Listen to the Spirit

Man, oh man! You may not want to read the first part Mom, but it’s an experience I have to share.

So on Sunday last week, we met this guy on the street and started talking to him about the gospel and gave him a Book of Mormon. We also set up a time to go and visit him. So, Monday night we go by his house to visit him and he wasn’t home. But my comp remembered that this was a house our bishopric didn’t want us to go by because they just wanted welfare. But, we had stopped by because we weren’t sure if it was this house and they weren’t home anyway. So then we went to his neighbors to try them out and we talked to them for a little bit but they weren’t interested in talking to us. And so as we were walking back, the guy showed up and so we started talking to him. My comp began to ask him if we could come in and talk to him and share a message and as he was speaking. I just got this very bad feeling. I was hoping the guy would say no; that he was busy. But I stayed quiet and he said sure, we could come in. The weird part was the rest of his family stayed in the car and didn’t come out. We just followed him into his house and as we walked in he said, "Welcome to my dark house".  It was like 7:00 at night and it was pitch black in his house. The only light came from the street light outside through the opened door. 

I asked if I could offer a prayer, still having that bad feeling and wanting to get out immediately. He said yes, but then he said “Can I get a hug first?”  Now, he was a middle-aged man, about 5'7”, so we were a little taken back by that. But, he hugged me and my comp both at the same time; one arm for each of us and as he hugged us he grabbed the back of our necks hard and squeezed! And then he said, after letting go of us, “You don’t want to talk to me. I am a very, very, very bad person. I hurt people. I don’t do nice things. No one loves me. I hurt people. I am a very, very, very bad person." He just kept repeating that over and over again. I have served in ghetto areas on my mission and have walked ghettos streets at night, but this was the first time on my whole mission I was actually scared. I thought at any moment he could pull out a knife or a gun and that would be that. I wasn’t sure whether I should try and fight him right there and take the first strike or to just stand there. So, I said a quick prayer and my comp said, "We respect that and have a good night." and we left!! 

When we were in the car, my comp told me before we had gone over to that house, he had had a bad feeling, as well. I learned a great lesson that day on how important it is to follow the spirit and that it will truly warn and protect us. We just have to follow it. At times we don’t know if the spirit is really with us, but I can truly testify that it is if we are doing all that we are supposed to do. Be careful, and listen to the spirit! I know that even though we didn’t heed the prompting right away, the Lord still protected us and truly there were angels in that room that night. 

We have been having a good week otherwise. We have received a lot of member referrals and that has been really cool, so hopefully those will start to turn out well. We had a really cool miracle this last week. We had been teaching that guy that a member had just randomly called us and asked to give a blessing to. He brought his wife to the last lesson and she was super nice and now they are both getting baptized in February! It was so, so neat. We talked about temple marriage and eternal families and we are going to take them to the temple grounds in a couple weeks. 

We are doing great! So many miracles and staying very busy. This upcoming week we have the first broadcast of its kind from Salt Lake for all full time missionaries! It should be sweet. We also have a General Authority coming down next week to talk to our mission, so there are a lot of exciting things ahead!

Hope you all have a great week.

Elder Clark