Happy 4th of July everyone! Had an interesting week this week. We said goodbye to President Johnson on Thursday and we were officially switched over to the Baltimore mission on Friday. Then we met our new mission president, President Christiansen on Saturday. There's going
to be a lot of changes now. The biggest one being that we are all losing our iPads because the Baltimore mission doesn't have them. This is probably the most difficult part of this change because we are going to have to learn how to do things a lot differently. Having iPads has been SO helpful. For planning, writing teaching records, using maps, teaching with videos, and literally everything so it's a huge bummer we are losing them.
Our investigator Mac didn't show up to his lesson this week which was a huge bummer. The people at the home he was living at told us he moved...but that he would be back on Tuesday. So hopefully we can figure out the situation.
So on Friday we were tracting and we ran into a pastor. He was very friendly and really wanted to talk to us. After a few minutes I really felt like he was trying to argue with us and I was like look man were not trying to argue with you and tried to leave but it didn't really work. He just kept saying oh this isn't arguing we're just talking this is interesting! And he's like pulling out bible verses interpreting them very strangely and telling us we don't need to be baptized and that people that never get to hear the gospel are damned even though they didn't get the chance and that it's fair to him that
he got to learn about Jesus Christ, so he is saved by grace. All this whack stuff that would be really depressing to believe. It went on for far too long and eventually I just asked him what we should be doing right now as Christians and he was like interpreting scripture and I said we should be helping each other strengthen our faith, but that's not what's happening right now. I told him he was trying to tear down
our faith, and that that was ridiculous and that we weren't going to let that happen because we know what we believe is true. Then we bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and left. I am grateful for the testimony I have gained that the Book of Mormon is true, so that I can confidently testify of it when hooligans try to tear me down.
I had a cool experience in fast and testimony meeting yesterday. There was several testimonies that were shared that I think helped me learn this through the spirit, but I realized that as a missionary I am so needed and relied on. One specific testimony that was shared was of a 12 or 13 year old deacon who's house we were at for dinner a few days ago. He got up and shared his testimony of how much he loves having missionaries in his home. After the meeting he came up to me and Elder Mink and as we thanked him for what he shared, he told us we are his favorite Elders that they have ever had in the ward! I realized how much the ward depends on me to be a mature leader and to help them
build their testimonies. I realized this, and realized how inadequate and imperfect I am. I may not be as perfect as the ward thinks I am, but I can find strength through Jesus Christ that helps me be the missionary that he needs me to be, my Heavenly Father needs me to be, and the ward needs me to be. Much love to all of you!
- Elder Poulsen
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