Miracles of the Mission

This week has been incredible. I have learned so much. It feels like it's been a lifetime. One lesson that I learned quite powerfully was that of humility. As it says in PMG “Humility is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of spiritual strength.” We had a conference with Elder and Sister Haleck and I really wanted to learn what Heavenly Father wanted to teach me. And something that really stuck out to me was what Sister Haleck said. She spoke of the last supper with the apostles and when the Savior is telling them of the betrayal from one of the Apostles. She read to us Matthew 26:18-22. What really stuck out to me was what the apostles said, all of them asking “Lord is it I?” These men who had walked with the Savior, seen his miracles and learned from him, were looking at themselves, in a humble manner, asking themselves if they would be the one to betray the Savior. They weren’t pointing fingers, like a lot of us would today, but were asking themselves, Will I do it? Will I be the one who won’t live up to the things I have been taught and the lessons I have learned and applied?

I felt within myself that this is the experience that the Lord has given me as I have served a mission. He has given me so many experiences that have literally changed my life. So to speak he took me from the water, being a fisher for myself, to being a fisher of men. Now of course I’m not anywhere near perfect, but I’m trying. I feel that I have seen such a change in myself and I feel that I come even closer now then ever to knowing the Savior. And the lesson I learned from the conference was now, what will I do with all the experiences I’ve had as a missionary? Will I betray the Savior, or will I stand strong, finish the good fight and keep pressing forward? Will I embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ here on the mission and then continue on afterwards? What is my path? IN that moment I felt strongly to commit myself to always embrace the culture of the Gospel, to stand on the right hand of God and be open to His command and His will. I felt that I needed to say right then and there that no matter what happens I will do all that I can to follow the example of my Savior and serve Him with all my heart, might, mind and strength.

But as we all know we come short, we falter, we fail. We mess up and we feel burdened down, but the Lord already made the plan to change that, to make sure that no matter the mistakes we make there would be a law of mercy, and justice that would help us to get back on the right path. Ether 12:27 reads " And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

The Lord sees that we have the desire to become like him, but we have weakness, which pulls us short of the Glory of God, but He has promised us grace. He has promised us that He will make our weakness as a strength, that one day we will not come short of the Glory of God any longer, but we will be like Him.

And what we can do to help this process along is by doing all that we can to learn of the Nature of God and Jesus Christ, and learn then apply the things we learn. We won’t be perfect, but we will be that much closer to becoming like Him.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said “Let us then consider the mystery of godliness from the Lord’s standpoint, setting forth correct principles, which will enable all who are spiritually enlightened to keep themselves on the proper path. Let us do so with courage and without fear, but in reverence and with an open mind. If we are contrite and receptive, if we truly desire truth, and if we are guided by the Spirit in our search, we shall come off triumphant. We shall embrace every true principle and shunt every false doctrine back into the enveloping darkness from whence it came.”

This in and of itself is Humility. We realize that the Lord loves us enough to allow us this opportunity. And what makes it even better is to be able to see it occurring in the lives of others. To see someone else start their path to becoming more like our Heavenly Father brings nothing but joy and happiness, which is what we saw this week with our investigators.

Our purpose is to invite all to come unto Christ because that is how they will come to know God and be like Him.

We met an amazing woman  this week. She moved into the area a little over 6 months ago and the whole time she has been here, she has been praying to meet good people. Little did she know what she was praying for. :) One member family lives just up the road from her and she had seen them on multiple occasions dressed and running off to different Church functions. She was able to meet them a couple of weeks ago and she had the most amazing experience. They chatted and talked about eternal families and the Gospel and both ended up in tears because the power of the spirit. We talked to the members and they were going to introduce us to her. We had been at their house and we were leaving and she happened to just come outside to put rubbish in the bin. :) We started chatting and she invited us in. We had a amazing experience and she invited us back. We taught the Restoration and testified to her that she had been prepared by the Lord. She kept looking at us and said, It’s true! It’s true!  She then came to church and it was WONDERFUL! Sacrament meeting was perfectly geared toward her.  It was a beautiful experience. She is amazing. WE love her! I love that the Lord counted us lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be able to meet her.

Another amazing experience was with another investigator who I’ve mentioned before. WE hadn’t been able to meet up with her since we set her baptismal date. We prayed on Friday night asking what the Lord wanted us to do. We had felt prompted to invite her to be baptized on the 31^st of may and we knew that if she didn’t come to Church this Sunday then she wouldn’t be able to. So because of the guiding hand of the Lord we were able to catch her right before she ran out the door and we invited her to Church. She said yes and we got her a ride and SHE CAME! She came to church and she loved it. She kept saying, this is better then my own church. This is better then anything I’ve experienced before. She asked us for her own copy of the Book of Mormon and she is excited for her Baptism on the 31^st! Yay! Miracles!

Heavenly Father loves us so much! I love the paths of conversion that I have been able to witness as a missionary and I’m so grateful that we have the Savior to look to as an example and follow in His footsteps!