Friday, June 29, 2007

Day 11 – Salt Lake City, UT

We were not sure what we were going to do in SLC. After eating breakfast at the hotel, we got ready and went to Wal-Mart to get some KJV Bibles (which they didn’t have) and water. I talked with a lady (Lee) who worked in the book section who claimed Catholicism and believed in heaven and hell. I told her that I used to consider myself to be a good person but realized that I was very bad in light of the 10 Commandments. When I explained that God would find me guilty of all 10 of the Commandments (even murder b/c I had hated someone before…which Jesus says is murder in our hearts), she replied, “I would go to hell” before I even asked her if she had broken any of the commandments. We continued to talk, and I challenged her to search for eternal truth b/c eternity is a long time to be wrong.

Shortly afterwards, we checked out and went to Temple Square for a tour. Two LDS (Latter-Day Saint) female missionaries (one of which spoke very softly and sounded pretty fake) led the tour. The tour was pretty interesting. After the tour, we met 3 LDS guys and chatted with them for a while. One of the guys Brad and Austin spoke with kept raising his voice. The guy I spoke with never raised his voice and he seemed like he didn’t really believe what he was claiming to believe. At one point, the guy I spoke with told me that “we are saved by faith and deeds”. When I quoted Ephesians 2:8-9, his eyes welled up and a look of doubt suddenly filled his face. I told him to search for truth b/c tomorrow may be late and eternity is a long time to be wrong…he agreed. When his 2 friends walked over there, he jumped back into Mormon mode and told me to read the BOM (Book of Mormon) for myself and pray for God to reveal to me whether it’s true or not (a phrase we each heard about 50 times throughout the day).

We spoke to several other people who claimed Mormonism. No matter who we talked to, there was always a sense of doubt that we noticed within each person who claimed to believe an LDS. As 9:00pm approached, we figured we would leave the museum. We saw a lady leaving who had also went on a tour. Austin and Brad asked her what she thought about the LDS church and began to tell challenge her to think about the absurdity of some of their beliefs. When Austin mentioned the fact that the original gold templates “from God” were lost, the lady said, “Yeah, that is pretty weird.” While they were talking, the two female tour guides who led the lady walked out. When the missionaries noticed Austin and Brad conversing with the lady, they walked back and sternly told Austin and Brad to stop “proselytizing” or security would be called…the only thing they would have called security on was truth and logic! The amazing thing was that we saw the lady on her tour and we prayed for her while the 2 missionaries witnessed to her. We prayed that God would reveal truth to the lady, and just a few minutes later, we were talking to her about what…truth! Please pray now for the lady we spoke to and the 2 female missionaries.

Well, we ended up not leaving. Instead, we hung around b/c I wanted some questions answered. I asked the first 2 guys I saw in white shirts (Matt and Joe) to help me out, and they agreed. I honestly just wanted to get some answers, but Austin began preaching, so I figured that I may as well join in. We asked them what historical, archaeological, and prophetical evidence backs the BOM…and they were able to supply us with zero evidence. So I challenged them to examine the evidence and search for truth today b/c eternity is a long time to be wrong. Again, we were told to read the BOM and pray to God with a sincere heart and He will put a feeling in our hearts verifying that the BOM is true.

After our Mormon adventure for the day, we got something to eat then went to sleep. Please pray now for all those we spoke with today.

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