This week was pretty good. I´ll start my letter off with the interesting story. We´ll see how well I can remember and explain. Basically, we taught a false prophet. Here´s what happened:
So we were walking in the street and talked to a guy named Antonio. We asked him if he had a few minutes to listen to our message, he said sure and we walked over to his house. We sat down and started talking to him. He said that he lived alone and was a missionary like us and that his religion was God. All this seemed pretty normal to us, in fact we were just happy that someone wanted to listen to our message.
We started the message off with a hymn, and after that he broke loose. As soon as we stopped singing he started speaking in the name of God as if he were a prophet. He told us that we had angels around us protecting us and that my angel was named "Isaihi" and my companion´s was named "Malaguía" (I don´t remember if those are exactly what he said, but the names were weird.) He asked us if we had ever seen God or angels or visions. We told him no. He said that he saw those things and that he sees God in heaven.
He then grabbed our hands and faced them palm up and began to say a blessing or prayer or something for us. My companion was scared to death by the time it was over. I obviously knew at this point that this guy was crazy, but I wanted to play around a little bit and see where the lesson would go. I asked him if we could start our message with a prayer. After the prayer, it got even more intense. What made it hilarious is that I acted serious and almost as if I was interesting just so that he would tell us more stuff. Occasionally during the lesson, I looked at my companion and the whole time he was trying not to burst out laughing.
After we offered the prayer, he told us the things that God had supposedly made known to him. He told us that after Jesus was resurrected, he went to heaven. There, his body was kept in a crystal case for almost 2000 years while his spirit returned to the earth. He said that while Jesus was a spirit on the earth, he organized 60 churches. He did that by going into the body of certain ministers. He also said that the Mormon church was the 60th and last church that Jesus established.
He later talked about a 2nd coming of Christ of sorts. He said that on February 16 1996 that Jesus came to the earth with his body again. From that date, for 20 years, Christ apparently had been fighting against Satan, and on February 16 of this year, Satan was destroyed by Christ. He said that all we need to do now is destroy all the angels of Satan that remain on the earth. I asked him where Jesus is right now. In case you were wondering, he is in Bethlehem.
I PROMISE I AM NOT MAKING ANY OF THIS UP! This guy said all of these things. You should be proud of me for keeping a straight face during all of this. But wait, the lesson didn't end there. Elder Steele doesn't leave a lesson without leaving an impression. In this case, I just wanted to make him look like an idiot.
I asked him if he was a prophet. He said no, that he was a seer. I said, well, a seer can talk to God and speak in his name and say the truth of all things right? He confirmed my statement. This is where the fun begins. I said, you said that Christ established the Mormon church, does that mean that you believe in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith? He said yes. I was still acting interesting, and he was giving me so much of his own words to use against him.
I asked him where Christ went when he was resurrected. He said heaven. I then shared from the Book of Mormon how Christ visited the Americas. I asked him if men possessed Christ´s authority on the earth, and what it was called. He said yes and that he had the authority and that is was called the Holy Ghost. I then told him how in the scriptures it talks about the priesthood. I think at that moment he realized that I was playing him. I shared with him many more scriptures that go against pretty much everything that he was saying. Because I´m running short on time I´ll cut to the end.
I basically shared briefly the whole lesson of the Restoration with emphasis on the one true church that Christ established and the apostasy. He was still trying to convince us of his being a seer, so I finished with the scripture that says that by the mouth of 2 or 3, God establishes his word. I said "That scripture exists because God doesn´t want his children to get carried astray by men like you." He obviously got a little angry by what I said. He said that because we only are 19 years old that we can´t possibly know more then him, being 53. Then I told him that Joseph Smith saw God at age 14 and that´s about when we left.
That was a crazy experience that I´ll never forget. Please don´t think that I argue with people like that. That was a rare occasion. It´s not everyday that your potential investigator claims to be a seer and tells you a bunch of apostasy.
A few days later, we were talking to one of my converts and mentioned that experience. My convert actually knows Antonio. Apparently what he does for a living is that he convinces people that he talks with God. He says that he can look at someone in the eyes and know if they are sick or not. He says that if they give him 50 pesos, then he will converse with God to find out what they need to do to be cured. People actually believe him.
Anyway, on a different page. Our week was great. We had 4 investigators in church. There was an awesome baptism in my district. This week is "Semana Santa." We found a few new investigators that our going to be baptized. And yeah, I think I used all my time writing about the false seer that we met. I hope you enjoyed the story. It was much better being there. That was the week. I love you guys!
-Elder Steele
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