A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.‏

Well this has been quite the week, but its always amazing on a mission.

We had a temple trip this week.  We had two hours talking with the mission and temple presidents and their wives.  We talked about being agents to act, and not be acted upon.  I have seen that this action really does work miracles.  It was worth getting to the temple at 6:30 in the morning, because its the temple, and the temple is amazing.

This week we've also been having a wonderful time with the Martinez family, the awesome people that are going to get baptized soon.  It was weird because they kind of mis-understood something about marriage, but the bishop's wife fixed it all.  They were planning on having a big party, but would wait until July 25th to get married.  That would push their baptism to a point when Tate and I probs won't be together still.  So now we're getting them married civil this week or the next, and then baptism the 31st or 7th!  So its not on your anniversary mom and dad. Sorry...

Now let me explain the subject of this e-mail.  I love the bible.  It is such an amazing book.  I read the old testament when I was like 10 right? This week though, has made me hate everything that surrounds the bible.  Tuesday we went to the house of a LA we hadn't met.  They let us in and it turns out they're all Christian, part of La Luz del Mundo.  This church is creepily similar to our own, but just so off that its probably the church of the devil.  They have a living apostle apparently, and have some messed up doctrine.  We tried to teach, but they talk to much.  In this church, they also pray to Christ, which to me, turns Christ into an idol. Takes the good and makes it bad.  What is the worst though, is the bible verses.  If the bible says so, so it is.  As Rabbit says in Pooh's gramd adventure "Never trust your ears, your eyes, your nose.  Don't put your faith in any of those.  Here's a piece of fact you must suppose, from the printed word true wisdom flows! If it says so, then it is so.  If it is so, so it is.  It isn't fit to think, unless its printed in ink, if it says so, so it is."  So this Tuesday we are meeting again and all we hope we can do is testify of the Book of Mormon, and if they reject that we are not coming back to argue.  My favorite thing that was said was something that was just completely uneducated.  He says that Christ was reading from the scriptures in the temple, (there's somewhere where he is preaching from there, I mean he was raised in Jewish law, so of course he knew the scriptures) because there is only one set of scriptures and can't be more.  I then ask "He had the New Testament?"  Quite affirmatively he replies Yes!  ..........  Wow...  That is just uneducated and blind faith if I've ever seen it.  Christ preaching from the New Testament.  I have never believed in the great and abominable church until now.  The second we let them pray their way they started bawling on the ground, I had to withhold my laughter.  This week we've also been given pamphlets by a women who says "I appreciate your sincerity, but sometimes we need to make sure we're spreading the truth!"  The pamphlet she gave us was just a bunch of bible verses.  Same with the 7th day Adventist we met (Which I really think is just a wannabe Jewish sect).  So thus here in Texas the words ring true that we read in 2 Nephi.  A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more bible.  Needless to say, I'm studying the Book of Mormon now.

Friday though was a ward party for Mother's day.  That was a wonderful day.  Good food.  I always have good food here.  We also biked a lot this week.  My weight is constant and my blood pressure has not been at 120 for a few weeks now.  If it gets low enough, maybe I can take a day off to go to the doctor!  That's good. This week's been good, and I've even had some other experiences of feeling the spirit.  Oh yeah! Like right after being in that lesson with the Luz del Mundo people (it was a father and son who is our age), we had a lesson with a Less Active family that was completely different in spirit.  Its amazing just to see how the Lord works in our lives.  The spirit of Elijah is great, and keep working on Thomas!  He's out there somewhere!  I love you and am thinking about you (but only in my prayers and on Mondays ;). 

With love,

Elder David Austin Barlow

P.S. Hopefully I'll have pictures next week.  I forget to take pictures here.