I guess nothing super exciting has really happened this past week. We went and visited a guy that we met a couple weeks ago. His name is David. He is a really cool guy but his beliefs are a little different haha. He is a Seventh-Day Adventist and so naturally we had a hard time keeping the subject as far from being about the Sabbath day as we could because of how hard is was to get out of that last time. I've been surprised with how many people I've met up here who are anti-Mormon. But on the plus side I get to hear all the different misconceptions about the church. David, of course, is also anti but he is really polite because he said that he used to invite to missionaries over to bash on their church but he had a change of heart because he realized that it won't get him anywhere.
This guy seriously has the Bible memorized better than anyone I've ever met. We'll get into a discussion hen go to look up a scripture on the subject and as soon as we tell him the reference he starts to recite the verse almost word for word. its pretty cool. But at the same time kind of frustrating. The downside is that he is very extreme. oh well.
So we went and visited the Pastor on Friday. we talked with him a little bit in his driveway and then I made a comment on how he has a nice looking church. The next thing we know, he is taking us on a tour of his church. haha we joked that it was funny because we are normally the ones showing people around a church. We sat down in the pews of his chapel to talk. He was really nice but his beliefs were a little bit different. So we spent the majority of our time just trying to find similarities between our beliefs and explaining the purpose of the Book of Mormon. He also agreed that it was fair that, because he showed us his church building, we get to show him around ours. I got the feeling that there wasn't much potential there. But I think that's mainly because he had some beliefs that were very different than ours. On a funny note, the first thing that he had interest in was my Hymn book.
I still really like it here in Orofino. It's a great community and the people are generally pretty friendly. I guess one of my favorite things is that you have a valid excuse to go talk to people. It's really improving my confidence in talking to scary people haha. But seriously, I like how if I have the thought "I wonder what that guys life story is" then its like "well you may as well go talk to him!" Its fun just talking to random people. If they show no interest in our church then I try to at least have a casual conversation. It's interesting how many people will tell you almost everything about themselves if you just give them the chance to talk.
My favorite thing is when people say, "Oh, i'm already (insert religion here) So i'm not interested" I respond with "Oh, that's cool! How do you like being (insert religion)" BAM suddenly they don't normally try and leave. And we can easily find some similarity to talk about and slip in some Mormon doctrine while we're at it.
I have this goal every time we visit someone, and that goal to leave a good enough impression or teach something that they like enough that THEY are the ones who invite us back. I suggested that to Elder Sanders and we have set that as a goal. It's been working out pretty well. I like it when we ask someone a question or answer a question and it completely stumps them and they say something like "hmm... I've never thought of it like that before, I'll have to do some research and then you should come back and we'll talk about some more." And then suddenly I can say something like," well you can find the answer in the Book of Mormon! why don't you read..." and then I mark the page and give them a Book of Mormon.It seems like if anything it just gets people thinking.