Jose

Jose M. is a young man. About 25 years old. Evangelical. A great worker and a searcher of truth. 

We met him after we had been rejected by one of our other appointments. We didn't have another appointment for 30 more minutes, so we decided to knock doors in the same area. There aren't very many Hispanics in the area that we were knocking, so we weren't expecting to hear people speaking Spanish, but as we approached a certain apartment we heard a Hispanic mother talking to her son. We changed directions and went to knock on her door. She answered and we introduced ourselves. She seemed fairly interested, but said that she didn't have time right at that moment, but she welcomed us to come back the following Sunday (since she is only free on Sundays). 

One week later, we were knocking on the same door expecting to meet with the mother that we had talked to before. Instead of the young mother, Rosa, opening the door, her cousin, Jose greeted us. We all sat down, and we began to teach the lesson of the Restoration of the Gospel. Due to the amount of questions that they had for us we didn't get very far into the lesson. We scheduled an appointment for the following Sunday and planned to finish teaching about the Restoration. 

The following Sunday was yesterday. Yesterday we went back to visit Jose and Rosa with determination to finish the Restoration. They have very deep Evangelical roots and very probing questions about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As we taught the Restoration, their questions changed from "Do you believe in the end of the world?" and "Wasn't Jesus Christ crucified by the Jews? If so, is that why the Jewish people don't believe in Christ?" to "Do we have a prophet that lives on the earth today?" and "How can we know of the truth?". Something was changing in him. As we taught a principle, he would turn to Rosa and testify of what we were saying. 

Towards the end of the lesson, and in answer to his questions, we knelt down in prayer and invited him to pray about The Book of Mormon right there. He was a little reluctant to do so. He didn't believe that he would get a personal answer if it wasn't a personal prayer, but nevertheless, he prayed. His prayer was so sincere. You could tell he was a little nervous, but when he asked the specific question if The Book of Mormon is true, the Spirit flooded into the room. He finished his prayer and we sat in silence for a few moments before asking him how he felt. He looked at us completely astonished and said, "I feel....something really different in my heart. I feel so much peace." He immediately turned to his cousin and said, "Can you feel that???" He was so excited! We explained that it was the Spirit. All of a sudden, it all clicked with him. He KNEW that everything we taught was true. Then HE asked US when we could come back! 

Jose has now accepted baptism and is gaining a testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I love being a missionary.

Hermana Childs 

Hermana Weinstock and I love being missionaries