God exists

7.25.11
Fleming Island, FL

Dear Family & Friends~

One of our atheist friends finally decided he would exercise his faith and offer a prayer to God. He is a scientist and wants and/or needs proof in order to believe that God exists. But I don't believe that is how he really feels. he has had a rough life and many sore experiences that could easily turn a soul who doesn't know God against Him. My thoughts are that he really believes there is a God, but it is so hard for him to grasp that God has any care for him or the world around him. Mike sees the negative around himself and it turns to feed his negative thoughts and spins him in a downward spiral that is extremely hard to escape. We've been visiting with him for some time now and it seems that his heart is beginning to be softened. We came to the conclusion together that only one thing needs to happen for him to believe in Fod and that is he needs to pray. We taught him that everything we have ever taught him about God, or of God's plan, or of His love, can be confirmed by gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Death is a part of life and though from our perspective it is difficult to see that there is anything more than this life, deep in our hearts we know there has to be more than this. We taught him that life continued after his death and the gospel of Jesus Christ was the way to ulitmate happiness. He didn't want to accept what we had to say, however. He told us it takes faith to believe in something like that and he was void of faith. We responded and told him that wasn't so, for, what reason would we be in his home if there was no measure or degree of belief or faith within his soul? We affirmed to him that we knew that he wanted more in life and that if he would just consider what we have told him and allow it to work in his mind, that he would be able to feel that what we were teaching him was good. We told him he needed to look past all the things that were preventing him from having this joy, i.e. his "lack of faith" and need for "proof" and simply think about what we've said. Then we explained that all of these good things which we taught were based off of a singular thing, which thing is the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. We taught him that because our message was true, that if he would do what we had asked him to do, that God would tell him by the power of the Holy Ghost that everything we have taught is correct. All he needed to do was pray. He finally consented and last night after we left, he offered perhaps one of his first prayers. We're going back to see him either tomorrow or Wednesday, but I really hope that he kept his commitment! This could be the beginning of a great miracle. :) We are really hopeful that he will do as we asked him to do and know that if he kept his commitment that he surely felt the Spirit! I'm somewhat jumping inside because I can see how much this will change his life, if he will just let it! He is a wonderful person and he just needs to know that Heavenly Father loves him and then he will be able to rest his wearied soul.

...at least none of you broke your tooth while flossing, right? Or crashed your bicycle because your pedal caught the sidewalk and knocked you over? Yeah, it has been an eventful week, along with the teaching. I was getting ready to make a turn on my bicycle when my left pedal made contact with the ground below and almost immediately smashed me into the ground near an intersection. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I put both my hands down to stop my fall and may have, to some small degree, sprained both my wrists. Oh well. At least this morning I got to drive a John Deere lawn mower...it is not every day I get to do that. I also got to use an edger to help prepare a member's yard to have sod put in place. It's been fun this last little while, haha :). I'm sure there's more to come!

I wish each of you well and hope you have a great week! I'll talk to you soon!

Love~
Austin