It's .. so .. bright.

I've got a story for you all this week.

We were playing ping-pong with our lovely Elders Meeks, Doyle, Hollingworth, and Hendricks, when T (our only investigator right now) showed up. He did a quick few leg-wrestling matches with Elders Hendricks and Doyle (Koreans love that kind of stuff!) and then we moved into the next room and started our lesson after seeing T completely destroy the other Elders. …Hahaha.

We talked about his life for a little -- his girlfriend, and how they rode bikes and went to the river this past weekend, drank a little, and had a good time (not exactly what you want to hear from your investigator but.. hey, we're workin' on it!), and then taught about zoos and animals for the next 20~30 minutes as part of our "Family English Program" -- where we spend 30 minutes teaching free english, and 30 minutes sharing our message. I have to say, explaining "Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my!" was quite the challenge.

Then, we moved on to the gospel lesson. E.Miller prayed to start us off, and turns out T had kept all of his commitments! Pamphlet read, Mosiah 4? Check. Prayed too! However, he didn't understand Mosiah 4 very well.. so we went back through it a little bit and covered chapter 4.. verses.. 9~13. We talked about how we can find happiness through following Christ and keeping said advice from King Benjamin. ..It was super cool. Then, we asked him about the pamphlet, and he said it was hard too. We were a little concerned, (he's understood all of the other pamphlets 100%), until he clarified that it wasn't necessarily hard to read -- just hard to imagine doing. ..Faith.. Repentance.. Baptism.. it all seemed impossible to him as he read it. He talked about it a little more, and somehow we started talking about things after baptism. Mainly, the spirit, and Gift of the Holy Ghost. We told him what kinds of blessings would be in store, were he to accept Baptism and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and he was freaking out. I asked him, "What do you think? If you could have the Gift of the Holy Ghost, what would it be like?" He said "..우아.. 정말 신기하네요.." Which translates basically to.. "Woah. ..That would be SO cool.”

So, we took out our object lesson.

We brought out a big, clear container of water, and said, 

"All right, T, this is your body. Your spirit, your mind, your heart -- this is you. You're pretty clean, right? And, say you wanted to drink it.. it'd taste pretty good, huh?
..But, sometimes, in our lives, we make mistakes, don't we? ..What are some things that make your life.. not taste so good?"

"Mm.. fighting with my girlfriend?"

"Nice! Exactly. Like that. That's no fun, is it?" 
(At this point, for each negative comment, we add a drop of red, blue, or green food coloring - to represent our bodies becoming .. well, dirty, slowly.)
*Drop of food coloring*

"Woah.."

"Okay, what else?"

"Man. ..If I don't work out" (Ladies and gentlemen, he is a big boy.)

"Sure! Maybe, being lazy.. or eating unhealthy too?"
*food coloring drop number two..*

"Yes! Right!"

"And.. what if you lied? .. Or maybe fought with a friend, or parents..
*two more drops..*
Or even drank alchohol..."
*one more drop..*

(Nice little chuckle from T)

.."Now.. what do you think about yourself?"

"I.. don't really know."

"It looks cool though, right? I mean, the colors are pretty, huh?"

"..."

"..But.. how does it feel? ..It's a little uncomfortable, right? You can't see through it.. and we don't even know if you can drink it.. ..actually.. you don't even really know what it is, do you? 

".....Yeah."

"Would it be nice if you could be clean again? ..If you could just kind of.. start over?"

"...Yeah.. I think that would be really good.."

"..T, do you want to?"

"..Yes."

At this point in the lesson we bring out a special concoction. (It's really just bleach. ...But shh! -- when poured in, it clears the water up entirely. Giving a new, fresh start to your soul, once again)

"T, through repentance, (add a little secret bleach..), serving others (a little more), faith (a little more), even baptism (tiny bit more..), and the Gift of the Holy Ghost (adding the rest) -- ...We can start over and be clean again."

This is when the water usually becomes clear. Symbolizing a new start -- or rebirth, if you will. ...But not this time. This time the water went clear alright. ...And then slowly turned into the brightest yellow I've ever seen. ..Like... SO BRIGHT!

..All T could do was stare at the water while Elder Miller and I stared at each other..

His exact words:

"어... ...밝다." ..."Oh.. ...It's.. so bright.."

So.. still kinda stunned.. we ran with it. 

We talked about how we can start over -- not only clean, but better, and brighter than we were before. Willing to look past those silly mistakes we made in the past, and do it again. Better this time. ..It was so cool, and the spirit was so strong. ..However, this is also when things got really complicated. ..To keep things relatively short, the man likes his alcohol -- and so does his girlfriend, who is not a big fan of the church. ..We urged and encouraged him to try to make a commitment to baptism, but he just wasn't sure he could do it. He needs to know if God exists first, and so we pushed him to really pray about it. He then learned that you can't drink and feel the spirit at the same time, so we issued a challenge to not drink for one week. To pray every night as hard as he can, and to really ask God if He is real. Then, we promised, he would get an answer.

..It was hard, but after a lot of talking, and reasoning, and even receiving a lot of "there's no way”s, and "I just can't"s, .. he turned to us and said: "Okay. I'm going to do it. I won't drink alcohol for a week straight, and I'll pray every night as hard as I can to feel the spirit, and to know if God is real or not. And if He is, then I guess I'll just have to get baptized. I'll choose this way, because I can see real happiness in it.." ..then came the long pause and a high five -- "But.. if I don't feel the spirit by then, like you've promised.. I don't think we can meet anymore. I'll have done everything you asked me to do. And if God doesn't answer me then, I don't think He ever will.

..And so, ladies and gentlemen, we received our first all-or-nothing situation, in which both of our faith will be tested.

We've fasted 3 times this week, hoping and praying that he can feel and recognize the spirit. ...But I know, that as a representative of Jesus Christ, --when we promise something like that, it's GOING to happen. ..It's the helping him recognize it that is the difficult part.

Hope you enjoyed that, and hope to keep you posted on the future news! I've gotta talk to my mommy now, that wonderful woman! Love you all tons!

Have a rad week!
All the love!

Elder DeMille!