there is a cool guy named Richard, and on monday he said he wanted to be baptized.
Richard is penecostal. he loves God. he owns a chicken farm out in the country and he loves when we come over and help him pick eggs and talk about the scriptures. Richard will not accept a book of mormon, no matter how pleasantly we offer it. He invites us to his church every week, and we invite him to ours. He says "the bible is all we need!" and he respects that we go out and preach the gospel of Jesus of Christ.
on monday, Richard stated that God told him to seek us out and get a blessing for a hurt rib. he said he knew we were the ones who could heal him. our ward mission leader gave him a blessing and we all prayed for him. he got better. he told us later that God again told him he needed to be baptized in our church.
for a moment I was really excited... but now I don't know how to feel. Richard says he won't come to our church and he won't read the Book of Mormon. He knows God wants him to be baptized in our church, but he won't do it if he has to be a member of our church.
Richard is one confused guy.
the other day we went to visit him and he wanted to take us out into the country to see his cows and the baby calves he has, but we couldn't go in our car because it's pretty rough country... so he wanted us in his truck but it's against the rules to ride with a dude and us alone. he scratched his head and said "well, what if we took the tractor?"
sister burt and I only now have realized that that too was against the rules, but in that moment, it seemed like a perfectly great idea. so we spent an hour or two going through rough country and fast running rivers on a bumpy tractor ride. it was one of the better spent afternoons of my mission! fresh air and a cool breeze and watching a group of tiny baby cows running around :)
anyway, I tried to ask Richard why he knew he needed to be baptized but why he thinks he shouldn't join with our church.... he didn't have an answer.
I did, however, convince him to take a book of mormon and read my "favorite" chapter. he said he would do it as a favor to me... what ever gets him to read, right!?!
