Allow me to begin with the bad news... Cecilia, Luanga, Kwame, Josephine, Fried Rice Frank, and a host of others all need to have their baptismal dates postponed... Various personal reasons... #
I won't go into too much detail but we are currently working with chastity issues, word of wisdom issues, Sabbath day observance issues, and several others that are superseding testimonies of the Restored Gospel right now. So we are honestly going back to the drawing board with a lot of these guys.
The thing is, our investigators are all so powerful that I don't want to hastily drop them. The ones I mentioned above are all investigators that have developed testimonies but are being held back by one thing or another. I was wrestling a lot over this this week and I came to the conclusion (by divine instruction) that I needed to be more bold in my teaching.
We first really applied this on Thursday. Elder Smith and I went to Cecilia's place with our favorite member, Francis, to teach her for a scheduled appointment. Come to find out that she had forgotten about it and was out of town for ANOTHER FUNERAL. So instead we decided to share a message with her daughter who was in the house. As we were sharing Kwame came by and greeted us and told us to wait for him and that he would be right back. After greeting us he immediately walked over to a provision shop and bought a pack of cigarettes.
A little background on Kwame... when we first met him he was high as a kite. #letsgoflyakite We taught him at his request and the first thing we talked about was the Word of Wisdom. Ever since then we have been working diligently with him to help him overcome his drug, tobacco and alcohol addictions. Since then he has stopped drinking and doing drugs but has been seriously struggling with quitting smoking.
When we finished teaching Cecilia's daughter we saw that Kwame was smoking and decided to leave, but he noticed us and stopped us saying he was sorry and that he didn't want to, "make us mad". To that I kinda instinctively said, "No no, we're not mad." But then a little voice in the back of my head said, "Be bold." So I went with it. I told him I was actually really upset and that every time he smoked a cigarette that he was subjecting himself to the captivity of the devil... Then I said he shouldn't be doing it for me, he should be doing it for himself. (This wasn't my exact language but needless to say I was very bold).
But something really powerful came out of this... Kwame was more contrite about his addiction than I have ever seen him before. We saw him again the next day and he said that he intends to be 100% drug, smoke and alcohol free by 15 July. Please keep him in your prayers! If he can then this would be huge for him! It will be physical, real, proof that the Gospel of Christ can help anyone, in any situation, and is by far the most powerful antidote for addiction.
I love you all! Enjoy these pictures! They include goodbyes to Elder Christiansen, kente weavers, and my dinner last night!
Elder Henderson
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