Final letter from the CLAM! Arrives home on Wednesday!!!

This has been such a weird week. Weird in the sense that everything
just feels weird. It really doesn't feel like this is coming to an
end. But everyone in the ward somehow knows I am on my way out. Truly
is such a bittersweet time. Yesterday was my last full day of
missionary work. And I want to share 2 experiences we had.

We met this man named Garedew on the street the other day. He's from
Ethiopia. He's a security guard for a studio in our area named Milk.
Best part: he's a JW. So yesterday we met him at a Starbucks at
Hollywood and Vine. First off as I was trying to use the bathroom I
walked in and there was this strange little black woman using the
toilet in the men's bathroom. She screamed as I Walked in but it was a
scream more at me I felt than as if she was actually surprised.
Garedew was actually one of the nicest JW I've ever met. He didn't do
the typical JW topic shuffle. But I feel that was mostly because of
the language barrier. He speaks really good English though. We talked
about a few different things before it got really good. He was just
trying to bring up things to try and snag us on. Adam, Christ
resurrecting, etc. What was crazy is he was stumped about the
description we have of Christs part in creation. Then we took that
into the BoM and how everything we believe is based on the BoM. He
didn't take to that too well. To which he started asking about the
origin of the BoM. We explained it and thought for a really long time
after we invited him to read it. He then fell back to the point of
"how important" knowing Gods name is. Then the games began. I was
really frank with him and pointed out how if one could disprove the
Book of Mormon then our beliefs would fall. Likewise if you prove that
Christ was Jehovah then their church would fall. To which we politely
replied that we have a list of scriptures supporting why we believe
that Christ is Jehovah. And assured him we could talk all day about
how we believe differently and get nowhere. We then for a third time
invited him to read in the Book of Mormon to see for himself if this
book is something that is going to help him come closer to Christ. He
paused for a long time after that invitation. He thanked us for our
time and asked if we could return with a copy we could read together.

Later that night after a really bad street contact and it turning out
a lot better than we thought it would. To the point the lady accepted
a return appointment, It was a really cool conversation. She mentioned
how she wasn't going to go outside to cut her rose bushes (that's what
she was doing when we stopped to talk to her) but she felt like she
would anyway. Then minutes later we walked by. Afterwards we were
talking about how it really doesn't matter what we are doing to try
and find people to teach or what ends up coming out of our mouths but
if we do it in faith the Lord will bless us. We immediately stopped to
talk to this woman who ended up not being interested but kept us there
on the street corner as we talked to her. While talking to her this
car sees us, pulls us over and asked if we were Mormons and later
asked us where church was. We asked why they stopped and they said
they were literally in the middle of a conversation about how they
were having problems with their church and wanted to visit the Mormons
as they saw us. The Lord really knows his children. He knows what they
are yearning for and in need of. I'm so grateful to have been able to
be a part of His work.

Elder Wilson