Oh, the wonders of Paint.

Hey, I never claimed to be an artist.

What are everyone's favorite Thanksgiving foods? Mine's the turkey, mashed potatoes, and green-bean casserole. Mmmm, I'm drooling just thinking about it.

...And they came in threes

Well, I wasn't quite expecting them so early, but my Mormon buddies came by today with their chauffeur for the day (apparently biking is out in the late fall). I had written about some things I disagreed with on their pamphlet (all over it, actually), and we talked about them for a bit-- about the Gospel being "restored" after the "apostasy" and "priesthood authority" being given to Joseph Smith and all that. They got down to the point asking if I would read over the book of Mormon and pray about it to believe, and I said no, so that kind of hurried their departure. I just kept saying that I believe the book of Mormon is an addition to the Bible and that all we need is Jesus Christ to receive salvation and an eternity in heaven. I asked why they were asking people to accept book of Mormon instead of Jesus Christ and why they ask people to accept that a man-- Joseph Smith-- was a prophet and believe in the book of Mormon. They said it was a testament of Jesus Christ, and it spoke of the Gospel like the Bible. I don't think they believe in perserverance with their evangelizing if they give up so quickly. I asked if I could pray for them before they left, and I just prayed with all my might that they would believe in Jesus Christ as the way to salvation and that no good works could save them. I said how we are all sinners and that nothing we do can ever earn our salvation except faith alone. I felt like I fumbled over the topics we discussed (possibly because I just didn't believe in any of them and didn't really have a specific references to rebuttal them), but I just wanted to show them the faith that I have in Jesus Christ without their book. Hopefully our encounter will be of interest to them, and maybe I'll see them again-- I invited them to the concert Friday because of church yesterday when they said to be faithful to invite people. Who knows-- they might come.

The best "blonde" moment ever...

Tonight we were playing Guesstures, and it was Loren's turn to go. She was looking at the cards and trying to pick out which ones she wanted to do, and she was like "Well I got these three, but this one... I just... I just don't know what this is! What is this word? Larry-nijits?" Andy Carr looked at it and was like, "Umm, I don't know either..." So the rest of us looked at it....

Laryngitis.

Go out in twos and threes...

Well, I just had my first encounter with some Mormon missionaries. I got to hear the whole pitch-- from Adam to Jesus to Joseph Smith. Somewhere around Lehi the prophet sailing to South America between 600B.C. and 400 A.D. did I have something I really didn't believe. Every other argument I said, they agreed with-- that the Bible is the breath of God, infallible, and shouldn't be added to or subtracted from was totally fine with them... BUT-- they believe that modern-day prophets exist and are accepted via 12 modern-day apostles that they have who pray and unanimously select a new prophet when the old one dies. What do you all believe about their idea that prophets are around today? I always thought that the Old Testament was very separate once the veil was torn and the church was formed, so I didn't think modern prophets were called after that. The only real hole in their pitch for Mormonism (if I were gullible enough to believe it) is that I am supposed to "pray about it" to determine if the book is real, and they said it wouldn't hurt me any if it were a false book. I wouldn't pitch Christianity by saying, "hey, if you don't believe it-- just trash it." I'd be shouting, "THIS IS THE TRUTH!" Anyways, help me out here so I can give them something to think about for our date next Thursday.