Happy Halloween PDay!!

The awkward part about being a missionary on Halloween...do people think we're actually Mormon or just dressing up? Because it wouldn't be the first time I've seen that. #bookofmormonmusical We're switching our P-Day for P-night, so right after we email we're going out proselyting for a few hours and then we have the rest of the evening free! 

We met up with Fritz and John again, which was awesome! Fritz (who's a religious anthropologist) has already read a big chunk of the Book of Mormon. His friend John (who's Presbyterian) read all of Alma! What's funny is that Fritz started off the lesson with some "points" he'd noticed from reading, which were mostly questions about the geological and historical evidence of those things happening. Then something SUPER cool happened. He was talking about the unlikeliness of Lehi and his family being able to travel across the Atlantic from Jerusalem to the Americas when they didn't have those kind of advancements yet. It reminded me of the brother of Jared making barges to travel across the sea in, so we went over to Ether 2 to read the description of the boats they made. While Fritz was reading, his eyes got wide and he said "I know exactly what they're talking about." So he whipped out his phone and googled a photo of these barges the early Egyptians made to travel in, and the description is literally the EXACT same as what the brother of Jared described. AND the time period of Lehi and those Egyptians match up! So Fritz ended up answering his own question and getting a witness that there's no way anyone could have just made up a description of a boat that matched perfectly what archaeologists didn't even find out until over a hundred years after the prophet Joseph Smith translated the records. The Book of Mormon is true! John is a little overshadowed in our lessons, but he's already on board. He said, "Yeah, it just makes sense. I think it's true."  The awkward thing is that they're roommates so we teach them together, but they're on such different levels of understanding that it's hard to focus on each one individually. But they seem to be doing fine! Also, another crazy witness during our lesson was when we were saying the closing prayer, the heating unit in the room started going bezerk, and all these weird things started happening in the room. We all looked  up in the middle of the prayer (except Sis Wilcox, who kept praying like a trooper) and we were all kinda spooked. It was definitely not normal. After we closed, the presence in the room felt so icky, I just wanted to run outta there. It was a total Joseph in the Sacred Grove moment before he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ...Satan was doing all he could to scare him and distract him from saying that prayer. That's what he was trying to do that night. It testifies to me even more that this is the truth, and the adversary does NOT want them to gain that valiant testimony. Step off, Satan! 

Someone who also gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon this week is Taylor! She's been getting up early to read every morning before work and she said it's been giving her the strength and energy to get through the day. She said quoting Bro Johnson from last week, "It's not a book, it's a feeling. I don't understand everything I'm reading, but I feel it- in a good way." She knows it's true, but she's still hesitating to be baptized at this point in her life. She's aware she struggles with a lot with using drugs and alcohol as coping mechanisms, and she doesn't want to make a covenant with God she knows she'll break. It's awesome she takes the baptismal covenant so seriously and realizes it's a big deal, but if she puts her faith and trust in the Lord she can for sure overcome those bad habits and follow Christ whole-heartedly! 

Miracle of the week: So a couple weeks ago on campus, this girl walked by us and her dress was caught in her backpack, so you could see her underwear. She was booking it to class, but I would have been MORTIFIED if that was me, so we chased her down and tried to help her out. She was super grateful and told us she was getting married the next day! Anyway, we exchange contact info- fast forward to this week when we're knocking on some doors. This really nice guy answers one of them and we get to talking, and GUESS who pops her head behind him...the same girl!!! They let us in and we talked for an hour and a half! Their names are John and Krista and they're PERFECT. We're going back to teach them again later this week! Temples and eternal marriage, anyone? 

Okay I lied, one more miracle. Glenn brought his whole family to church!!! They stayed almost the whole 3 hours and were really into it. Way to share the gospel, Glenn! It's almost his baptismal date!!!! SO excited! 

We had the ward Halloween party which was WAY fun! Us and the elders dressed up as cats and mice. Apparently if you go to Chipotle dressed up in costume you get a $3 burrito, so we'll see if that's a real thing or not. We've been having a lot of lessons and a lot of miracles! Eau Claire is ready to harvest some souls. Sorry, this email is super long so I'm gonna hop off, but have a fun Halloween!!! -Sister Brett