Email from another elder

So our friend Michelle Knebel who lives in Colorado Springs has a son the same age as Jeremy on a mission in Texas. He and Jeremy were in the MTC at the same time. Michelle shared an email from another elder in his mission and I thought it was amazing. So I shared it with Jeremy and I thought I would include it on this blog. It was very inspiring.

Elder Williams Awesome Missionary Experience!!

"Elder Brewer and I had an incredible opportunity this past Wednesday. Honestly, it was the coolest thing I have ever done in my entire life. The head pastor of the Episcopalian church here in Kingwood asked for us to come and teach about our religion to his congregation. President asked Elder Brewer and I to go and take care of it. Long story short, we taught a 45 minute restoration lesson to an entire church and then had a 30 minute question and answer section. How cool is that! I don’t think the pastor expected us to convert his congregation, you should have seen his face when we started our presentation by stating," we know that each of you have great faith in Christ, we invite you this night to consider what his will is for you. Pay attention to the holy ghost that will be present and consider the things that it will teach you this night." Mom, the spirit was so strong in that church. We had never taught a lesson together up to that point, but the spirit allowed us to teach in perfect harmony. I can’t even explain how it felt to bare testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph smith and then invite a whole church to put their faith in God and read that book and pray to God to know of its truthfulness. I felt like Wilford Woodruff or Dan jones of old. The entire congregation listened intently, absolutely stunned that two 20 year old boys could teach in such a way, quoting from the Bible and explaining true doctrines with simplicity. We were so thorough in our teaching of the restoration, that their questions were not "bashy" questions. We were able to explain everything from church history, Joseph smith's life, temples and family history, baptism, the sacrament, the spirit world, and of course polygamy. The whole congregation was intently listening and searching their souls. When we finished, many of the members came up to us and requested a book of Mormon. Each one of them said that they had Mormon neighbors and how great of families they were and that they wanted to read the book of Mormon to know if it is true. We handed out about 20 book of Mormons. The head pastor came up to us and asked for a Book of Mormon, he then told us that he wanted to take us to lunch so we could teach him more about it. Since then, he has called us twice and sent president Drake 2 emails thanking us for the job we did. We are going to lunch with him this week. I am just amazed that God allowed us that precious opportunity. Going into it we were both so nervous, but we knelt in prayer and pleaded with God to grant us the spirit. We both felt confident that there were many souls in this congregation that would accept the gospel. God truly answered our prayers. It will be awesome to see what comes from this experience! Not many missionaries get the opportunity to teach an entire church that is a dream come true!"
Elder Williams