Broadway

Well The Book of Mormon the Broadway musical is doing the church a lot of good. I'm not being sarcastic, there is a lot of people who are interested in the church now because they saw the show and because the church and the missionaries aren't defensive at all. The Church officially made a decision not to fight back because that would be completely silly. The musicals purpose is not to prove us wrong or to make fun of us. The message of the musical is simply conveyed through the story of two missionaries (however not entirely accurately... especially considering there is a lot of cussing and the f-bomb is all over it). So if any of you have been frustrated about the existence of the play, change your attitude because it is simply raising the worlds awareness of the existence of the church and our missionaries and the Book of Mormon! In fact the Church has decided to use all the hype to its advantage. We have started a large campaign in Manhattan—heavy advertising in the subways and on taxis; advertising on billboards and even on electronic signs and billboards. :) Cool right! We have all been way stoked. The New York city North missionaries have been handing out the Book of Mormon to people as they walk out of the show. I think it’s really cool.

Well, a lot of good has come from all this including in my own reality. Newt (her nickname) is our newest investigator. She saw the Broadway show and loved the idea of our church and the emphasis that we put on families. She contacted the only member she new (who does not consider himself a member and hasn't come in quite some time) and got our info from him. She told us that her parents raised her without any religion. In fact she would be punished if she brought up anything about religion or brought anything into the house that was religious. She had seen pictures of Christ and heard his name all her life but didn't know until a week or so ago that the pictures of the bearded guy were Jesus. The first picture she saw of him since seeing the musical she asked if he was Joseph Smith.

So as you can see she has basically no foundation or concept of Christianity. She is really awesome and is working though some hard times right now and is finding the transition from the ways of the world and the Satan to meeting with us and learning about Christ to be kind of overwhelming. We are working hard to try to help her take it a piece at a time. She has a date set for baptism that is some way off in the future. But we know if she keeps her commitments and exercises her faith the desire to be baptized will increase in her and she will feel the converting power of the spirit. It’s been really helpful that Mareena (a member from the ward. She is a 20 year old girl just like newt) has been coming to teach with us. She is great and been a good help. Newt’s questions are deeper than her current understanding. Her desire and her dedication will make up for her lack of knowledge. Although she feels she has little to no faith I believe she has a lot of faith, to meet with us and go to church and trust us and listen to the message with no knowledge of Christ and only few experiences where she feels like she is developing a relationship with God.

This week we taught more lessons than last week which was nice. Ironically, even with more success it was a harder week. We never got a chance to do our weekly planning so we are going into this next week blind... that's a scary thought. We are gonna have to come up with some sort of a plan soon.