Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Mormon Elder Gibbons - 26th April 2006 Today after buying my guitar, i walked towards city hall from Funan side. Passing by 2 mormons who were outside Saint Andrews Cathedral, i paused and had a sudden thot to approach them. i went down the escalator asking God to grant me strength, peace and wisdom to talk to them. So upon reaching the bottom, i promptly turned and took the escalator back up with new found motivation and conviction. There were 2 [DUH LIKE ALWAYS], one american and one indian. So i went up to the American and it went sumthing like this :-

Me: Hi, my name is Joel and you are?
American Mormon: *stun* oh hi, my name is Elder Gibbons [points to name tag on breast pocket]
Me: Ah, hi nice to meet you. Well, I'm assuming you're a mormon?
Gibbons: yeh i am.
Me: ah good good. Well, i'd like to know more about Mormonism and i was wondering if you could just tell me about it. I'm a Christian by the way.

What ensued was an informative and interactive discussion between the 2 of us [Angel stood there listening] about his doctrine of Mormonism and my questions directed at it about the differences between Mormonism and Christianity.

To cut a long story short, they have very very similar views, thoughts, beliefs and viewpoints as us... mormonism is like an extension of Christianity... it's an ADDITION on top of the bible... they believe in a prophet that was divinely led to find this book called the "book of mormon" and thru visitations by Jesus and some angels, this prophet Joseph-Smith found, translated and publicized this book. i am too lazy to tell you everything he said but i was challenged to find out more about it and find out why it's called a cult.

to me, this isn't a chance to find a diff religion or to induce my mind with lies. i just wanted to pursue this as a quest for knowledge and better understanding of other religion so i might be better equipt to stand against them if they ever came against the Christian faith. you dun attack an enemy who knows everythin bout you but you know nuts bout him. likewise, you dun defend against someone you know only their name whilst they know wad your fundamental strengths and weaknesses are. so if anyone believes what i did today was stupid, irrational and just feeding my brain with lies... i challenge you to change that mindset and search one day for yourself to equipt you for your faith. need i quote the verse about always being ready to give an answer... :)

Spoke and spoke and finally after 1 hour and 15 minutes, we parted ways. Casual non confrontational good byes and he gave me his mormon book. pointed me to some verses to read up and challenged me to search the book and search for answers... i thanked him for his time and his view points and was on my way. it was interesting to talk and just debate with this stranger who obviously was there with an agenda of sharing to people about his faith. it questioned me about whether i can be ready if anyone asked me one day, what's the diff between mormonism and christianity. now i know, [though i didn't blog it] the differences and fundamental inconsistancies between the 2 books and thus, religions. I pray that as Gibbons searches for the truth, one day God will show him the way to Heaven.

Thank God for this chance to know more and to help me continue to approach strangers and learn/share. :)

posted by Joel / Rui @ 10:22 AM

Sharing His Good News;
10:22 AM