HELLO!
So this week was another good one! On Tuesday I got to watch Alec open his mission call! His face lit up even before he read, "Hawaii Honolulu mission"! It was awesome to see, and that is such a sweet place to be called to do the Lord's work! Shoutout to Alec, I am super happy for you brotha. 
This week was super awesome because my focus was a lot more on people and inviting and helping them to come closer to Jesus Christ than it was on the little things about missionary work that are easy to get caught up with. It really is all about loving God and loving each other, the rest will follow. On Friday we met with Brent again! He is super awesome and we taught him the Plan of Salvation. Keep Brent in your prayers; he is an amazing child of God (so are all of you reading this. And everyone else).
Saturday gets its own paragraph and is the highlight story of the week. I went on an exchange with this stud Elder in my district, Elder Cluff. He is from St. George and is a hardworking bro. I planned this exchange intentionally on a Saturday and with Elder Cluff for one singular reason: Hoop. also known as Basketball. Elder Cluff played for Desert Hills in St. George so you know we had to go sauce on some kids. Last time that I attempted to play basketball I went too late at night and we ended up playing a shooting competition against some high dudes. This time we made sure to go at the right time. As we pulled in we saw these 3 dudes playing ball. 2 of them were in their 40s and one was about 16. We went and took a few warm up shots on the other end and then challenged these people to a game. We played 2 on 2 and they had a guy switch in every game. We played a total of three games and the first 2 games we absolutely DESTROYED them. For the last game we told them that because we are missionaries we love sharing messages about Jesus Christ with people and so we said that if we won this last game, then we got to share a message and if we lost then we would humbly walk away. They were cool with it, but they also said we could share a message either way, haha. But still, this was a situation I have dreamed about since I was a kid. So of course the two 40 year old bros play against us and of course, they started playing really hard. Old men can play. Shout out to old men. This made us be try hards as well. We got down 5-10. We were playing first to 11 win by two points, scoring with 1s and 2s. More than anything our pride was on the line instead of a message 
but we balled hard. They had a chance to win it but missed a shot and then we just went insane. I hit 2 threes (2s) in a row and then Elder Cluff hit one as well. We got up 12-11 and we got the ball back and I pulled a mean cut as Elder Cluff threw me a clean pass and I scored and we won!! It felt like we had won the State Championship, so much hard work put into that one moment. It was probably the best day of my life.
Alright, now after that very descriptive streetball game here comes the best part. We taught the 3 bros about the Book of Mormon and it turns out 1 of them grew up with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and another one of them had several copies back home. We invited them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and offered them a book. They all refused. It happens, that's life. That's missionary work. Turns out one of the dudes just wanted to bash. So the bashing began! My first ever official bash as a missionary, so that was sweet. Not that I was seeking it out, but it's got to happen sometime or another haha. I wish I had the time or the attention span to describe the whole bash but I will give the jist of it. It started out with Joseph Smith (classic) and how he was confused. We destroyed that argument. Then he jumped to faith and works for a really long time; we also put his claims to the dirt. Bashers contradict themselves and they jump from topic to topic after we put their arguments to sleep. He was visibly surprised of how well we knew the Bible and what happened in biblical times. Other claims that came up were that we don't need to belong to a church and that it says in Revelation that we aren't supposed to add to the book. Classics. Well of course Jesus Christ established a Church when He lived on the Earth and John was only talking about the Book of Revelation. Anyway it came down to the end (the 2 other dudes were long gone by now) and I asked him if I could share a scripture. Permission was granted so I shared 2 Nephi 33:10-11.
"10 And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.
11 And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness"
I told him that one day he will be judged by Jesus Christ who will judge us by the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. This scripture and the Spirit seemed to have touched him a little and he was quiet. I then said as I stretched out my arms with the Book of Mormon, "This Book of Mormon is for YOU. I can promise you that as you read it and pray about it with REAL intent, that God will make known to you that it is His word." This time he accepted the Book. We kindly said our goodbyes and we went our separate ways. Generally, bashing gets no where. This one didn't either, but the last few minutes of it were guided by and filled with the Spirit and he felt that. God will use our talents to establish His truth and His word if we are willing.
I realize I could have summarized this a lot, but it makes it more fun when I add some detail haha
I love you all and hope you have a great week :D
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