evening. Since my bike is out of commission) As we were walking we saw this man sitting on his porch smoking. We walked up to him and started talking to him. We gave him a "Jesus Card" (that’s what we call them) and asked about his beliefs. He said that he was Baptist and loved God and Jesus. We were starting to get into a really good conversation and then his neighbor pulled in the driveway and got out of her car and stormed over to us and started firing off questions that were very provocative and rude. Completely interrupted our discussion we were having. She was railing joseph smith and the Book of Mormon and Thomas Monson and I started getting really mad. How dare someone start talking about my prophet like that! Then she went off and said that God doesn’t work through prophets anymore and that it’s a bunch of bull **** blah blah blah. That we were liars and false prophets and all this other stuff. I was then extremely mad. Then a quote popped into my mind by elder Holland that he shared in a mission president seminar. He said, " Don’t bash, don’t bash, don’t bash, but when you bash, bash to win!!" I hate bashing. If there is anything about Oklahoma that I hate, its the bashers. But I asked her a question. I said, you believe in the bible. There are many prophets in the bible. If God is the same yesterday today and forever, why would things be any different now? God Doesn’t change! She was real quiet for the first time since she came over and said, "I can’t answer that question." BOOM Got em!! From there, I started teaching and testifying of the Prophet Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon. I don’t even remember half the stuff I said. I know that it was the spirit talking. Not me. I honestly felt like I was gonna grow wings and fly away. It was an interesting experience. But by the time that she left, she had her heart softened a ton. It was amazing to witness firsthand how the spirit works on people. It never ceases to amaze me! Anyhow, crazy experience of the week. 

   Moral of the story is, testimony never fails! I love the chance that I have to bear my testimony and have that even be an expectation! 

   I just found out that my bike is finished being fixed! I will get it back finally after about 2 months of not having it! And we can bike now! The Lord is good to us and the work is going forward here. Love y’all and have a wonderful week! 

Elder Walker

Cadillac Monster Truck!

Elder Whitten