Let me tell you about Mike

Once upon a time there was a man named Mike. His arms are covered with tattoos, we has long sideburns and a goatee. He pretty much looks like a gangster. He has a daughter, though he is not married to the mother and they are separated now. He loves his daughter even though she was taken away from him. He lives in a huge a beautiful mansion like house. But it is really pretty empty on the inside.

He eventually was able to meet a beautiful young lady who he feel in love with. She happened to be a Mormon, even the daughter of a Bishop. They dated and eventually got engaged. The months before their wedding she is spending out of the country working. She never pushed her religion as part of their courtship. But now for whatever reason, the time is right and he is ready to listen to the missionaries. 

This is where I come in. Mike is the future brother in law of Brother Boogie, and he brought us to him as a referral. Our first lesson was almost two months ago, and now we teach him every Sunday night. 

Like I said before he looks like a gangster, but the most inspiring things come out of his mouth. God is actually super important to him. Our first he actually cried as he talked about his daughter. He is so sincere about our lessons. And ever though we are always laughing and joking during the lesson, there are times we serious and spiritual.

He has been to church six times now, and we are seeing the difference in him. He is noticing the difference in himself. He told us how he doesn't make the sign of the cross anymore when he prayers (we never even taught him about that). He is comfortable at church. Two weeks ago he told us how he has started approaching the Sacrament part of Sacrament meeting. He uses it as a time to really ponder and worship. He says it makes a difference of how much he is inspired for the rest of the meeting. Golden. 

He is reading The Book of Mormon. He loves to visualize the things he reads. He had the most interesting insights after he read Joseph Smith's story. He asked if he could borrow the "Restoration" video after we watched it with him. 

He has great fellow shippers. Brother Boogie is always there, and then since we need another female when we teach males, there is always at least one other. At least. There have been times when we have had 6 members with us at our lessons. It is pretty awesome. We all sit there at his big table. Sometimes they all like to talk a lot, so it takes a while to start the lesson. But now Mike already has so many friends. 

You may be wondering, if he has come to church so many times, and is reading the Book of Mormon, and progressing in so many other ways, why doesn't he have a baptismal goal date yet? That's a good question. 

We have talked about it a lot, but he feels pressured. He won't settle on a date. You see he doesn't know for sure yet. At least that's what he says. We've talked about how faith grows slowly. Like the rising sun, there is not one second where you suddenly engulfed in light. It is a slow and gradual, but sure thing. We have promised an answer will come.

I loved last night in our lesson when he was talking about the church. In the middle of the sentence after a half a millisecond pause, he said "our church." He admitted himself that he will be baptized. He just doesn't know when yet. We challenged him to pray about it this week, and next week we will set a date. I'm guessing it will probably be sometime before his wedding (Jan 5).

I know I am

 

The storm was far away from were I am, so we just got a little extra wind and rain the day it hit. But I hear things are pretty bad down south.