heyhey! interesting week in the life of elder snow, that's for sure! so, we didn't have a ton happen this week, except for one cool experience with an investigator, which i'll get right into...
There's this guy named "G." He's like..63 years old, looooooooves the missionaries. he has been affiliated with the church since 1986 when he and his wife (mostly his wife) were being taught by the missionaries in california, but he never got baptized. he eventually got divorced, continued to work, and then went back to school to become a catholic priest, believe it or not. 7 years of seminary later, he was a priest. he practiced as a priest for a while, then he retired, and some missionaries knocked into him where he currently lives in the Parkwood area a couple years ago. nobody has really seen any progression with him, but he's just a super nice and charitable guy, so i've been dropping by him every so often since i've been here. he and i have become very good friends, and he has a lot of family in the area, so we've been trying to work with them as well. he's been telling me for a few weeks now that he wanted to see the temple here in San Antonio, and i've been kind of blowing him off because i didn't think it would be the best use of our time. he's already seen like 3 temples, he's already been taught all the lessons, he already knows what we do in temples, what's the point right?
i'm an idiot, i know, but i kind of just never got to it. Well, we got to it this week. we went out to lunch with him tuesday, then we all went to the San Antonio temple together. we walked around the temple and took pictures and all that good stuff, and then we found a shady spot to sit, pulled out a temple pamphlet, and taught him about temple work. the spirit was strong, and it was very peaceful as we were discussing important gospel truths with him. he then started to open up to us, which is not uncommon because we are very close, but he said some things that were very interesting like "there's definitely a different spirit about this place...it feels very peaceful and happy," something along those lines. then, in the MIDDLE OF HIM OPENING UP TO US, my companion cuts him off and says "do you want to touch the temple?" i was dumbfounded. i'm seriously just screaming in my head "What are you thinking? you ruined the moment, he was able to open up to us, you RUINED it!" but i didn't say anything. i kind of just looked down and controlled my rollercoaster of emotions that was currently being battled out in my head, and then "G" said "well sure! i've never touched a temple before!"
I reluctantly got up, and walked with them to a place where we could touch the temple. elder duncan touched the temple and closed his eyes and i was just like "you gotta be kidding me." then, G proceeded to do the same thing. i stood back and let them do their thing. i thought it was a dumb thing to do to be perfectly honest. boy was i wrong. G actually stood there for a good few minutes with his eyes closed and his hand on the temple...and he had one of the most spiritual experiences of his life. we were then able to teach him more about the spirit, how he speaks to us, and how we can recognize spiritual promptings. we told him that one day he would be able to enter the temple, that baptism wasn't the end goal, but that the goal is to go to the temple. we were able to set him with a date of baptism for the 25th of october. he's now a progressing investigator. after 28 years of being affiliated with the church, this is the closest he's ever been to being baptized...and it's all thanks to elder duncan. i thought he was gonna botch it hard, but he ended up being the hero. it was a brilliant idea haha.
anyways, that was my cool
experience for the week. general conference was fantastic! i hope you
all had as great of a time there as i did.
have a great week everyone! stay safe, have fun. love you!
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