Camp Meeting and Street Preaching

This past week we have been very busy between a camp meeting, and a lot of street preaching. The meeting started last Sunday with Bro. Ron Williams preaching all day. We had services every morning and evening through Friday night. There were some excellent sermons preached! Dad and Bro. Ron each preached every evening (except Thursday when we were out street preaching), and other preachers took turns in the morning services. The meeting closed out yesterday with Dad preaching all 3 services.

Thursday evening we went out to preach at the rock concert in Buffalo. There were more people there than we have ever seen! We were told the band that was playing had not played in concert since 1973, so that explained the crowd. Within 1 minute of being out there, we had over 30 people surround us. Throughout the whole evening we had a crowd of people around (although, of course, most of them were upset). A couple people had some serious questions, though.

Saturday was the big day with 3 different events going on. First it was the Jehovah's Witness Convention in downtown Rochester. As always, they were not allowed to talk to any of the preachers, and the gauntlet was out in full force! For those of you who haven't heard us talk about this, the JW's are prepped a couple weeks before the meeting, and warned not to even look at the street preachers. To enforce this, they line men up along the sidewalk in front of the preachers (usually about 30 or more) so that if someone does try to talk, they can stop them. It is amazing to see how scared they are that someone will talk to a preacher and find out the Truth! After the JW's we had a couple hours to eat and rest before heading to the gay pride parade. Every year this parade seems to get a little shorter, but it looked like there were more supporters following the parade this year. As soon as we were done there it was off to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. This is a pageant put on by the Mormons where they basically re-enact what occurs in the Book of Mormon. It is held in Palmyra, NY, which is where Joseph Smith supposedly found the golden plates he translated into the book of Mormon. Dad and Bro. Dan had a good conversation with 2 young people who were there. We did have some trouble with a police officer who has been harassing the street preachers for years, but eventually he left us alone. All in all it was a good day, although a long one!

Nauvoo

I know it has been a while since I have put up a new post; we have been at a friend's house in Nauvoo, IL for the past 2 weeks. Nauvoo is one of the most important cities in Mormonism. This is the place Joseph Smith led the Mormons to after the "Mormon War" that took place in Independence, Missouri in 1838, and they were basically run out of Missouri. Of course, being in a Mormon town for 2 weeks has been interesting. Every time we go out we run into some "missionaries", so Dad has had fun here. This past week the Mormon church had a ballroom dance production going on, and some of the family went up a couple nights. We weren't able to preach, because it is held on the Church property, but it was a good example of how worldly they are. Obviously we know Mormons aren't Christian anyway, but it is amazing to see the worldliness of a religious group that tries to make it sound like they are Christian.

Tomorrow we will be leaving here, heading back to Indianapolis, and Charity and Elijah will get back on Wednesday. They have been down helping the Blackburn family at our home church for almost 2 weeks. It will be good to have Charity back; I have been doing most of the cooking since she left, so now it is her turn! (Just kidding!)